Like Leslie who also posted problems with Kolbe & Kolbe, we live in the Pensacola area. We had four Kolbe ultra push-out clad casements and one Circle head window with impact glass installed in February 2011. We immediately had problems--we could not lock one window, and two others were cutting a gash in the exterior aluminum sill when the windows were opened and closed. The "adjustment" by the Kolbe technician was to drill new holes in the frames so that the sashes could be relocated in the frame. The only explanation ever provided for the problem was that the impact glass was so heavy it probably dragged the windows out of alignment when they were first opened. In October 2011, one of the windows dragged again. Kolbe's solution this time (February 15, 2012) was to cut out the wood around the hinge on the bottom of the sash, and to remove the lower weather stripping on this window (I don't know if the latter was deliberate or an oversight). After this "repair" of a hatchet job, I noticed that the wood on the lower part of that sash was badly cracked and the seams were black--obvious signs of water exposure. I then checked the other windows and noted that while the one on the far right that they had just worked on was the worst, all the casement window show signs of cracking and splitting. I have since carefully monitored (and wiped dry) these windows after ever rain. Whenever we have a wind driven rain, water comes in under the sashes, and the sashes literally sit in water until the water evaporates or I wipe up the water. I can open a window several days after a rain, and water will still be sitting on the sill, and the bottom of the sash will be wet. The words used by Fighter to describe the design flaws of the flat sill are almost identical to those I have used in my complaints to Kolbe. What is truly reprehensible is that Fighter's posting in September 2003 reveals that Kolbe has known about this design defect for 10 years, yet Kolbe continues to manufacture and sell these defective windows, and in a humid, hurricane prone climate like the one in which we live.
Yesterday (May 24, 2012), I received an email from the Kolbe field rep offering to replace the 4 Ultra clad push-out casements with Ultra clad crank-out casements, but they refuse to pay the cost of the installation, and we frankly have no confidence that the crank-outs will be any better since it's still the same wood clad unit. Anyone with advice for where we go from here?
