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Welcome to Let’s Build with Armada, the podcast where Washington homeowners learn how to remodel with clarity, strategy, and confidence—on a schedule that follows real projects, not a rigid calendar.
I’m Charlie Carter from Armada Design & Build. After years of working across the greater Seattle area, I’ve learned that successful remodeling isn’t about luck. It’s about planning, transparent conversations, and understanding how every decision—from windows to insurance to material selections—affects long-term value.
In each episode, I sit down with experts to answer the questions homeowners genuinely care about:
- Why your PNW windows cry every winter
- Financing options that actually make sense in 2026
- How to not get burned by a cheap insurance quote
- What adds value in Seattle… and what just burns cash
- How to plan a DADU without turning your backyard into a 2-year construction zone
Whether you’re preparing for a kitchen or bathroom remodel, planning a full-home upgrade, or exploring a backyard DADU for equity or rental income, this podcast gives you the clarity you need to move forward confidently.
Listen here, watch more real projects on our YouTube channel, and visit us when you’re ready to build with confidence.
And don’t forget to follow the show—so you never miss an episode that could save you time, money, and stress.
Visit the Armada Design Center in Bellevue when you’re ready to start planning your own home transformation!
📍 15600 NE 8th St. Suite O2, Bellevue, WA 98008
📞 425-587-8286
🌐 https://armadabuild.com/?utm_source=transistor
something like eight octillion combinations of window and door. Codes can be interpreted so many different ways. They also they write these codes to leave it up to interpretation. How long does it take to pay back that extra $5,000 in energy savings? In energy savings because you bought the more expensive, more efficient window. And I see this a lot in HVAC. I had a huge crush on Pella for a long time. I used to tear apart competitor products as part of my jobs. How did you wind up owning the premium window distribution company in the Pacific Northwest?
All right. Hello. Welcome. We're on. Hi. I am Charlie here today with Keith Dashy. He is the principal and co-owner of Pella Windows and Doors of Western Washington. You can find him at Pella Pel Lapw.com. Uh they have showroom in both uh near 405 and 520 just a little north of that and one down in Tacoma. Where did you say it wasn't? Just south of the Tacoma Mall. Just south of the Tacoma Mall. I am Charlie. I am with Armada Design and Build in Belleview, Washington. And we are Let's Build with Armada. It's everything about your home and owning a home and being a homeowner in the 21st century, specifically here in the PNW and some of the challenges that we face uh with weather and earthquakes and building codes and cost of building things like that that we have to deal with. So, we're hoping that this is a resource of information for you and that you'll be able to find something. This is going to give us an opportunity to dive deep more even so than some of the videos that we do which you can see on our YouTube channel by the way that we're you get just a lot of me in those where we're talking about this or talking about this. But this is an opportunity to to bring in some experts and listen to them instead of me just prattd on and drone on and really hear it from them about the things that they see in their world that are happening now and what's coming up. you know, again, with regard to the home and things like that. So, um, we're just really grateful to have the opportunity and grateful to have access to to true industry professionals and leaders that really understand and are shaping where this whole thing's going. You know, I mean, you know, Keith's not bumping along here. He's kind of directing the river with a lot of people. So, he's not in it. He's driving it. So, that's great. And we have access to him. So, all right. Windows and doors. That's what we're here to talk about day today. Comfort, energy, and code. Windows are where comfort, energy, and style collide, and code sets the guardrails. Today, we'll translate U factor. What is that? SHGC and materials into plain English. So, you pick right the first time, especially if you're building a D AU, ADU, doing some kind of something significant. This is what you want to know. Tap like and subscribe. Turn on the notifications so you know when we post more things. Lots to learn. All right, Keith. The first question, I don't know where to start. All right. All right. