Champion Windows and Home Exteriors of Seattle

Avoid this company at all costs. They lie and do not deliver. I met the salesperson (George Gitungo) and told him EXACTLY what we wanted (with a witness), specifically the OLD ROOF REMOVED and a NEW ROOF INSTALLED. Not real complicated. George wrote up the bid with BOTH of these items included, and promised us a new roof by the following week. We accepted their bid, signed the roofing contract, and paid the 50% deposit. Weeks turned into months, and after countless phone calls and messages, they finally called me back on a Sunday and tried to extort us for another $5,000 (or they would not start the project). I finally got a hold of the division manager Michael Castrataro, and his excuse was that George was new to the roofing business, and he did not bid the job correctly. Why in the world would they send an incompetent salesperson to give an inaccurate bid in the first place? George originally told us that he had been with the company for over 10 years. At the end, we felt that they will say anything to get a sale, then they fail to deliver, and then play hard to get. We are going to the BBB and the Attorney General, and we are also consulting with our attorney.

The work is high quality. They took about a month.

So many things wrong I am not sure where to start! First I should probably say beware of this company and its products. Their windows collect water, their screens are sub par, the internal coverings of the metal pieces of the sunroom are not insulated well or at all and collect condensation and create mold growth, the calking they use is not mold resistant. I also don't think the installers were properly trained due to the amount of issues they had installing the sunroom. Then at least the Seattle office is near impossible to work with once they have their money! After a year of on going issues and now finding leaks in my roof and moisture issues in my attic i have requested a refund and or third party contractors to fix the issues. Its long but here is what I just sent Champion Window of Seattle. Mr. Castrataro, Due to the new and continuing issues with the sun room at location and the lack of follow up from you(it has been one week since I was supposed to hear back from you). I hereby request that Champion Window CO/SEA S LLC, license #CHAMPWC008C, bond #33BSBFG2310 refund the purchase amount of the sunroom including labor and or agree to pay third party contractors of my choosing to repair or replace known and not yet discovered issues. These third party repairs will in no way invalidate the warranty provided by Champion Window. Champion Window will pay the third party contractors directly, the homeowner will not be responsible for payment and then need to seek reimbursement from Champion Window. Champion Window will still be responsible to provide repair / replacement of sunroom components such as but not limited to windows, doors, screens and structural integrity items. The following is a list of current issues in need of repair. This list is not comprehensive as new issues seem to be showing up monthly. 1. The house roof is leaking in at least one spot where Champion tied into the existing roof. 2. Champion removed approximately a quarter of the eve venting but failed to replace any venting. resulting in major moisture issues in the section with blocked venting and minor issues in other areas. 3. Champion has not provided sufficiently insulated baseboard caps and used mold susceptible caulking. This has resulted in condensation buildup and mold growth. 4. Champion has left exposed metal in several areas of the sunroom that have extreme condensation issues. 5. Some of the windows do not drain water very well resulting in standing water in the window frame and condensation/mold issues. 6. The roll roofing installed over the sunroom to fix a leak the installers couldn't find is not installed properly and is allowing water underneath it. 7. Champion has attempted several times to insulate the floor but has failed to do so properly each time. Your timely attention to this matter is requested.

They were hard, quick, no nonsense workers, results were very excellent.

Very well. The crew worked very hard as we told then my husband only had three days off from work and could not get more time off. They worked very hard and the job was done in about two days. Raul, the crew chief was amazing and so were the rest of the crew (two other workers.) We would hire Champion again. Windows maybe? Thank you again for the great work!

It turned out great. I don't remember the price off hand.

It was fine. Their price was competitive. They provide a good service. The workers were nice and they cleaned up after themselves.

It went great! The cost was a little over $3000. I think it was a good price. I am thinking about putting some more windows in in another month or two, I know most likely I will call them back. I liked the quality of the windows and I liked the people that came out and installed.

Going from aluminum single pane windows to double. We've had the windows/door for over a year now and they seem to bring our peak summer temperatures down an average of 14 degrees, now keeping the house below outdoor temperatures. Installation was done on time within the timeline they provided. Installers took care to keep the space clean despite having to break the windows apart, were good to our neighbors and friendly. They took especially good care of our child's nursery without prompting. Michael, the salesman was knowledgeable, flexible and friendly. He was quick to work out discrepancies on the measurements and patient when we had additional followup. Note that many projects all come in at $20,000 as reported on this site. Review the estimate thoroughly. Windows seem to be excellent quality, easy to work and clean and have maintained their seals the past year.

The project is done. New windows and siding looks great. Installation crew were working no meter what weather condition is. Sales person (Jim) was easy to work with, no pushing strategy which I really like. Didn't left any mess after the job. Will use them again.

Too overpriced compared to other quotes I got.

