A while back there was a thread asking about window installation experiences from Lowes. I was in the middle of researching this myself and said I'd report back once my install was done. So for the original poster of that thread and anyone else who cares, here's my experience.
We first visited Lowes in June. Had the guy come out and measure, which cost $35 - this is refundable if you actually buy the windows. The installer was nice, but was tough to get to come out in a timely manner - I think we waited about a week before he called (Lowes policy is 48 hours) and then it was about another week before he came out.
Went back to Lowes afterwards (July now) and picked our windows out. We'd started out wanting something like 13 windows done but scaled it back to 7 for cost reasons. Will do more at a later date. The measurements the installer takes are good for I think a year, so you can just order the windows any time without having another measurement done. Anyway, we ordered 6 Pella wood windows and 1 ThermaStar vinyl window for the bathroom. All were custom orders. The vinyl window was only something like $126. The wood windows (with no options) came to about $470 each - much less than Pella themselves had quoted me. It's a big difference in price between wood and vinyl (at least within Pella), but more on that later. Our windows were slated for delivery on August 7th, only about 10 days or so later. One nice thing is they can tell you immediately exactly how long it's going to take.
So August 7th came and went and we heard nothing from Lowes or the installer. I called the store eventually around the 15th and got a snippy-sounding woman on the phone who said the windows had "just arrived" and that I had to give the installer 48 hours to call. I said "the windows were supposed to be there on the 7th, you're saying they just got there?" And she just repeated the same thing. So I waited. Another week went by. I called again. Confirmed this time that the windows *had* been there since the 7th, so now it's been 2 weeks and no call, despite their 48 hour policy. They said they'd fax the installer again, tell him I'd been waiting. Finally, I get a call, but he's got no appointments until after Labor Day. Whatever, by this time I'm just happy to pin somebody down to a date. So we set it for today.
I actually wasn't here for the install - my wife had the day off, so she dealt with it. She said it went pretty well, though; no surprises. They even took out a stuck air conditioner that we couldn't budge, without complaint. When I came home, I inspected their work - I'm not an expert, but it looks decent enough to me considering the condition of our trim (it's pretty out of square in places). They obviously shimmed in some spots, and sawed some stuff out in others. The caulking looks pretty tight. On the exterior, I didn't actually walk out onto my roof but it looks ok from below... though a couple of the trim pieces are slightly bent, probably just a minor cosmetic thing. I was happy to see that they did not remove my original red exterior trim, just installed a piece of white trim above it to fill in the space. On the side of the house (the bathroom window), they even fixed a really horrendously inept trim job on the previous window install, which had left a big gap in my siding and an exposed hole for rain or whatever to get into the side of my house. Well, they're not siding guys so it still looks a little empty, but they did plug up that hole and at least trimmed everything so it looks nice and uniform. They even bent part of my siding back to the house that had come detached in the install of the old window.
Two things I'm a little annoyed about, which we'll be talking to Lowes about tomorrow: they left all my old windows in a big pile outside (the web site specifically says "haul-away of old windows" is included in the install), and they did not give me any sort of certificate of completion, even though my wife supposedly signed one. I don't know if they just forgot to give her a copy or what. But we have no written record right now that they were even here. Hopefully Lowes will remedy both of these issues, but I feel like I've been fighting them every step of the way on this to get them to do their job properly. The install itself seems to have gone well; everything else has been like pulling teeth. Just constant visits and phone calls for no other reason than to ask them to do things that they're supposed to do anyway.
Now, as for the windows themselves, all I can say is I am *so* glad we didn't get vinyl everywhere. The price of wood is well worth it. The vinyl window in the bathroom is fine for what it is, but it looks like a cheap piece of plastic. I mean, even from far away. I'm ok with it because the previous window was vinyl too and it is a bathroom, I'd be afraid to have wood there... but partly because it's brand new and totally clean white vinyl, it just looks like something you'd get as a prize in a Cracker Jack box. I just can't imagine having windows like this in our bedrooms. The wood windows aren't what I'd call beautiful yet (they're unfinished), but they will be. They already look and feel really solid. (Well, except for our crooked trim surrounding them.) And if I want to, it will be easy to match the look of our old historic windows in the rest of the house... though I'm actually leaning towards staining these rather than painting. Not sure yet.
Anyway, would I recommend Lowes for window installation? If you want Pella wood, then yeah. I don't know of a cheaper dealer (Pella themselves wanted literally like double the price) and the install itself seems solid. (Famous last words - the first rain will be the real test, I guess.) But if you don't care about Pella or wood, it's probably not worth it. I do think their prices are good on vinyl too, but you can probably do just as well elsewhere and not have such a hassle getting Lowes employees to do their jobs. On the other hand, this is not a "horror story" and I am not dismissing Lowes out of hand, as some others here seem to whenever the subject comes up. My experience has been annoying in some ways, but the end result seems good and in a year, that's all we'll still care about.