Detroit Window Pros: Replacement Windows, Patio Doors and Entry Doors
Expert residential and commercial window services. Measured quotes stating the glass area and the daylight rating of every opening.
- Michigan residential builder and maintenance and alteration contractor license
- Glass area and visible transmittance stated for every opening on the quote
- Net clear escape opening measured in every bedroom, whether you asked or not
- We quote the sealed unit before the window whenever the frame is sound
Our Window Services in Detroit, MI
Energy-Efficient Windows and Daylight Performance
Two numbers decide whether a replacement window is worth what it costs here. One is the whole-unit U-factor the code cares about.
Vinyl Insert and Full-Frame Windows
Vinyl is the honest default in a brick house. A welded vinyl insert needs no nailing fin and no wall opened up: it sets inside the wood frame already standing in the opening and seals to it.
Fiberglass Windows and Narrow Sightlines
The case for fiberglass in this housing stock is geometric before it is thermal. A pultruded lineal carries the same sash in a thinner section than vinyl needs, so in a fixed masonry hole you keep more glass.
Aluminum-Clad and Wood Windows
Clad wood is the right answer when the inside of the house is the reason. A brick house of this era has plaster returned into the opening, a wood stool and apron below it, and painted casing matching every other piece of trim in the room.
Thermally Broken Aluminum Windows
We will not sell you plain aluminum residential windows in Detroit, and it is worth saying that before anything else on this page. Aluminum conducts heat far better than the vinyl or wood beside it, and in this climate that is a defect rather than a feature.
Double-Hung Windows and Check-Rail Sightlines
The double-hung is the Detroit window. Nearly every pre-war house here was built with them, usually a wood box frame with counterweights hidden inside the jambs, and most replacement quotes assume you want the same thing back without ever asking the question.
Casement and Awning Windows for Egress
In this housing stock a casement is usually not an upgrade. It is the way to avoid cutting brick.
Sliding Windows and Where They Belong
A horizontal slider in a tall narrow Detroit opening is usually the wrong unit, and the reason is the one dimension the code is fussiest about. Sliding a sash sideways takes its bite out of your clear width rather than your clear height.
Bay and Bow Windows in Masonry Walls
Most bay window calls in Detroit are about one the house already has. The front bay on a brick bungalow or colonial is original, framed into the wall when the house was built, and the right work is nearly always repair rather than replacement.
Picture and Architectural Windows
A fixed lite is the cheapest daylight you can buy in this housing stock. No sash, no balances, no interlock, no meeting rail: just frame and glass.
Egress Windows and Basement Openings
Two things drive egress work in Detroit: a basement being finished into living space, and a bedroom whose existing window has never actually met the requirement. The second is far more common than people expect, and it costs nothing at all to check.
Laminated, Acoustic and Security Glass
You do not need hurricane windows in Detroit, and we would rather say so on this page than let somebody say otherwise in your kitchen. Wayne County is not in a wind-borne debris region, and nothing in the code here calls for impact-rated glazing on a house.
Patio Sliding Doors
A patio door in this housing stock almost never goes where a patio door was. It goes into a rear wall built with a window and a back door, or into an addition put on the kitchen in the sixties.
French Doors and Hinged Patio Doors
French doors are a room-size decision before they are a product decision. A pair of thirty-inch leaves needs five feet of clear floor to swing into, and rooms in a Detroit house from the thirties are not generous with five feet of anything.
Entry Doors and Vestibule Glazing
The darkest room in a Detroit brick house is usually the first one you walk into. Front vestibules and small foyers were built with one narrow sash or none at all, and the front door is the largest piece of glass those spaces are ever going to get.
Window Screens and Storm Sash
Screens are the one component on this list that makes a room darker, and almost nobody accounts for it. A standard mesh stretched over an opening takes a visible bite out of the light before any of it reaches the floor of the room.
Glass Repair and Insulated Unit Replacement
This is the page where we most often talk people out of a project. A cloudy window is not a broken window.
Commercial Storefront and Transom Glazing
Detroit's commercial fabric is mostly two-story brick blocks along the avenues, built between the wars with a shop below and flats or offices above. Their glazing has one thing in common, and it is the largest opportunity in the building type.