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Absolutely. Um, very excited to have you here. Windows, one of my favorite topics. Um, and I actually, very, very early in my career, right out of college, I worked for Pella. Oh. For a couple of years in Michigan. For those who don't know. All right. Pella is a window and door manufacturer. Correct. Right. Window door man based in Pella, Iowa. Right. This is something that I know and I would say that from my perception of it and I think the industry and people that know, right, would put Pella in the very top tier of window and door manufacturers out there. Certainly, I don't know, maybe on the planet, but certainly in the US, if you're going to kind of rank them, I would say they are an upper tier manufacturer. Right. Absolutely. on par with Marvin and Lowen and I mean I would be biased and say that we're probably a little bit better but uh but I mean if you're going to put them in groups like those would be in the same group tier right I would think some of our products yes but I think the thing too there can be some uh perceptions with that people think top tier and then they think expensive right and and one of the things that Pela has done uh brilliantly I actually spent a lot of my career in product management so I worked with manufacturers uh helping them assemble you know the spectrum of products they offer and Pella has assembled a a portfolio that goes all the way from an entry level builder grade product to you know something that goes in a $30 million home in Madina. So it's really a range but all of that the the Pella name is really about to a premium service behind each of those products regardless of whether you're buying our our entry level vinyl product or working with our architectural services to design you know your dream house. Right. Okay. So tell me just quickly, how did you wind up owning the premium window distribution company in the Pacific Northwest? I you just didn't wake up one day and go, "Hey, I think I want to own the best window company in town." Right? Maybe you did. I wish there was a I always say I wish my wife had some sort of like sexy plan that I could go in front of a a college or a high school and like inspire kids on all the great decisions I made. But uh I just I worked construction. I grew up very working class and so um I needed money and I worked uh I started installing windows about 26 years ago. Okay. So So some hands-on hands-on uh paid my way through school doing that and and selling behind a counter at Home Depot. Okay. And then uh graduated from school uh went into sales for uh for another manufacturer actually up here in the Northwest. Uh that translated into I just kind of ended up being their head of product. Okay. Um one thing led to another. I accidentally became a land developer and a builder. Uh-oh. All right. Just that entrepreneurial gene. Sure. But uh we do have to do an episode on that. But the story of Pella, Sapella um actually called me and they said, "Hey, we're we're working on a redesign for one of our products and we'd like to talk to you based on they had seen my LinkedIn profile that I had a product development management background." Ah, okay. I had a huge crush on Pella for a long time. I used to tear apart competitor products as part of my job. So, I would I would deconstruct Andersons and Marvin and Pella and Milgards and, you know, all of those different windows. And I always loved the Pella package because Pella was just it wasn't just the window. It was the tools to design the window. It was the tools for the architect. It was the branding for the consumer. Like they were they were what we always aspired to. You know, if we were trying to develop something, we wanted to be even a sliver of the Pella package. And so I said, you know, I I'm obsessed with your products and your marketing and the brand, but there's no way on earth I'm going to go live in Pella, Iowa. And so fast forward, um, I get in this three-hour conversation. And I had left the window industry for about 3 years and I was building and doing some consulting. Anyways, uh I'm a window nerd at heart and I ended up on the phone with this wonderful woman for 3 hours that then turned into, hey, why don't you just stop in Iowa at a business trip to North Carolina. She says, "Just stop in Pella and come see us." And I met the I met a dream team like I met the engineers. I met their executive team. Um, I thought if I don't go design this window with them, I'm going to regret this the rest of my life because I'm going to have it's like the playground for a window nerd. And three weeks later, I lived in Pella, Iowa. So, what was the window you were designing? I worked on our impervia uh fiberglass products. Okay. What part of it? So, we uh in my tenure back there, we did a casement awning window uh with our new easy slide operators. So, we got to do some innovation work with that. And then we launched a new patio door. Uh again, Pel is really into innovation, which is why I geeked out. But uh yeah, really innovative design, lowest uh profile threshold on a sliding door with performance. So, you know, got to do some cool products, but I kind of had this 2-year agreement. And then cuz I was going to come back and like, guys, I'm going to go back to my business. And they said, "No, we don't think that's a good idea." And, you know, kind of fast forward, they showed me how the distribution model worked, right? and it it fixed a lot of what I felt has is currently very broken in the the connection between a manufacturer and a homeowner with the way Pella runs the distribution. So, three-year approval process of being interviewed, of being approved by the board of directors, of passing obviously all the the financial checkpoints and uh took ownership a few years ago. Okay. Do you know other distributor owners? Because that's a small family, right? I mean, how many are there? How many? There's only 60 of us. 60. Okay. Nationally. So, we're um you know, we have pretty big territories.
