A post or 2 back I talked about getting window/door quotes. I am finally coming out the other side of wading thru a ton of quotes for the large 18 foot opening onto our deck.
There are a bunch of companies out there that make big (either folding or sliding) doors for large openings. I contacted 9 or 10 companies. It is kinda a blur. I got back numbers ranging anywhere from $30k to $8k! Now that is quite the number spread! These numbers vary greatly depending on how it opens and what it is made of. Then there are screen systems, shipping and tax. Some estimates have packing and shipping charges as high as just under $3k! Some have no tax. Each company makes a door that functions a bit differently to add to the confusion. I have spent hours emailing and reading to try to figure out if we can incorporate this type of door into our design.
Unfortunately our cold winters and hot summers here in CT require a thermally broken door. This is the same as saying it is insulated and doesn't transfer temperature through the frame. On top of that Mr. Dometastic wants it to be hurricane/impact rated. Its those pesky hoards of neighbors again. He wants to make sure they can't walk up and just break the glass. You will pay a premium for this and that is where those giant $30k numbers come from. This is WAY out of our price range for one patio door even if it is big and cool! Then there are all the glazing options for the glass and that varies by manufacturer. We need some sort of glazing if we want to build an energy efficient LEED certified house. Here is a link that explains the glazing pretty well. I am still not totally sure what we need even after researching it but I at least have some idea what the terminology on the quotes mean.
Back to how we will handle the security of a giant wall of glass. We certainly can't justify a 30k hurricane rated door so we will skip the hurricane rated glass in favor of motorized roll down security shutters. Mr. Dometastic had already planned to protect the large round windows with these shutters and they are definitely going to have a better chance of keeping out uninvited guests than reinforced glass. While not cheap they are less expensive that I expected. For the top of the line one with a powerful motor and an over ride I was quoted $3500 without shopping around yet. This is one large enough to cover the 18 foot opening. This also allows us to add it later and spread out our costs. Mr. Dometastic thinks he can trust the neighbors for a few years while we add them one by one. We will install this big one on the exterior over the door and hide it with a trellis for grapes. That way you will only see it if it is down.
This example is over a regular patio door but they make them in many sizes.
The clear leader in my pile of door quotes is Panoramic Doors.
Out of all the quotes they are the most reasonable hands down. Not only are the doors reasonable but so is their screen system AND their shipping. I am still waiting for quotes from 2 companies but I am pretty sure it won't change anything. I got a shipping quote for almost $3k from one company and Panoramic (in CA on the opposite side of the country) was under 1k. The door from Panoramic is not only really cool but it is only a little more expensive than installing 3 regular sliding patio doors of the same quality. We are also able to increase the height of the opening from the standard 80" to 96" (8ft tall) for a few hundred more. So now we will have a patio door opening that will be 18 feet wide and 8 feet tall! I encourage you to check out the link and watch the video on how they open. The doors are sliding not folding and are really slick. The other thing that is different with this company is they are not top hung doors. Most of the other companies that make these require special engineering (adding to the expense) because the super heavy glass panels need to hang from above. Panoramic's design doesn't hang so no special overhead engineering needed. This large door combined with only 5 strategically placed 4 foot diameter round windows will be all the windows we put in. The rest of the light will be from glass blocks. Instead of putting in many windows we are going to put in just a few big cool ones. We are going for quality with design impact rather than quantity of windows.
So, I am sure you are all wondering what these large really cool windows will do to the cost. Because for all us normal people still waiting to win the lottery cost is a huge factor.
My research suggests that most conventionally built houses in the 2500 to 3000 sqft range have between 20k-40k worth of windows. Our old house was the typical late 1970's 2800 sqft colonial and had 29 windows.
You can buy cheap home depot ones for $200 but if you want good ones that won't need to be replaced in 10 years you can expect to pay $300-$700 for just the window. A new construction has the cost of the frame adding even more to the cost per window. Here is a link that explains window costs pretty well. Our plan to use the Panoramic door and 5 round windows puts our total window costs still below (although only by 2k) the 20k low end of a comparable conventionally built house of the same square footage. I did not add in the cost of the security screens and the glass blocks. Glass blocks are cheap and the security screens are an add on only if you too need to keep out hoards of attacking neighbors.