Detroit Window Pros installs replacement windows, patio doors and entry doors across Detroit and the inner-ring suburbs, in welded vinyl, pultruded fiberglass, aluminum-clad wood and thermally broken aluminum. We set insert and full-frame units into masonry openings, swap failed insulated glass, reglaze original sash and rescreen what is worth keeping.
The openings in this city are punched holes in brick. They are fixed in size and expensive to change, so the number that decides whether you like the result is not the price of the unit. It is how much of that hole stays glass, and how much daylight the glass passes. We compute glass area per opening, before and after, and we put visible transmittance on the quote next to the U-factor.
That produces recommendations other companies will not write down: fiberglass in the four openings you look through and welded vinyl everywhere else, a casement where a double-hung cannot reach the escape requirement, a sealed-unit swap instead of a window, and no impact package at all. Every quote states the specification opening by opening, so you can argue with the spec rather than the price.
What Detroit Customers Say
They were the only company that told us how much glass we would lose with an insert, and they wrote the numbers on the estimate. We went full-frame on the three front windows and inserts on the other eleven. The living room is noticeably brighter than it was, which is not what I expected from replacement windows.
Two other outfits quoted a whole house. These guys measured every bedroom, told us the back one already met the escape requirement, and swapped four fogged sealed units instead of four windows. Cost about a fifth of what we had budgeted. They also fixed the storm on the stair landing while they were here.
Our front bay had been leaking for years and everyone wanted to replace the whole thing. They pulled the trim, showed us the rotten seat framing, rebuilt it and reroofed the bay before setting the new units. Three seasons on and the plaster inside is still dry. Straight explanation the whole way through.
We wanted a bow window and they talked us out of it, which cost them money. They showed us that one wide picture unit in the same wall would pass more light for less, and they were right. They also templated the arched landing window on site instead of ordering a stock size. It fits perfectly.
Why Detroit Chooses Detroit Window Pros
- ✓We measure the daylight opening before and after, and both numbers go on the estimate. On a thirty-inch Detroit opening an insert costs you roughly a fifth of the glass; on a wide one it costs almost nothing, and only one of those is worth full-frame money.
- ✓Visible transmittance sits on the quote next to the U-factor. The code here caps how much heat a window may lose and sets no solar heat gain ceiling at all, so glass built for a cooling climate is a poor trade in a Detroit February.
- ✓Net clear opening is measured through the sash in every sleeping room in the house, including the ones nobody asked about. If a room already meets the requirement we write the number down, say so, and leave it alone.
- ✓Glass is specified by elevation rather than by package. South and east openings get higher transmittance and higher solar gain, the few west lites get something tighter, and alley-facing openings get laminated glass for security.
- ✓We write mixed specifications. Pultruded fiberglass in the four or five openings that make the rooms you live in, welded vinyl in the basement, the bath and the back hall, and one crew setting both in the same week.
- ✓We decline work we think is wrong: impact packages in a county with no wind-borne debris region, triple glazing sold as a sound answer, and replacement windows on sound sash whose only fault is a failed sealed unit.
About Detroit Window Pros in Detroit, MI
Detroit Window Pros works on the housing stock this city actually has. The Census Bureau's 2019-2023 American Community Survey puts the median year built for a Detroit housing unit at 1947, with roughly 115,000 units, better than a third of the stock, built in 1939 or earlier. That is a city of well-made brick houses carrying old components, which is a very different job from a city of new ones.
What that means for windows is that the opening is fixed. A punched hole in a brick wall cannot be made bigger without shoring, a new steel lintel and rebuilt returns, so the only real variables are how much of that hole stays glass and how much light the glass passes. We compute glass area per opening and put visible transmittance on the quote beside the U-factor, because in a small opening that number decides how the room feels.
When not to hire us. If your sash are sound behind a tight storm and the draft is at the casing, we will seal the perimeter and charge you for that instead of a house of windows. We decline impact packages in a county with no debris region, we will not sell triple glazing bought for sound, and we will not replace a window whose only fault is a failed sealed unit.
How It Works
- 1
Measure the daylight opening, not just the window
We measure the masonry opening, the existing frame and the visible glass inside it, then compute what the glass area becomes with an insert and with a full-frame unit. Both numbers go on the estimate. On a wide opening they are close enough to ignore. On a thirty-inch bedroom sash they are not, and that is the decision you are actually making.