The best thing that we can do to help some people out here, right, to give you some baseline knowledge is let's start kind of at the 50,000 ft level overviewing windows and doors, right? So, you've got to me, this is the way I think of it. And if you have a different thought, then like great, I'm I'm all ears. Let's talk about it. is like essentially to me where that conversation starts is is what is the window made of or you know like you've got vinyl windows, you've got aluminum windows, you've got fiberglass, wood, different varieties of wood, right? You've got the way we think of it or I think of it is what I would call a woodwood wood meaning it's a wood interior and a wood exterior. Not much of that going on in the world anymore, but I guess it exists still. And then you've got wood clad where you've got some kind of cladding on an overall wood unit, right? A metal cladding like Pella would be a metal clad or their main like they've got ranges, right? But the wood metal clad window is kind of Pelas, right? That would be their sort of main front and center offering. And then this impervious I want you to talk about that in a minute, but that's some kind of compositey thing, right? So you've got so fiberglass, aluminum, right? Let's talk about what else we got. wood of some variety. We got vinyl, right? All vinyl. What else? What am I missing? Wait. Sorry. I have to go through the list. Do it in your head. Vinyl, fiberglass, uh wood wood clad, right? Thermally broken aluminum. Okay. Um there are, you know, there's a manufacturer that does it's called a wood flower composite. They actually they they give you tricky names to try to make it sound like it's fiberglass, but it's not. Right. Uh we've that's the one material we've avoided. It doesn't have the the durability that we're going to put our name on. So, but yeah, you'll you'll fiberglass. No, it's called uh I don't it's a proprietary name. I don't want to call them out. But they call it something that sounds like fiberglass and it's absolutely not fiberglass. Okay. All right. No. So, and then to me there is a distinction in here and this is where my lack of knowledge comes in. Some of the because a lot of my information about windows is pretty old but um like in Pella I still remember designer series and architectural series, you know, all this. I don't even think these exist anymore. the way they've reshuffled the deck, but um is sort of this composite like this gray fuzzy, you know, vinyl fiberglass. And now you're starting to see or at least some from some manufacturers kind of this fiberglass vinyl composite sort of amalgam, right? Is that would you No, that's what they're that's what they're making it sound like to consumers. It's actually it's sawdust and glue. Okay. It's very very brittle. It's it's actually Pella asked me to review that material uh when we were looking at you know product design and yeah there is a an ability for wood window companies a a very big wood window company found this they created this composite this it's wood chips in Minnesota they would be okay all right I got you so that's that's a material that's out there and it's it's yeah it's not vinyl and fiberglass it's it's sawdust and glue basically put together you can tap it with a hammer when it's cold out and it just kind of fractures Right. So you have to fix it with like Bondo. So just Okay. That doesn't sound like a great choice in a wet climate. So all right. So So really So then really So it's vinyl, fiberglass, fiberglass, wood with a couple tweaks on that and then a metal thermally aluminum kind of thing. So that's generally your options. That's your core. Those are your core. And then vinyl being typically the least expensive. Yes. Right. Then fiberglass. Actually fiberglass and wood kind of start to fall into the same category. little head like kind of some like I do this a lot when when people ask me how does say hardwood compare to you know LVP flooring. I say well hardwood has a range of price from the lowest to the highest and LVP flooring has a range from lowest to highest and they might sit like this. Yeah. Right. That there is a scenario that you could potentially pick the most expensive LVP that would be more than the you know least expensive you know hardwood. Yeah. But generally those kind of would would match up like that kind of. I mean, I think with, you know, I always tell a customer, if we're deciding between a fiberglass and a wood product. We're really, we're not deciding on price. We're deciding on design and we're deciding on possibly engineering because there's things that each can do that that might differ a little bit, but you know, once you get out of the price point category, which is really going to be your vinyl products, it's really then just getting down to design and engineering. Okay. Warranty, some of that we can tend to that. Like, do they vary a little bit? Not. Well, I mean, across most 90% of Pella products, you're going to have a lifetime limited warranty. So, and I know a lot of other competitors, at least you can get a a really long warranty on glass and some of that from some of the other window manufacturers out there. So, okay. So, we'll come. All right. So, so kind that's kind of the the materials from which windows are made. Now, doors, would they also fall into that same category? Nothing really different or special about that. All right. So now when we talk about doors, right, this is where this gets a little tricky. Is that like your front door or your entry door or the door to your garage from the house out of the mudroom or something that typically would be kind of what we would refer to as an entry door. But when we're talking about doors and windows like a Pella, door and window