Chris H.
Yelp
Very disappointed after replacing all our windows and several doors with Anderson products 2-3 years ago.
- Twice windows have fallen out when opening them. The first time occurred the first time I opened one of the windows.
When this issue occurs it bends the swiveling hardware at the bottom of the window that makes the window open and close, it also often cuts the rubber window seal around the window.
When the window falls out of the track at the top, the windows are difficult to get back into place and re-attach at the top, and at best the swiveling hardware attached to the bottom of the window has to get 'bent back' for the window to function. The 'windows falling out' issue is due to a cheap 'doomed to fail' small *plastic* piece that attaches the window at that top to it's track. The entire gravity on the window to hold it horizontal is applied to this plastic piece with a small claw that slides in the track, some of the many flaws with this design:
-- The track itself will wear on the plastic making it looser and causing it fall out
-- Plastic becomes weak and brittle over time
-- The plastic piece is too small and weak to effectively hold the window up
--The window tracks themselves create friction on the plastic piece on both sides that will further lead to the plastic piece wearing out and failing.
If plastic is so great and is a suitable high quality material why not make the whole frame and everything else about the window out of plastic? Oh because you want the consumer to see wood around the window to think it's high quality. But then the parts the consumer can't easily see, that actually hold the window on are plastic. It's exceptionally disappointing to invest this much in a long term product that has no chance of standing the test of time, or even to function well when brand new or now two years old.
I think this Anderson product may be 'ok' at best for smaller windows, but they should not sell it on any medium size or larger window, that said I feel this plastic piece would still fail after a few years on a small window, it is exposed to the elements and is on the external side of the gasket.
Next complaint would be the plastic and other seal materials around the windows. In some cases the plastic pre-gasket ship 'crimped' or rolled over on the edge which makes the plastic piece have a gap. Further if the plastic pre-gasket is pushed at all, for example when the window falls out, it will not go back into place and leaves the gasket below exposed. Rubber seals on the expensive high-end Anderson sliding doors come unglued and roll away from the position they are supposed to be in reducing the R factor.
The Warranty appears very crappy. According to the warranty, Anderson will not really take ownership of your experience with their product or ensuring you have working windows. It's a warranty such that they will provide replacement parts, or potentially allow returning a window for repair. Sending me a replacement plastic piece to replace the prior plastic piece that failed doesn't really resolve my issue of having windows that will randomly fall off their track, further its very difficult to replace the small plastic track-attachment when it fails, I'm unable to do it myself. If I send a window back for repair then I have no window on our bedroom. Anderson risks a few cents for this cheap plastic part to replace it when it fails but doesn't have to actually do anything toward getting me what I thought I was buying, reliable working windows.
In order to have working windows I have to basically bend the metal glides back and replace the cheap plastic piece, if I wanted a window back in the condition it should be I'd have to send the whole window back which is so inconvenient I won't end up doing so.
Rich Anderson executives, maybe this will be an analogy you can understand. The BMW 740i and iL had plastic timing chain tensioners, this caused the car to basically become 'totaled' often at only 90-110k miles when that part failed because it was so expensive to open the engine to replace the plastic timing chain guides people would junk the car (the most expensive BMW in the line).
Best Regards, keep celebrating high stock evaluations, big distributions and sales strategy meetings in Aspen. I guess I can afford to buy new windows (from another brand), but I really feel shitty about folks who finance new windows for their house on a budget and then have problems like this. Maybe spend as much time on your actual product as on on your creative dispute resolution class action opt out.