- 2
Run the escape arithmetic in every bedroom
Net clear opening gets measured through the opened sash in every sleeping room in the house, including the rooms nobody asked about, and the numbers are written on the estimate. Where a room already meets the requirement we say so and leave it alone. Where it does not, you see the casement price and the masonry price side by side.
- 3
Specify glass by elevation, opening by opening
South and east openings get a higher-transmittance, higher-solar-gain coating, because in a heating climate that winter sun is free. The few west lites that bake in July get something tighter. Alley-facing and freeway-facing openings get laminated glass for security and sound. Nothing gets a coating chosen for a cooling climate it will never see.
- 4
Set to the masonry and seal to the masonry
There is no nailing fin and no weather barrier to lap in a brick wall, so the perimeter is a packed shim space and a tooled sealant joint against the reveal, with a back-dammed pan under anything with a sill. Where full-frame work disturbs a plaster return, the plaster repair is a line on the quote rather than a surprise.
Commercial storefront, transom and entrance glazing across Detroit
Our commercial work is mostly the two-story brick blocks along the avenues and around Eastern Market, with a shop below and flats or offices above. Nearly all of them were built with a band of transom glass over the display windows, and in most of them that band was boarded or drywalled over decades ago.
The structural opening is usually still there behind the panel, which makes reopening it the cheapest daylight available in the building type. Beyond that we do storefront framing, entrance doors and hardware, tempered replacements to field-measured sizes, and same-day board-up and reglazing for tenants who need the shop open tomorrow.
- ✓Blocked transom bands surveyed and reopened where the original opening survives
- ✓Center-set aluminum framing set on a subsill with end dams and weeped glazing pockets
- ✓Thermally broken sections specified as standard, because unbroken framing condenses here
- ✓Tempered and laminated lites wherever the code treats the location as hazardous
- ✓Entrance doors with heavy-duty stiles, offset pivots or continuous gear hinges
- ✓Closers sized for avenue wind and adjusted for accessible opening force
- ✓Field-measured daylight openings rather than glass ordered off a drawing
- ✓Same-day board-up and reglazing, with tempered stock ordered the same morning
Service Areas
Detroit Window Pros serves Detroit, MI and surrounding communities including:
Recent Projects Across Detroit and the inner-ring suburbs
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a permit to replace windows in Detroit?
Like-for-like replacement in an existing opening is generally straightforward, but anything that changes the size of the opening is a different matter. Cutting brick for a larger bedroom window, a basement egress opening or a patio door means a new lintel and structural work, and that is permitted and inspected. We tell you which category your job falls into before you sign anything, and we handle the filing when it applies.
Will new windows make my rooms darker?
They can, and almost nobody warns you. An insert unit sets inside your existing frame and gives up glass on all four sides, which on a narrow Detroit opening is a meaningful share of the daylight. Heavily coated glass gives up more, because visible transmittance drops as you stack low-E layers. We compute both effects per opening and print them, so any loss is a choice rather than a discovery.
My house is brick. Can you replace the windows without wrecking the plaster?
Yes, if we use insert units, because the original frame stays in the wall and the plaster return is never touched. Full-frame replacement is a different job: the old box frame comes out, which almost always disturbs the plaster returned into the masonry jamb. That means a plasterer and a painter. We price both routes so the real cost of each is visible before you choose.
Do I need impact or hurricane-rated windows in Michigan?
No. Wayne County is not in a wind-borne debris region and no code provision here requires impact-rated glazing on a house. Laminated glass is still worth buying on specific openings for sound along the freeway and rail corridors, for security at grade level, and for the ultraviolet blocking that comes with it. That is a per-opening decision, and it is much cheaper than a whole-house impact package.
Does a bedroom in my basement need an egress window?
If it is a sleeping room, yes. It needs an emergency escape and rescue opening of at least 5.7 square feet net clear, with 24 inches of clear height, 20 inches of clear width and a sill within 44 inches of the floor, plus a window well of at least nine square feet with a thirty-six-inch projection. If the room is a den or an office instead, the requirement does not apply.
Is it worth replacing windows that still have storm windows over them?
Not always, and we will look before we quote. Sound original sash behind a tight combination storm is doing more than people assume, and swapping that pair for a mediocre insert can be a downgrade. If the sash are sound, the honest work is often servicing the storm, re-puttying a lite or two and sealing the perimeter. If they are past it, we will say that too.