manufacturing company or others that are out there is that the window companies will make like the patio doors and sliding doors and French doors, right? that they are more cohesive with the window package itself. Yeah. I mean, you know, the entry door is is broken out. We do have an entry door line as well. Pella used to and it probably still does, but generally speaking, we we think of that as separate in our mind where we're thinking like you're in it can still come from Pella, but we think of the entry door as one thing and then we think of all the door and window package and sliding glass doors and all of that as another but yet same package, but it's all coming from the same place. Right. Okay. All right. So then really quickly I just want to touch on again some big picture stuff is the operational uh components of windows right you have a casement window which is the crank kind right and then up and down hung windows hung windows right double hung single hung you hear that thrown around those are the two that go up and down slide by and then you've got that essentially turned on its side which is a horizontal slider guy right awning window that cranks out and hinges at the top like a garage door opening or Yeah. Right. Like a casement window sitting on its side. You've got fixed windows, specialty shaped windows, right? And then French doors, sliding doors, biffolding panel doors, you know, pocketing doors. Pocketing doors. I mean, the the range of windows we've got, you know, we've got these new products that, you know, the the trends right now, obviously, big doors are very popular. I mean, every home being built is going to have some form of that, which is going to be biffold or we'll call it stacking pockets into the wall. And then also now the new the other big trend is going from the kitchen as a pass through. Um there we do a it's it's called a piston awning and it opens again it opens like an old school garage door where it kind of um hinges out but allows for a big giant opening and pass through for kind of a bar service type scenario from your kitchen. We've done that for sure. We do that. I've done that a number of times with like a short folding door right on the countertop. Yep. We can also do those with the biffolds or we can do the garage door style, right? And just like how's that bottom of that is that a track is that a zero threshold thing? We can. Okay. Yeah. So that's the way we've done it with the folding door. So that's cool. I didn't know that that was an option. Yep. Oh, we'll have to talk about that. Okay. Um operating types. Okay. So here's another one um that I want to talk about is U factor, right? And this is important because in windows are one of the only products right in the in the building envelope that is asked to do what a windows it's 0 degrees on the outside it's 70° on the inside don't leak don't have water don't have air infiltration look good operate right I mean that's a pretty extreme ask of something that people make of dissimilar materials right that so that that that's a big thing and one of the ways that windows are measured is U factor which is the reciprocal of R factor right and my opinion of the reason okay and this would be interesting to hear your thought about it is so RF factor like you've heard something say oh that's a R you know 50 insulation on my roof or attic or something like that and and so that that's what that number comes from and uh a perfect RV value would be 100 would be perfectly insulated so the higher the R value, the better insulated something is, right? And then windows and doors from my years in at Pella when I started way back in college was understanding the U value and that the and that it was the reciprocal, but the RV value was so low that it was kind of embarrassing that, you know, it was a two or something like that. So, I feel to me like the window industry invented the U value to sort of hide the fact that their R value is so low that they just went to a different measuring system. Does that like why would they do that? Why not just use R? I've honestly never thought about it in 26 years. I would guess that there you can you can measure more nuance because you can have a 30, a 28, 29, 28, 27. You can have an R12.6. You put a decimal on it, you know, but it's so I I think this is my this is my thing is that is that the R values were in the twos. Yeah. Right. And then maybe the three or something like that. And depending on where you measure, middle of the window, the unit, right? You measure R value in all different places. but they were just so embarrassingly low that they didn't want to publish it. So they came up like let's just make a U value which is the reciprocal of the R. And so a perfect U value would be zero whereas the perfect R value is 100. So you're trying to drive that U to zero. So a 22 or 24, right? 28 is kind of where we are on the what's the what was the inverse of that? What would the R value like an R3? R3. Okay. Right. So so this U value is the insulation value. The way they measure how efficient a window is or inefficient in terms of letting really its inefficiency is what you want. You want it to not efficiently transmit heat through itself. You want it to be inefficient technically. So um so that's how we measure it in the in in the building code and this is a big thing that we have to comply. So talk about that. The trip you mentioned triple glazing. Why is that so crazy in Washington state? Um you know there's so many different opinions on that. You know, again, I' I've I've got about, you know, 25 26 years of of being in the industry. And, you know, technologies improve and and we've made houses more efficient. And there's two things I think. There's the, you know, my job