A J.

I would NOT recommend purchasing windows or doors from New South. My experience with them has been one disappointment after another from the people I have dealt with to the actual windows themselves. I am embarrassed to say I spent $50,000 on 22 windows and 2 doors and did not heed the warning signs from negative postings online. My decision to work with them was based on a recommendation of a friend and what appeared to be solid backing by trusted groups. The purchase was a huge mistake and I will be paying for it over the next several years. My dealings with New South quickly spiraled out of control to the point where looking at the windows now makes me sick to my stomach. Key words for my experience are: very poor customer service, average quality product, exaggerated performance, extremely overpriced, poor communications, and no adherence to timelines or schedules.

Poor customer service: Mr. Tim Nagel, their Affiliate President for New South Orlando, yelling and insulting me on the phone, then hanging up on me. He was one hell of a prick and did not even have the guts to come to my house and face me (even though he said he would). New South left me in the dark about my window installation even though they knew there was going to be a 3-4 week delay for delivery. Absolutely no communication from the salesman, office staff, or their factory. The owner of the company is a walking/talking commercial always having to say how hundreds of happy customers got their windows. Thats wonderful for him, but it did not do me any good. Our sales person advised the windows would need to be registered with the local fire department since they were impact. Well, this is not a true statement. The county inspector (from the fire department) looked at me like I was from another planet when I asked about this. He said that was a ridiculous statement. When a company has to make things up to sell their productwell that should say a lot about their product.

Average quality product: I really am not seeing anything special about these windows in comparison to other name brand windows on the market. Because I made such a stink about the delay, it is my firm belief the windows were rushed and quality control was thrown out the window. Their custom, made to fit product was not precisely measured by laser, but rather by assuming some of the windows were the same size. The windows arrived in a trailer with no protection between them.

Exaggerated performance: Our sales guy made a lot of nice statements about how New South windows are the best/better than all the others. The energy savings we have is not a great as presented; noise reduction is not what was inferred during our consult; the rooms in our house that were hot due to heavy sun exposure, are still very warm. Basically, these totally awesome windows, with all the special patented technology, have performed no better than what I could have obtained through other name brand windows at half the cost.

Extremely overpriced: I paid more than double for factory direct windows; taking out the middle man to work directly with the manufacturer. I am not sure where my head was, but I must have been in the clouds. I could have gone with another major window manufacturer, paid btwn $25-30,000 for impact windows. Is it worth double the cost for a lifetime guarantee or the piss poor customer service? Not in my opinion. I drank their kool-aid and I was stupid for doing it. Dont make my foolish mistake.

Poor communication: This goes along with the lack of customer service. After I signed the contract, until delivery, I would have heard nothing from the sales guy. The sale was made and he moved on no follow up or follow through. It was only when I came to him with problems did he jump in. Again, there was absolutely nothing from New South about a 3-4 week delay in delivery. Mr. Nagle felt that was OK because in manufacturing things happen and I was ignorant about these kinds of things. Delays are a fact of life, but I sure as hell deserved at least a phone call to let me know what was going on. I guess a $50,000 client isnt special enough. I was also not advised the front door I purchased was through a third party provider, not New South. That was a little cheeky.

No adherence to timelines or schedules: Every timeline or scheduled appointment was blown with the exception of the initial sales visit. First, the visit by the factory guy to re-measure all the windows was completely missed. The guy just never showed up because it was before Christmas and he left for the holiday. The second is the obvious schedule for the delivery of the windows, which was 4 weeks longer the date range provided. All kinds of wonderful excuses for this. My favorite was when the president of the company said part of the delay was due to Hurricane Irmas impact on their operation. I signed the contract 2 months after the storm! Third was the actual install, which I was told would be 4-5 days. It turned out to be 6 days because their best crew was just a guy and his wife. Finally, New South was supposed to contact me within 48 hours of completion to schedule the final county inspection. Almost 2 weeks later, I finally got a call to get this set up. The evening before the inspection, New South calls me saying the appointment is cancelled because they failed to have current insurance on file with the county! I lost 4 days of work time and had to re-work my schedule to fit around New South. I got tired of hearing people say sorry because it just didnt mean anything.

This is my abridged version of what occurred. The full version was over 4 pages long. I have supporting evidence for everything written here as I am sure New South will have a witty response for this review. I know Mr. Nagle has a few choice words for me. I did speak with the president of New South and he is a nice guy and believes in his company. That does not change the fact his company really screwed me as a customer even though I made, what he called, a large purchase. I can understand one or two bumps in the road, but this journey was through a minefield.

Think twice about hiring these people for your paint work. The patch and painting was awful and the work was not done as agreed. I ended up having to bring in another contractor to complete the job correctly. A lot of time was wasted and money was just thrown in the bin with these people. Overall the workers were lazy and took long cell phone breaks; I never knew who was going to show up or when. After speaking with the workers, none of them were actual professional painters. One day, the worker left for lunch and just never came back. The owner was all smiles and friendly at the start, but when I started complaining, the attitude quickly changed. For someone who is so worried about the reputation of the business, they had a hard time dealing with an unhappy customer. If you dont mind throwing money away, these people will be happy to take it. One last parting observationthe owner takes pride in saying they have government contracts. Well, government contracts are awarded to the cheapest bidder, not the best.

I ordered a jewelry box as a Christmas gift. It showed up to my house about 4 days quicker than they projected. Normally that would have been a good thing. The only problem was that I would have shipped it to a different location knowing it would come so quickly. The box was marked in huge letters with the contents - thus taking the surprise out of the gift.

When I opened the box to look it over, and it was in good shape. Thank goodness I looked inside. The felt was destroyed in 3 of the 4 drawers. It was obvious there was no quality checks done. This was the Saturday before Christmas and I needed to get this replaced asap. Dennis from customer service was so gracious to offer me 15% off the price I paid to keep it "as is" or return it. What a slap in the face! I wanted a replacement in time for Christmas, but my request was ignored. Hayneedle has really helped make these last few days before Christmas a real pain in *******@ss trying to replace the gift.

I would highly suggest not ordering through these people. It appears to be a crap shoot if you will have a good experience or not. I played and lost even after reading the reviews because "it won't happen to me."