The Replacement Window Salesman

I bought my first house in 2005.  It had old aluminum, single pane windows that rattled when cars drove by.  The glass was permanently dirty and no amount of glass cleaner, water, soap, or any other solution would get them clean.

 So, my step dad has this energy-efficient replacement window company. .. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s start off by saying I have a profound disliking for any kind of salesperson.  I don’t care who you are, when you start giving me that salesman bologna I start to get fired up.  Anyway, he proceeds to tell me that the windows in my house are junk.  Unfortunately, after purchasing the house and having to take care of a few other household issues I just didn’t have the coin to replace the windows.  And I really didn’t see the value in it anyway.  I have been accused of being frugal from time to time.  I can only imagine the names I have been called when I’m not present.

So, a few months down the road my step dad is still hounding me about these magical windows that are supposed to cut out the road noise, lower my energy bills, increase the value of my house, blah blah blah…  I didn’t care about any of those qualities, I just wanted clean windows!  He would spit his salesman game about the tempered safety glass, double and triple panes, Low E, and argon gas.  He might as well have been speaking Mandarin Chinese.  I didn’t know, nor did I care about what he was talking about.   I finally broke down and ordered windows.  It took a few weeks from order to installation because they had to custom create the windows.  I was at work the whole day during the installation.  It was cool, when I left for work I had old dingy aluminum windows and when I got home I had the brand new, heavy duty-looking windows!  Man, they look like they are bullet proof compared to my old windows. And boy, were they CLEAN! 

Now, he told me there would be significant savings on my electric bill. Of course, at the time I thought he was just doing his salesman thing.  I almost fell over when I got the second electric bill.  I’m saving about $1200 per year on my new windows.  Its insane.

I do feel a little guilty about my attitude towards salesmen when it comes to my step dad.  It turns out he just wanted me to have good windows and save money on my electricity.  After the windows were installed I asked him what the total bill was and he said, “Happy Birthday.”