if I'm building a home is to create an environment of comfort and something that again is is efficient. I think we've moved from, you know, talking about green more to, you know, understanding the impact of climate and climate change and what's going on. And so it it is important that we we manage our energy as a as a planet carefully. When it comes down to the forces on the industry that drive that and and building envelopes, I start to deviate in maybe some of my opinions, but really it's it's honestly it's government enforcement, right? So the manufacturer is designed to obviously Energy Star, right? So, Energy Star is is a government organization that is out there trying to give consumers a way to identify that they're buying products that are are fulfilling that that responsibility, right? We've watched everything ratchet down over the years. And I say ratchet down, the lower EV value gets, the more, you know, efficient a window is. Um, even you talk about the envelope of the home, you talk about the systems that run our homes, the HVAC and all of that. Uh, you know, they they're driving more and more and more efficiency. Um, and for a long time, you know, there was a really good balance of, you know, you saw that sticker and there was a really good return to the homeowner as well because they were going to, you know, for the little more they spent to have an Energy Star product that then has a return on my energy bills go down and therefore I'm going to, you know, I'm going to save more money. Um, I think one of the trends we're seeing today, in my very personal opinion, is that to drive the product performance any higher, the materials to do so drive the cost up so much that the payback goes out a thousand years. And so that's and that's my point, right? That's the thing that bugs me that I talk to clients about is that, you know, they're and I'm with you on responsible stewardship of the planet, right? and being a good planet citizen and not using, you know, all of the energy and creating all the pollution, you know, and I think we do a pretty good job with that, you know, in the US in terms of how we are responsible and that we're mindful of that kind of thing. But where I sort of find myself in this in this weird spot where I feel a little bit bad and that like that that mandate overreach is that required to spend money on say a window that's a high performing window right to go from and I'm going to make this up but to go from a 28 u u value window to a 22 right that's a that's an that is literally a decimal increase in efficiency and then The question would be how much would the same window package for the typical house be at 28 versus 22? And it's I again making it up. It's at least $5,000 more for a typical home. Maybe 10 or 20, right? It it really varies, but you know, there is going to be a difference, right? So, you're paying more for that more efficient thing. But my question then is, yeah, but how long does it take to pay back that extra $5,000 in energy savings in energy savings because you bought the more expensive, more efficient window? And I see this a lot in HVAC is that where they're driving us to to have homeowners require these super high efficiency units. And the thing that bugs me is that the payback period is longer than the life of the furnace. Longer than the life of the person, right? Well, certainly. Yeah. I mean, particularly if you're, you know, in my age, you know, definitely. But, but even the furnace itself, doesn't matter who buys it, that the furnace will need to be replaced before you've gotten a payback on that thing, you know? So, so like that's the part that me is like that feels like a little overreach, right? Would you I mean, is that am I wrong in that? We want to give homeowners a comfortable home. Again, yes, that is it's it's the biggest expense you have in your life and it should deliver value. And that value comes in not just the value of the comfort and the space and somewhere to raise your family and your neighborhood, but then also, you know, what goes in the pocketbook and and what you're paying and what the return is on on the cost to run that house, right? And so it's balancing all of it. There are people that absolutely, you know, they want to chase a net zero home. It's it's something that is very important to them. Um they're not concerned about what the cost of, you know, the payback on that energy is. They they that's what they desire to build. Absolutely. And if that's their number one priority, we want to help them do that. But but a lot of our clients, you know, they they say, "Oh, we want to do this. We want to do that." And then we like, "Okay, this is what that cost." And then we find that they back off of that a little bit that they're like, "Oh, that's too far. That's too much." Then where can we modulate that and come back a little? I don't want to, you know, go back to just slash and burn and, you know, have no but something kind of try to find that balance. Y so I just it's that mandated expense that doesn't really at the end of the day in my opinion there's no real technical reason you know that starts to feel like oh now that gets into the overreach world but that's just my feeling about it but I'm I'm let's yeah let's what you're seeing too and this is where you know and I'm I'm not going to call any one out but up in Canada right now with some of what they're doing with these codes they're they're there's manufacturers that are So all of our products are certified by a third party. Okay. So everything that is printed on appella windows certified by a third party that then you know goes up for you know is is logged and approved and you know acknowledged by the government. There are uh small manufacturers