This work was done for the former home owner. We purchased the home 6 months later. While the homeowner would have had a lifetime warranty, we were only given a one year warranty from purchase. When we noticed the carpet soaked in front of the Windows last week, we called them and were informed the service call would be $99. The leaking window appeared to be an ongoing problem as the vent had rusted. For $99 they would assess the cost of the work and then we would be charged to fix the window as it is out of warranty in less than 5 years. (Note this service fee is not described on their website and apparently applies to everyone). Needless to say we did not want to pay an additional $99 for a problem that isn't fixed. After further inspection, we discovered a weep hole missing in the bottom corner of one of the window tracks. This is a defect that should have been caught in quality control when installed. In any case, the Service Coordinator is pleasant, but Champion Windows is not eager to keep customers of their product happy. They are more eager to charge for advice than insure good product. In addition, they have our house listed on the website customer map, implying that we endorse their product, when in fact we are not happy customers.

estimate...They did NOTHING and I was out $50.00....don't use this outfit !

Two of the windows were delivered in the wrong size/color (and were not installed until about two months later) but the rest were installed on schedule. We love the new windows. They are easy to open and to clean, and we notice a big difference in the way they keep the rooms cooler in summer and warmer in winter as compared to the old wooden double-pane windows. The only disappointment was the size of the molding trim. We assumed that the new moldings would cover the same area as the ones which were removed, but there was an area of newly-exposed drywall - of about 1/2 to 1 inch - around the entire perimeter if each window. This necessitated painting all the newly exposed areas and, in one room where the paint was older, repainting the entire room. It would have been good to have known about this beforehand, as we had the windows installed just before the holiday season and we weren't prepared for a big painting project. at that time. Champion did purchase (and tried to match) the paint in the master bedroom for us, and luckily we had some extra paint from when two of the other three bedrooms had been painted. Otherwise it could have been a sizable additional cost for us to repaint each room. We did have to repaint one entire room, as we could not match the paint closely enough. Also, there were several places which required spackle to fill in where the gap exposed the ragged edge of the drywall. If you are switching from wood to vinyl, you may find that the new window casings are slightly smaller and, because of this, when the new trim is applied it may not cover the same area as the old trim did. It would be a good thing to discuss with your estimator or installer, in order to avoid any surprises after the work is completed.

After signing the contract with Champion, one of their siding managers came out take critical measurements of my home. Three days prior, I had a friend of a friend come out and pressure wash my home and he left lead-based paint chips in my yard. When Champion came out three days later, the manager contacted me to advise me about the lead paint chips in the yard. He told me I would have to pay a $500 fee for having lead paint on my home and suggested I get the pressure washer back over to clean up the mess in yard, which I did. The $500 is for precautions the crew had to take to work on my home safely and contain the lead paint. Fast forward to install several weeks later, I noticed the only precautions they took were 1) putting plastic sheeting on the ground and 2) cordoning off the area they were working on with a strip of yellow "Caution" tape. They didn't have masks or safety goggles on. I felt the $500 fee was a bit of a racket and truly excessive for a $15 sheet of plastic and $5 "Caution" tape. Furthermore, two days before the completion, I came home for lunch and saw plastic sheets with bits of lead paint covering the walk way to both my front door and side (kitchen door). My front porch was removed so one of the crew helped me step up into my house. When I came back home that evening I noticed they had left the plastic sheets where I had seen them and anyone walking into my house would have to walk on them to get inside, tracking lead paint, into the house. The next day when I left for work, I noticed a good amount of led paint debris on the concrete / street in front of my house. I glanced over to the left and saw that my neighbor's kids had drew on the ground using sidewalk chalk. This led paint was only a few feet from where the kids had drawn. I called the manager and asked him to have the crew clean it up. I also inquired about this $500 fee I had to pay when little to no precautions were taken. He told me they have pictures (from when one of the managers came out to do the critical measures) of lead paint chips in my yard and around the house and that it was probably being tracked in that way. Here are some of the other issues I had / with Champion: 1) They crew not tidying up after themselves most days, leaving cigarette butts in my yard, and obstructing the walkway to my front door with heavy boxes of siding. Note: The crew cleaned up the cigarette butts when the job ended. 2) The crew left dirt spots on several areas of the siding. I'm paying $14k for this job, the least you can do is leave me with clean siding. The manager came out and wiped the siding down. 3) A week before the siding installation, I had a new roof and gutters installed. The crew removed the gutters to install the siding and when they replaced them, they left black streaks on the underside of one of my gutters. I asked Champion to come over and remove the streaks. I have not received a response from them. UPDATE: 7/16/15: Champion send an employee out on 7/15/15 to remove the streaks from my gutters. 4) I contacted Champion requesting an executed "Release of All Lien Right by Lien Claimants" which by law, I have a right to, when I've fulfilled my financial obligation to any contractor working on my home. I sent the request on July 1, 2015 and have not heard back from Champion and have not received the document. UPDATE 7/16/15: Champion provided me with the Lien Release on 7/15/15. 5) A few days after they finished the job, I went into my garage and saw that Champion had left me a box of siding and a huge empty box. The crew must have asked my daughter open the garage door for them. I'll take the box of siding, I guess, but why not just get rid of the empty box instead of dumping it in my garage? Or a the very least, tear it down and put it in the recycling bin? UPDATE 7/16/15: Champion sent an employee to my home on 7/15/15 to remove the box. The employee discovered that it wasn't a box left by their crew. The box had a receipt in it from a purchase my daughter made. I apologized to the employee for my mistake. He graciously offered to remove the box for me. I really appreciated that. I love the way my house looks, the crew did a good job, but I wouldn't hire Champion again and I don't think I'll be recommending them to anyone. If I do, it'll be with a word of caution.