There are a bunch of companies out there that make big (either folding or sliding) doors for large openings. I contacted 9 or 10 companies. It is kinda a blur. I got back numbers ranging anywhere from $30k to $8k! Now that is quite the number spread! These numbers vary greatly depending on how it opens and what it is made of. Then there are screen systems, shipping and tax. Some estimates have packing and shipping charges as high as just under $3k! Some have no tax. Each company makes a door that functions a bit differently to add to the confusion. I have spent hours emailing and reading to try to figure out if we can incorporate this type of door into our design.
Unfortunately our cold winters and hot summers here in CT require a thermally broken door. This is the same as saying it is insulated and doesn't transfer temperature through the frame. On top of that Mr. Dometastic wants it to be hurricane/impact rated. Its those pesky hoards of neighbors again. He wants to make sure they can't walk up and just break the glass. You will pay a premium for this and that is where those giant $30k numbers come from. This is WAY out of our price range for one patio door even if it is big and cool! Then there are all the glazing options for the glass and that varies by manufacturer. We need some sort of glazing if we want to build an energy efficient LEED certified house. Here is a link that explains the glazing pretty well. I am still not totally sure what we need even after researching it but I at least have some idea what the terminology on the quotes mean.
Back to how we will handle the security of a giant wall of glass. We certainly can't justify a 30k hurricane rated door so we will skip the hurricane rated glass in favor of motorized roll down security shutters. Mr. Dometastic had already planned to protect the large round windows with these shutters and they are definitely going to have a better chance of keeping out uninvited guests than reinforced glass. While not cheap they are less expensive that I expected. For the top of the line one with a powerful motor and an over ride I was quoted $3500 without shopping around yet. This is one large enough to cover the 18 foot opening. This also allows us to add it later and spread out our costs. Mr. Dometastic thinks he can trust the neighbors for a few years while we add them one by one. We will install this big one on the exterior over the door and hide it with a trellis for grapes. That way you will only see it if it is down.
This example is over a regular patio door but they make them in many sizes.
The clear leader in my pile of door quotes is Panoramic Doors.
Out of all the quotes they are the most reasonable hands down. Not only are the doors reasonable but so is their screen system AND their shipping. I am still waiting for quotes from 2 companies but I am pretty sure it won't change anything. I got a shipping quote for almost $3k from one company and Panoramic (in CA on the opposite side of the country) was under 1k. The door from Panoramic is not only really cool but it is only a little more expensive than installing 3 regular sliding patio doors of the same quality. We are also able to increase the height of the opening from the standard 80" to 96" (8ft tall) for a few hundred more. So now we will have a patio door opening that will be 18 feet wide and 8 feet tall! I encourage you to check out the link and watch the video on how they open. The doors are sliding not folding and are really slick. The other thing that is different with this company is they are not top hung doors. Most of the other companies that make these require special engineering (adding to the expense) because the super heavy glass panels need to hang from above. Panoramic's design doesn't hang so no special overhead engineering needed. This large door combined with only 5 strategically placed 4 foot diameter round windows will be all the windows we put in. The rest of the light will be from glass blocks. Instead of putting in many windows we are going to put in just a few big cool ones. We are going for quality with design impact rather than quantity of windows.
So, I am sure you are all wondering what these large really cool windows will do to the cost. Because for all us normal people still waiting to win the lottery cost is a huge factor.
My research suggests that most conventionally built houses in the 2500 to 3000 sqft range have between 20k-40k worth of windows. Our old house was the typical late 1970's 2800 sqft colonial and had 29 windows.
You can buy cheap home depot ones for $200 but if you want good ones that won't need to be replaced in 10 years you can expect to pay $300-$700 for just the window. A new construction has the cost of the frame adding even more to the cost per window. Here is a link that explains window costs pretty well. Our plan to use the Panoramic door and 5 round windows puts our total window costs still below (although only by 2k) the 20k low end of a comparable conventionally built house of the same square footage. I did not add in the cost of the security screens and the glass blocks. Glass blocks are cheap and the security screens are an add on only if you too need to keep out hoards of attacking neighbors.
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