specifically a lot in the vinyl categories and they're literally up in Canada printing labels in their garages we say because there's no way I I I know that there's no way the product is hitting that number but they they've ratcheted the code down so much that there's you know you have to bring products over from you know other countries again that that don't have the same regulations with how they're rating that and it's getting a little sketchy. So you're putting a sticker on it that says 0.24 24 and there's no chance or 20 or 18 and it just to me I I when I'm seeing that behavior I'm hearing those stories and I I've seen some of it with my own eyes and I just go like then now we're just we're misle it's misleading you know right right so let's real quickly here so if you're if you're doing a a a significant renovation remodel addition um certainly here in the in the greater Seattle area the state of Washington is we have a a pretty rigorous energy code compliance thing that you have to meet here And windows are one of the things on that. It's like what type of heating and cooling system you're doing, what type of insulation you're putting in, what type of water heater, and then really windows. Those are kind of And then how you're building too, like you know, you're keeping it clean, you know, that type of thing is important. But um but windows and doors are one of the four or five things that you can pick from on there. And so you can you because you need to say get six points, right? I need five or six points. And then I could choose to pick this kind of window or a window at this level and I get two points. But if I buy a lower U value window, right, maybe triple glazing like you were talking about, I might get two points instead of one point, right? I'm getting some more points. So how much like what is what happens with triple glazing to the pricing? I see that's one of the things that we does Pellet even do it? Yeah, we do. We have triple glazing. Uh we we can do you know we can get to the R5 window which is the you know the 20U factors and stuff. Um R5 equals 02. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cuz it's the inverse from what we're we're seeing in the architects that we work with and the designers we work with you know glass is the most expensive place to chase credits. So we really you know first of all first of all we live in a very mild climate. We do. I totally agree. We have a beautifully mild climate that in terms of delivering comfort and and good energy performance, a nice dual glaze window with a low E coating, maybe jack that up a little bit uh in high sun exposure or high exposure. Totally with you. We're good. And so you add that triple glaze and it it really pushes the price up that we are the least efficient place. Our products windows are the least efficient place to chase that those energy credits. Okay. So the return, So what you're saying then the return cost of triple glaze versus the credits elsewhere, right? So what you're saying is is is do the best you can with like a like a double glazed window, dual glazed window. Get a good dual glazed window that's going to get as low as it can and then chase those additional credits in a different HVAC HVAC system envelope your or water heater or wall insulation, attic insulation, something like that is a better return. Okay, that's a great point. I appreciate that.
Tempered glass is everybody's seen this, right? When you break a window and it and it shatters into a million little pieces, right? They heat it up, right? What's that process? They heat it. They temper it after the thing is made and make it brittle. They heat it up, then they cool it. So then if it breaks, it blows up into a jillion little pieces. And that's meant to be a safe thing so that you don't get stabbed with giant shards of glass, right? Is the idea behind that. Okay. Um, now and so that's a safety glass thing and there are places that you have to have tempered glass in a home. Yep. Right. And those are near a door near the floor near a door. Stairways have requirements. So all like a door glass for sure. Door glass is always tempered. Windows next to a door are going to be tempered. Windows near a door. Windows within certain distance of the floor 18 inches of the floor. The glass within 18 in of the floor. Stairwells. That's interesting. I didn't know that one. Landings. Yeah, when you have a landing, you fall down the Okay, I got you. Now, what about bathrooms? Because it I I believe that the code used to be or I understood it to be that it was like if you're in the shower or the tub and you can reach it, it had to be tempered. And then I thought that it changed to like any glass in the bathroom has to be tempered. What's the current status on? I you know what? This is where you know they call me the the president of parties and picnics. I'm not in the technical side as much anymore, but it was a measurement from the drain, right? I think it was 60 in or yeah, 5T is what I want to say. 5 ft in a circle. But here's the thing. You get inspectors and codes can be interpreted so many different ways. They also they write these codes to leave it up to interpretation. I would always say if it's a small window, it's in the bathroom, just temper the thing. Like I'd rather, right, it doesn't spend the extra 80 bucks or whatever it's going to be. It does increase the cost, but not typically the end of the world kind of cost. It's cheaper than having an inspector come out, decide that, you know, his interpretation that that window needed to be tempered. If you think it needs to be tempered, well, maybe we should talk to those guys up in Canada or something. We'll just get a sticker from them. Yeah. Oh, I know. Just say that it's