It went great. Very good. This is our second experience with them. They are attentive to our requirements. They are very accommodating.

It all went very well. They did a great job.

Our home was built in 1992 and in 2015 we decided it was time to replace the roof with something that would last well past the time my wife and I will probably live here. We plan to live in this house for years to come but when we don't we want our children to be able to live here or sell the house without worrying about the roof. That is why we were willing to pay more for a quality product. Some research I did indicated that the average roof replacement job in 2013 was $18,000. The bid we got from Champion was $22,000 for top of the line GAF products, the lifetime warranty (which also transfers to the next owner of our home), and what we expected to be a quality installation. We had hired Champion twice in the past to replace a patio door with French doors and to replace a large living room window. Both of these have been top quality products and the install process was perfect in those two cases. Given our experience and the quality of the products we wanted and were getting, we hired Champion to replace our roof. The work began within a few days of our signing the contract. Two odd things were immediately apparent. If you've had a roof replaced or watched a neighbor have the work done, you probably noticed the arrival of a large dumpster for the tear off material and a port-a-potty for the crew. We had neither. Our crew of two arrived each day with a large trailer for hauling materials and no port-a-potty. I really didn't care about the trailer being used rather than a large dumpster, but I was concerned about the absence of the port-a-potty. I was later told Champion used the trailer because customers often complain of damage to their driveways from the dumpsters. That's understandable but using the trailer was not without it own problems. The crew managed to gouge a large track in my lawn while backing the trailer into the driveway which Champion later had to repair. As for the port-a-potty? I was told the crew was simply using the bathroom of a gas station six blocks away. During the majority of the three days that the crew spent installing the roof after the tear-off, there was only one worker present. This man was on the roof well past dark with a head mounted flashlight. They had promised to finish the job by Friday of the week they started. They might have made it had two people worked the whole time. As it was, the sole worker "finished" on Friday after dark, but Champion had to return to our house three more times to actually finish the job. When I was able to visually inspect the roof the next morning, I noticed several concerns: ridge caps that were not fully installed (they were noticeably out of alignment with the shingles above and below them: shingles that extended well into my gutters; gutters that had not been cleaned of debris; nails and other debris in my lawn and gardens; and nails that extended through my eaves, splintering the wood. We called Champion immediately and were promised a quick response. A manager arrived Monday to look over the job. He fixed the issues with the ridge caps and the gutters and swept the lawn and gardens with a magnet to remove debris. As for the eaves, Champion initially said this wasn't a problem and that GAF required the use of 3/4 inch nails on their products and that using anything else would void the warranty. They showed us the GAF documents to that effect. We pointed out that in some places, nails 5 and 6 inches long had been used because they were clearly visible under the eaves. And even where the required 3/4 inch nails were used, they didn't always penetrate the decking, but where they did they left an unsightly mess of unpainted splintered wood that hadn't been there before the roof was replaced. We had made the usual deposit to get the work started but had not paid the remainder of the bill. After some back and forth, Champion agreed to snip off any nail ends that extended through the eaves and to remove the splintered wood and repaint the eaves in the color of our choice. With that, we agreed to complete our payment. To their credit Champion was at our home in just two days and did a test of the work in an inconspicuous area. We approved of the result and they returned the same week to get the rest of the job done. They did outstanding work: removing the protruding nail ends and splintered wood and painting the entire surface of all of the eaves. There was no spillage, drops, debris or mess left behind. The new roof looks great and so do the eaves. We've peeked under the eaves of some of our neighbors who have had new roofs installed in the last year (we've each used different contractors). They all show the same damage to the underside of the eaves as we experienced. If any of the roofing companies had explained that this might happen as they are bidding on a job, then we certainly would not have been in the position to get Champion to fix the problem. Full disclosure of possible issues is always the best approach. In the end, Champion installed a quality roof system with a great warranty and did everything we asked of them, including prompt and quality repair of damage caused by such a large job. They were well compensated for this work. That is why my wife and I are frustrated even after getting what we paid for and all concerns quickly addressed. We didn't expect surprises like this from Champion and when you add them up- damage to the lawn, damage to the eaves, the crew driving 6 blocks to a gas station when they needed a bathroom break, one guy working alone most of the time including well past dark, and leaving several things unfinished over a weekend (including the sweep for debris)- it is just more than we are comfortable with. Grading this job has been the hardest of any I've done on Angie's List. We have other windows and a door that we plan to upgrade. And right now we would not select Champion for these jobs. We feel bad about that because we really have no issues with the sales representative who we've worked with on the earlier jobs and on the roof. Perhaps in time our mood will mellow.

