Buy Anderson or some other windows of better quali...

Buy Anderson or some other windows of better quality. We ended up with Kolbe and Kolbe years ago because the lumber yard that our builder dealt with was not an Anderson dealer and we ended up with K&K.

We have had 4 different windows explode as of this morning. Yes, explode. No, no, no; there were no baseballs or rocks or children involved in any of the broken windows. They just exploded. The first time it happened both the inner and out panes were destroyed. We thought that someone was trying to break into the house and thus I sat up all night with a shotgun in my lap. There were no rocks or baseballs in our dining room, not any footprints on the deck.

By the second and third time, we had our glass replacement company on speed dial and got used to getting points using our credit card. Well, more points are on the way. Last night we heard a crash while we were watching TV. I went to the kitchen and saw 2 serving trays in the dish rack and assumed they had fallen over. Not so. This AM, I sat down on the toilet and noticed something sticking out of the bathroom curtain. It was a huge chunk of glass, just inches from my left eye. And, of course I had bare feet. But....thank God for the curtain which held in the glass. I guess that I should be happy it happened last night as my grandchildren will be over this weekend. Who knows what might have happened when those little guys staggered in there in the middle of the night to do business? Had they used the window sill to steady themselves in the dark, we would have probably had a medical emergency on our hands.

No, we do not have a pterodactyl or any other bird in the house, that might have flown into the inside pane. Our dogs, had they tried to escape, would have choses a lower window and an easier way of egress. I cannot picture them standing on the hopper and trying to break out the top window and not having destroyed the curtain in the process.

This time, we were lucky, I guess, as the outer pane is intact. Why am I lucky? It is winter and it is snowing outside and the temperature is in the teens and twenties. I am also fortunate as I have spare cardboard on hand with which I used to cover the window and hold in the remaining pieces of glass that are wedged in the window frame. It will have to suffice until spring when the weather will allow me to take it out and at a time when we know that we will be home for a few days to ensure that no one will use this as an entry opportunity as I do not intend to engage in the hurricane zone method of screwing plywood to either the inside or outside of the window frame.

Did I mention that the wood on the windows never quite looks the same once it has been taken apart and put back together again?

Perhaps I should go out an buy a lottery ticket as I seem to be the lucky guy. Of all my friends, relatives, and coworkers, that I have discussed this with, none have ever heard of this happening.

Until I get that winning ticket and replace all 22 of our windows (not counting the garage) I will have to caution ALL guests to sleep with the blinds drawn should this happen again (when it happens again). I shudder at the thought of someone waking up to the feeling of a shard of glass penetrating their cornea.

And while I am venting about the poor quality of the products, let me inform you that their service is in the same league. OK, I know that we are in the 21st century and products are not what they used to be with built in obsolescence and all. A few years back, we had one screen that had a broken corner piece, the plastic that holds the horizontal and vertical runners together. Guess what? Everyone has parts for Anderson but no one had them for K & K. I contacted the company and ordered some. The area rep ignored me and I had to go back and push, months later, and order and pay for more than I needed just in case other ones broken in the future. I did not want to go through all that hassle again. Good thing I did as more broke later on.