tempered. Um, egress windows. Yep. All right. Kind of talk about what that is and sort of why we have to have them. And then I have an interesting story for you on that if we have a minute. But so egress windows, this is bedroom related, right? This is a safety thing. This is a code issue. Mhm. Right. So, how would you describe that in to make sure that I'm ready? Egress is obviously the ability to egress our home or to exit our home, right? In the case of an emergency. So, uh yeah, in bedrooms there are requirements that are how you know the window can't be so far off the floor, right? And it has to be climb out. Yep. You can climb out or a fireman, you know, rescue personnel can get in. Right. Right. Uh it's 57 square ft with a minimum of 20 in clear uh versus 24 in clear in the other direction. So it has to meet all three of those criteria. Um it's a second like so if there's a fire in the hallway right outside your bedroom door, there is a way for you to get out other than having to go through said fire outside your bedroom door or firemen to come in. Yep. Okay. So it's you got to have one of those in every bedroom. Mhm. Minimum maximum distance off the floor. I think I want to say it's 44. Oh man. I I would say it's 44. I think it's I think it's 44 off the floor, right? Is the maximum height off the floor. 44. So you could climb out. Yeah. And then there's a minimum width, minimum height, minimum square footage. Yes. Cuz you can't do like an 8 in wide 9 ft tall window and say, "Oh, well it it's got enough square footage of glass, but you know it's a mail slot. you can't get out of it. So, minimum width, minimum height thing. So, that's a way to get out and you got to have them. Really quick, had an interesting deal. Um, back in Chicago years and years ago before we came out here, I actually did a huge renovation, second floor project on a house that was designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright's closest sort of associates. Okay? And it was right down the street from his studio, literally on the same street, eight blocks away. And so it we were doing a second floor and there was bedrooms on the corners, but there was one bedroom front and center in the middle that only had one set of windows right up there already. And it was a triple set of the double hungs. And so when we redesigned it, we redesigned it that those windows would be egress. Mhm. Right. and they weren't the way they were designed, but the city and the historical society told us we had to make them be the same proportion and ratio that they were before. And we got a special dispensation to build that bedroom without a legal egress window. The very first and only time I've ever heard of that. Yeah. Um I Yeah, I've seen you may have seen, you know, seen that more, but I was surprised. We just assumed that they were going to make us like make that egress and we were like, "Oh, okay." Well, it's going to have to be egress. So, that was interesting. So, they let us get away with that.
Lead times are a big thing for windows and doors in terms of manufacturing. And from our standpoint as a builder, we often need those very early in the process. You know that we need like we can wait for kitchen cabinets cuz we don't need those till lots and lots of stuff is done. But windows, I'm going to need those super early. So, what's going on with lead times in the world of windows and doors? Uh, well, it's not co anymore. That was fair. Lead time was a really variable question. Uh, no, you know, I mean, people have to remember windows are made to order. These aren't things that are just stocked on a shelf. So, every window, even at a even if you're buying a builder grade package, you know, these things are being manufactured on demand. And so, you know, your typical lead time is going to be anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks, 8 weeks if it's getting really custom or we have to get special glass. But, you know, somewhere in that range. Yeah. I see some really super funky doors. Some of these biffold doors and folding doors and things. Those can run out 10, 12, 14, 16 weeks kind of thing. You can get them quicker than that now, but Yeah. No, you guys can, but just some of them. And but seems like window times and things like that have modulated a little bit. So, not as bad. What would you say is the most important thing that you would want to, you know, have people take away? The hottest trends, things to be aware of. What are you excited about in windows and doors? what's coming that you want to put in your house that you want to get in your showroom to share with people. Okay? You know, like, oh, I remember the the the corner window, right? That 90° window. That was the thing. And then the glass you could turn off and on. That was kind of a cool thing. Like what anything out there that you're super excited about? It's all out there. I, you know, I think, you know, especially if there's a message, you know, we're talking to homeowners, you know, in this case, right? Uh, we've done such a good job in this really in this category of building and design. We've done such a good job of making it intimidating, of making it confusing, of uh creating such crowds of competition and and it gets harder to differentiate. You know, there's something like eight octillion combinations of window and door and material. I mean, and I've heard people multiply it out to dilians when you you talk about the variations. And so, you know, the thing I get excited about is, you know, we're still bringing it back. I always tell people and and this might sound really bad. You could put a you can put four competitors on the table and I can get into all the nuance about why I like a design feature of mine. I might even