1-800-HANSONS (Des Moines Windows)

We felt the price was a little high, but we are satisfied with the finished product.  The employee that came and did the job was very competent and knew what he was doing.  I did not like that they kept calling me trying to get more business that wasn't necessarily needed around my home.  They didn't seem to take "no" for an answer.

They were good except that they put the gable the wrong side. My husband is really dissatisfied with that. They force-fit the gable and there is not much ventilation to that part of the house now as it was before.

Scheduled the job for 1 day, but they came a different day while I was on vacation. I was notified by my pettsitter they were there. Had to cut my vacation short and come home. Said job would take 1 day and it took 3. They were very messy, blocked entrances and had to dodge debri trying to enter and leave my home.  Very overpriced for the inconvience.

When I signed the papers I told the salesman "I was going out of town for 10 days, was in the middle of renavating my bathroom (myself) and I did not want to start another project for a month. I got back in town on a Wednesday and the material was delivered on Friday.  I was told they where starting on Monday, 8am.  At about 10am the crew boss showed up and discussed the job with me. The ladders and scaffuling was delivered 8pm the next day.  The crew usually started at 9-10am and went until 4 or 8pm. The salesperson said he would check on the job periotically.  I never saw or heard from him or anyone from the company again.  I was the job manager.  The crew boss came and went, as he was doing other jobs. (Most of the workers did NOT speak English).  It was horrable. I should have gotten pictures of real jobs they had done so I would have been aware of the color placements of trim around doors, windows, outside fixtures.  Big mistake.  There are serveral variations for placement. The crew boss collected the check at the end of the job.  If he didn't they would not have gotten paid, he said. They did everything on the front porch except the post and railings (ceilng, trim, roof frame).  I asked the boss if he would just wrap the post with scraps he had left over.  He called and they said no.  That is when someone came out and gave me a price of $3000 to do the whole porch. I have gotten other things done by other companies so I know what good customer services is.  After I signed I was abandoned.  For the money I spent I would like to have gotten a thank you note.

They came out and gave us a three hour song and dance. High pressure sales pitch about the windows which was ok until they got to the price. When I told them that the price was high, they came down with the price. When I still told them I wasn't interested, they came down even more. Then the phone call started for a month. We used to get a couple of calls a week from them or more. I think the first week we got several calls. They called and said that they had a special deal. That to me was an indicator and I didn't want to anything with my house. They were unprofessional. Their process and putting in a proposal was just really, tremendously inappropriate and unprofessional. They were pretty responsive.

They do a really good job of being on time, being courteous and explaining everything they are doing. They explain things as they go along and if something happens they are really good. I ask a lot of questions and they are always really patient with me. Everything was really good with that. I wish they had done a better job on the clean up; they left little pieces of metal lying around. I still find things every now and then that I pick up. When they took off the door there was a little bit of trim of the top that they took off and that is where the house numbers were for my house. When they put the trim back they didn't put back the house numbers and didn't tell me about it. It would have been nice for them to have told me. Also they realized that my screen door wasn't going to fit with the new door so now I don't have a screen door. They did call me and adjust the price of the installation in order to cover the cost of the door. It was unexpected and since they install doors I would have expected them to notice that beforehand.

Paramount Builders' sales representative, Steve Seidl took his time explaining in detail the product that the company offers and drove us around the area to show completed projects in comparison to other company's products. Once at the home, he throroughly explained everything that could/couldn't be done with our existing premises. Never once did my husband nor I feel, "this deal is only good for today" as other firms have done in the past. He submitted a quote, we negotiated and the deal was signed. Upon completion of work, no unforeseen adjustments were added to the final statement. The job was to be a two-man crew however one of the crew mebers was out due to an injury but that did not prevent Carl from performing an exceptional job. Carl promptly arrived at 0900 every AM; if there was a an unexpected delay due to weather (wind, rain and snow) he called us every time. His crafstmanship in the application of the products was impeccable. In fact both neighbors have requested work due to Carl's "attention to detail". We definitely got our money's worth from this job. The house looks fabulous and I don't have to worry about my husband on extension ladders any more!

The salesman was convassing the neighborhood so we allowed him to demonstrate the "exceptional" windows that only Paramount had the exclusive right to sell. We were impressed with the windows but not the price. They quoted us $10000.00 to replace 14 windows. We only agreed to replace the front part of the house since it was directly hit with afternoon sun and would provide us the greatest benefit but those 5 windows cost $5000.00. The men who came out to perform the work were courteous and quick, but the quality of work performed was substandard because they failed to seal the interior and exterior of more than one window. Within a year of having them installed, a stop (that prevents the window from opening more than a few inches) on one window had fallen off and had to be super-glued back on. When the salesman advised us on the window selection, he failed to take into account the type and style of our shutters, so now we have windows with a center sash, equal size top and bottom panes, and shutters that do not line up properly. The shutters have a smaller panel on top and larger panel on bottom, therefore, we need to replace the shutters to match the windows. We take full responsibilty for being naive about not researching and for paying too much for windows, but the overall quality of workmanship and lack of a thorough job by the salesman and installers is unacceptable. I would not recommend using this company to anyone. Update May 2011: Regardless of the response to my original report, no one from Paramount has since tried to contact me.  My phone number and address have not changed. 

We had them start with one window to see how they would do. The window itself is good, although I feel the product was probably overpriced, but their sale was very high pressure and I did not like that. They did not do a good job installing the window; I was expecting good quality work from them. I called them to and their explanation was “that’s the way we do it.” They didn’t put any kind of insulation in before they put on flashing, and before they put caulk in I could see daylight around the window. They didn’t try to fix what the builder failed to do, they just put the window in the way it was. They put the window in against the drywall so there is no type of framing between the outside exposed exterior and the drywall other than the metal flashing. I’m going to have to pull the window out and install it properly. They were poorly prepared for the installation and they didn’t have a ladder that was long enough so they tied two ladders together; I can’t believe that they were willing to do something so unsafe. They were a day late and I was not impressed with their professionalism. One or two people were alright but everyone else was either high pressure or not properly trained. I would never use them again.

Men were nice and worked hard but they came back with a higher price after starting the job...Said they found damage they had not seen before hand.