Factory Direct Remodeling

What a bunch of jokers. If we weren’t talking about my house and my $ 15,000, this experience would have been absolutely hilarious. They’ve got the whole cast of characters of there, the smarmy smooth talking used car type salesmen, the «everything is gravy» VP who comes out and assures you that all is going as planned and his subcontractors are worth their weight in gold, their sometimes-​on-​occasion-​actually-​show up for work subcontractors who spend the majority of their time bickering and bitching about having to work and about each other.
The installed 28 windows in my house, cut one window opening into a french door for a new deck build (which I wisely contracted out to another company — TH Construction — who completed the project on time and on budget, despite the mountains of garbage left in their work area by Factory Direct), fixed a section of roof and fascia board destroyed by a raccoon and installed new gutter guards on my house. We were leaving for Europe one MONTH from the contract signature date, and they assured me that the work was GUARANTEED to be completed before that date, since we would be out of the country. Needless to say, it was not, since (as informed to us by the bitching and moaning of their contractors,) the company had scheduled them on multiple jobs and there was a really demanding customer who they were giving priority to because they were even further behind on their job. They insisted on working on my home while I was out of the country and as a result, failed to follow instructions and clean up the mountains of garbage, twisted metal and broken glass they left all over my yard.
I immediately took issue with their measuring methods for the windows, which was done hastily and without consideration of the differing window trims throughout the house. My old windows were aluminum crank and installed outside the trim in the brick masonry of the house and they measured the inside distance and placed the windows inside the trim, some of which was marble, some of which was rotted wood. I called immediately after they left and the VP came out and assured me everything was fine and they were professionals and that the windows would be perfect. Of course now I have windows installed OVER my trim, and removing the side trim allows me to see daylight through the cracks where the original windows were installed. Because of this, our electricity savings have been negligible. They attempted to cover the gaps outside with trim, and then bitched about having to caulk it since «they normally don’t do that.» They also complained that because my house was brick and concrete block that «this job was really hard.» I’m sorry, I guess that’s my fault for having the estimate done on my make believe home, not the one I actually own, my bad!
SO, out of those jobs, at least four of the windows gap between the upper and lower panes, making it almost impossible to lock and allowing air to come in all year round. The door they cut for the french door addition is out of square and was caulked with clear silicone, which cannot be painted and looks like shit. They also failed to move a necessary electrical outlet (as requested) and instead stuffed the wires into the wall and sealed it off, so I now have no outside electricity on my new deck). The section of the roof they repaired did not match, even though I later was able to find matching shingles at home depot for another section I repaired. The gutter system was shoddily installed without precleaning the existing debris and was dented up during the install. When we had the whole roof replaced this year, the roofing contractor mentioned how poorly installed it was as well.
Another window they installed in a granite masonry wall was installed incorrectly and had water pouring into the flashing and into the window framing, rotting all of the wood around the window and causing mold growth. We discovered it this year when during a build out of the space (including $ 5000 of waterproofing channels and epoxy) that it was all for naught because of the shoddy workmanship of Factory Direct. We called the company twice and their subcontractor, Bill Brown, (it was Bill and Lisa who worked on the original job at our home) five times. Twice he claimed he was coming out to inspect and repair the problem and twice he failed to call or show. Finally, we ended up having to pay our contractor to fix the issue because Factory Direct’s unwillingness to honor their warranty had already cost us a week’s delay in our current project. Basically, there was an issue with every single thing they touched.
The piles of garbage were finally (and clearly begrudgingly) cleaned up two weeks after I returned from Europe after several angry phone calls to the company. We almost went with Champion and a friend of mine actually did go with Champion during the same time period for approximately the same scope of work. His house was completed in a week.

I had some windows installed by Factory Direct. While the windows look great and the installers were nice & did an awesome job, customer service was terrible. After making a fat deposit, I waited for months to get the windows installed. No one would call me back and no one could give me a firm installation date. It took a BBB claim for the owner to reach out to me. After all that, they had the nerve to send me a referral form! Stay away.