look at a competitor's window and see a small nuance where I go, you know, if I had to really pick, I I kind of like the the way this windows handling that. But anymore and and I think this is the the the bigger problem is I watch windows I watch windows get designed and positioned poorly, right? And that's what we call fenestration, the placement of windows and doors. Like that's all we do at Pella. I'm I'm building teams. All I have done for 26 years, I design and place windows and doors in people's homes. And that's an art in itself. Architects do brilliant jobs. They're they're so good at proportion and design. But but when it comes to nuance that we can do with windows and how we can even and sometimes elevate that experience for the customer, working with somebody that truly specializes in windows and doors. And that's why I have, you know, two 6,000 plus square foot design centers. I've got all your trick products. I've got automated doors. I can put glass in that you flip a switch and it becomes obscure. But more importantly, I can sit down with your architect. I can sit down with your designer. I can sit down with with our homeowners and we can help you not only visualize but but really think about the space and how the window is going to affect your view. And it's funny because I see it more in remodels where I get to go in and and truly reproportion or or reposition the windows in a way that are going to truly capture both how you experience it externally and internally. And the wow factor I get from that like that's honestly what's kept me in the business for this long is someone comes to buy a window because they have let's say they're building a home obviously but you know especially in the replacement side you know hey I've got an energy problem. I've got old single pane aluminum windows and the thing that was always so fun about this industry uh and this is where I got really passionate as an installer. They bought it because they had an energy problem. Then the new window was so beautiful and we may have changed it from having a bunch of of grids or bars to doing a a picture window and the look is so dramatically different. The frame upgrades the look of the room like they they get like five other benefits with it. Sound. Sound. Oh, sound's a big one. Oh yeah. I I remember experiencing that personally. We lived we one of the first houses we bought back in Chicago 100 years ago is this old red, you know, 100-year-old original windows kind of thing. And we put a tilt pack replacement window in there. And the most obvious thing was the difference in the sound of how much the outside was muffled compared to before. I mean, it was in Chicago, so it was in the city. You know, you hear stuff. If you live out wherever, you know, maybe no big deal. But it was amazing to us like how we were like, "Oh my god, really? That's crazy." You we need to simplify that process and make it digestible, make it meaningful that you know, how do you define comfort? Comfort isn't in a number that's on a UV value, right? You know, how are you going to have confidence in install? And the other thing I see is the the fracture of of how the window gets to the homeowner. You know, if you were to say, "Where does Pella really dot the eyes and cross the tees?" We have great windows, but we have exceptional exceptional standards in how we get those windows to our homeowner and then service them from then from there out. You know, I it it's a great window. I'm a big fan. Honestly, I grew up framing houses, right? working with my grandpa when I was little and and it was his it was his company and I honestly um before I worked for somebody else and even then that just happened to be that I actually thought that the only window that I had ever actually touched and I had installed hundreds of them was a Pella window. Like that was the only window I ever installed in a house was a Pella until I'd been doing it 10 years. didn't even know there was other kind of windows you could get, you know? I mean, they came, we put them in the hole and that was it. And it was the old school wood with the brick mold and we were hand driving casing nails in those and you get in trouble if you hit that hit that with the hammer and make a mark. So, um, Pella, I love it. We could definitely do this again. I mean, there's so much that like, you know, install and like I love the what you're talking about. I mean, I'm getting these ideas of sending you a elevation and some floor plans and saying, "Hey, here's what we came up with. What would you do to this?" Yep. You know, how would you tweak this up? Thinking about a pel window windowcaping. Yep. Right. And coming up with this whole look that we could send you something and you you you tweak it. Yep. That's what we do. And feed it back to us. Okay. And that's free. Absolutely. All right. Very good. All right, everyone. Thank you, Keith Dashi. Yep. Got it right. Owner, president, principal of Pell Windows Pacific Northwest in Balfl and Tacoma. Two 6,000 square foot showrooms, display centers, studios to work with you. If you need the whole thing, not just doors and windows, but you need an addition or new remodel, whatever, call us and then we'll work with Keith and we'll put Pella Windows in your house and everything will be great. So, thank you for being here. Thank you, Keith. I want to have you back talk about some more stuff install like waterproofing you know there just so many things in window treatments uh there's so much we got to talk about and learn windows and doors we got to do this again thanks for being here really appreciate it let's build with Armada podcast in the books check the link in the description below check us out see us on the website we'll see you next