On Guarantees

Most window companies and installers look to their glass suppliers for their guarantees. (I am not here thinking of the insurance-backed guarantees that many home-improvement companies offer the householder. According to some industry specialists, they are a mixed bag, and all too often, not what they are cracked up to be). No, I look to MY glass supplier to guarantee ME against having the units he supplies fail on me, 'cos I know that while he may supply replacements at no cost, he is unlikely to reimburse ME for the considerable cost of inspecting, re-ordering, removing, and replacing even one failed unit. I learned this lesson early in my business life when a valued client had nineteen of his twenty-five sealed units fail just three months before the guarantee expired (long, long ago in the 1980s). Thankfully, the SUPAWOOD System saved my bacon, and a complete houseful of new DGUs were delivered Free Of Charge, thanks entirely to the properly drained and vented glazing system I could demonstrate to their surveyor.
However, it was Muggins here who had to send a team of fitters out at his own expense to do the actual replacing. Perhaps I'd do things differently now, and ask my supplier to cover the base labour cost, but thankfully, in the twenty-five years since, it's never happened again. That's why I'm happy to offer my own customers a full ten-year guarantee WITH CONFIDENCE, in the knowledge that we'll do better than twenty-five.