They were quick and good. I had a little problem with one window and they did that twice trying to fix it so they're very prompt. They were good. They were very prompt in their response when one of the windows leaked. They were good guys.

Good and bad. The good was a the windows looked really nice, very professional and I like them the way they are. They're responded and fine. There were six people who came on time. It's really unbelievable. They're all Spanish speaking people and I couldn't understand what they were saying with each other and they were suppose to come and do it in two days and this is the worst part, they were supposed to come and do it in two days and do some main job on the first day and then they would come the second day and finished up and cleaned up. They decided all of a sudden day they would do it in one day. They finished everything as much as they could and they get out all the materials and disappeared and left a horrible mess behind. I ended up picking up all these mess myself because I couldn't stand all of these. I would not use them again in the future.

They did the work very well. Their ability to project when the job would be done. They didn't do very well, they initially told us that they can't get the job done in one day and they didn't stop it the same way, they had other jobs, I think they wanted to get going as well so they ended up taking us three days. I would use them again in the future.

It went terrible. Everything you could imagine went wrong. Lack of communication was the most serious of all. It took 7 months from the time I ordered the doors to complete at my satisfaction. Many trips by technicians to resolve their issues. I ordered specific components upon initial order, and months later found that what was ordered is not even available. My door was chipped by installer and there was attempted repair that is not the same as original door. I just accepted the results and gave up after many visits by Champion installers. Will NEVER use them again. I am sorry that I may be a unique situation, but I have to tell the truth.

We are satisfied with the quality of the work they did but the unprofessionalism, lack of courtesy and communication and extreme frustration on the length of time it took from start (9/10/14) to finish (11/04/14-and it's not really finished since the gigantic dumpster and stinky outhouse are still in front of our house for unknown reasons) has left a bad taste in our mouths. I had to write a long letter to them and to the Regional Manager in Denver, CO with my list of complaints. My husband wants to report them to the Better Business Bureau and to tell everyone at Boeing not to use them.

Overall, Champion did a good job. The installers were quick, clean and efficient, and the product seems excellent. There are, however, a few things worth mentioning that made the experience less than perfect. The first time I had their sales rep (Andy) come out, I prefaced our conversation with the fact that even though I knew I needed new windows, I was currently only looking for estimates, and that I didn't have the funds to book the job at that time but that it would definitely happen later in the year. Nevertheless, after Andy gave me his sales pitch, he tried to get me to sign the deal (as he should - he's a sales guy). Again, I explained to him that I didn't have the funds to book the job right then, at which point he got quiet, paused for a moment, and then just started packing up his stuff to leave, as if I hurt his feelings or something. It made me feel pressured and guilty for rejecting his offer, even though I made it quite clear that nothing was getting signed that day. When the job was finally scheduled, I was getting almost daily calls from a fellow named Mark to make sure that the scheduled date was still good for me, which it was. Until the day before the installation, that is, when Mark called again to tell me that they were going to have to move the install date to the week after. Not a big deal - just kind of annoying to get repeated calls only to have the date rescheduled the day before. Also, one bit of finish work the installers did ended up looking pretty crappy. They needed to remove a mullion between two windows, which left a 2 inch gap at the top and bottom of the window trim inside the house. To fix it, they just jammed in a couple pieces of wood and haphazardly spackled over them, instead of fully replacing the trim, which is what I thought they would do. The replacement pieces of wood don't sit flush with the rest of the trim and look pretty shoddy. And finally, after the installation I was informed that the wrong pane of a three-pane window was made to be tempered. It was supposed to be the right pane, but they tempered the left pane by mistake. To their credit, I received a follow up call a few days after installation to set up a time to replace the non-tempered pane and was told that they would just leave the other tempered pane in place, so I get 2 for the price of one. They also promised to take a look at the poorly finished trim work mentioned above. Those are all fairly minor complains, however, and overall they did a really nice job that I'm very happy with.

Will keep this company in mind on future projects.