The nice man from Pella dropped off our new windows yesterday. The window that was in the bathroom was an aluminum sliding window, that was out of square, extremely dirty and horribly energy efficient. With all the walls ripped out of the bathroom it seemed like a good time to replace the windows, and while I was at it I figured I’d replace all the windows on the front of the house as well. We picked out some nice Pella Architect series windows, in the traditional style for our house. I was quite happy to realize today that I would get a $200 tax credit for the windows due to their energy efficientness.
After three trips to Lowes I managed to get the first one installed today. Once I had the shingles off it was actually fairly easy to install. Unfortuantly getting the shingles off was a royal pain. The shingles are put up in an overlapping fashion, such that to get one out you pretty much have to take off the entire wall. I managed to pry most of them out after some difficulty, however I did managed to crack two of them. I have a few spares that I could use to replace them, however I’ll probably hold off on that until I paint the house. Due to my expert measuring skills (well mostly luck I’m sure) the window fit perfectly, and since the opening was fairly square and level shimming it was easy as well. The fancy Pella Smartflash tape that I used to tie in the window with the vapor barrier on the house also made life quite easy as it stuck to everything and was easy to tear. I’m very happy without the windows look, and they’re also nice and quiet as well.