There is nothing easier than windows and doors. Or so they would have us believe. Well, even though it is one of the easier things to bid out and pretty clear to the vendors, there are things to know.
The first thing to always know if you are building is the building guidelines of the community in which you live. Before the financial downturn, many areas along 30a had some costly and significant guidelines for windows and doors. During the depths of the real estate slowdown, some of the communities relaxed these standards as they learned that some of the products they required performed no better than alternatives but carried a higher cost. To spur renewal of the market, these changes helped to some degree.
Not all communities made such changes.
Still, in addition to the kind of product you can select, which drives cost, there are requirements in several communities on the number of windows or amount of window coverage you must have per exterior square foot of facade. This can not only drive the window package up in cost, but it can create a number of challenges to the interior space as sometimes in some homes in the very popular branded markets there are windows in what are clearly unusual and useless places to satisfy this design requirement.
So what drives the cost fundamentally?
1. The number and size of window openings your design requires.
2. If required, the type of product allowed - beyond just impact resistant, this refers to vinyl products versus aluminum products vs aluminum clad wood windows.
3. Door openings.
4. Material type for doors - this varies by pure design desires. Wood doors with hurricane glass are popular and more expensive than many alternatives.
5. Engineering determined wind design pressures.
This project can use Jeld-Wen windows. When you say vinyl some people kind of freak out. Most of Watercolor uses Jeld-Wen windows so if it freaks you out to have these then you need to rethink Watercolor homes.
Candidly, an objective analysis of the product and its performance overtime versus wood clad windows is undeniable for what is only a modest visual improvement on the exterior. On the interior, a good master trim carpenter can work magic with any window type. With our 2 by 6 wall framing, Jeld-Wen windows look great on the inside and very nice on the outside.
Doors can range in price from the very inexpensive Masonite series to the very expensive Buffelen wood door product series from $1,500 per 3 by 8 exterior door to as much as $4,500 for something most of us would think is not crazy custom.
This project uses Jeld-Wen Premium Atlantic windows and Neuma or Buffelen doors. We specified both in the building permit.
The cost of windows and doors for this project is not affected by community restrictions and is:
Windows: ~$18,000 for 39 openings of various sizes
Doors Neuma: ~$17,500 for 12 doors included in that total are two DOUBLE patio doors all 3 by 8 or 5 by 8 for the double doors
Doors/Other Wood: ~$28,000 Yes Wood Doors are more. 6 Lite with panel below.
The choice for doors needs to be made at permit time and you should submit any type of product you might use, but once the permit is issued and framing begins, you have to order the windows and doors and make your final budget decisions.
Let's Build Something Together Series
The first thing to always know if you are building is the building guidelines of the community in which you live. Before the financial downturn, many areas along 30a had some costly and significant guidelines for windows and doors. During the depths of the real estate slowdown, some of the communities relaxed these standards as they learned that some of the products they required performed no better than alternatives but carried a higher cost. To spur renewal of the market, these changes helped to some degree.
Not all communities made such changes.
Still, in addition to the kind of product you can select, which drives cost, there are requirements in several communities on the number of windows or amount of window coverage you must have per exterior square foot of facade. This can not only drive the window package up in cost, but it can create a number of challenges to the interior space as sometimes in some homes in the very popular branded markets there are windows in what are clearly unusual and useless places to satisfy this design requirement.
So what drives the cost fundamentally?
1. The number and size of window openings your design requires.
2. If required, the type of product allowed - beyond just impact resistant, this refers to vinyl products versus aluminum products vs aluminum clad wood windows.
3. Door openings.
4. Material type for doors - this varies by pure design desires. Wood doors with hurricane glass are popular and more expensive than many alternatives.
5. Engineering determined wind design pressures.
This project can use Jeld-Wen windows. When you say vinyl some people kind of freak out. Most of Watercolor uses Jeld-Wen windows so if it freaks you out to have these then you need to rethink Watercolor homes.
Candidly, an objective analysis of the product and its performance overtime versus wood clad windows is undeniable for what is only a modest visual improvement on the exterior. On the interior, a good master trim carpenter can work magic with any window type. With our 2 by 6 wall framing, Jeld-Wen windows look great on the inside and very nice on the outside.
Doors can range in price from the very inexpensive Masonite series to the very expensive Buffelen wood door product series from $1,500 per 3 by 8 exterior door to as much as $4,500 for something most of us would think is not crazy custom.
This project uses Jeld-Wen Premium Atlantic windows and Neuma or Buffelen doors. We specified both in the building permit.
The cost of windows and doors for this project is not affected by community restrictions and is:
Windows: ~$18,000 for 39 openings of various sizes
Doors Neuma: ~$17,500 for 12 doors included in that total are two DOUBLE patio doors all 3 by 8 or 5 by 8 for the double doors
Doors/Other Wood: ~$28,000 Yes Wood Doors are more. 6 Lite with panel below.
The choice for doors needs to be made at permit time and you should submit any type of product you might use, but once the permit is issued and framing begins, you have to order the windows and doors and make your final budget decisions.
Let's Build Something Together Series
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