Unishield Plus - Polaris - PPG - Is it worth it?

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This is for my parents home so I’m a very cautious about spending their money. What are your opinions on the unishield plus? This is a 1200sqft home with a full basement built in the early 50’s with aluminum siding, plaster walls and no insulation. At today’s rates they pay about $1500 in natural gas per year. Less than one mile form Lake Erie in Ohio. Everyone is saying you’ll save about 34% on energy per year.

Does this seem like a good deal on a quality window or should I keep looking? Is Argon overkill for the type of home it’s going into?

Universal windows direct
Unishield Plus
Glass by PPG (Pittsburg)
Assembled by Polaris
Lifetime warranty on windows and installation.
U-factor .25
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient .47
Visible Light Transmission 79.2%
R-value 4.00
Foam filled main frame
Colonial grid
Super spacer
Full screen
Dual pane double hung
Argon filled
Removal of single pane aluminum windows
I believe he said 7/8 thick glass if that makes sense. An upgrade from the 5/8 on the regular unishield.

EDIT Their online brochure does have a different set of numbers. (http://www.universalwindowsdirect.com/i ... sal8pg.pdf page 5)
U-factor .25
Solar Heat Gain .48
Visible light trans .72
UV .16
R-Value 4.00


2)- 35 ½” “x 36”
1)- 25” x 37 ½”
4)- 40” x 52”
1)- 23 ¾” x 37”
3)- 96” x 53 ½”

$5680 on 11 windows (and then tax credit next year)
(without foam filled frame, grid, superspace, full screen it’s about $4680)

“has all the great benefits of UniShield, plus it adds low-E stacked and argon filling for reduced heating and cooling bills and better solar control”
-he also mentioned that in this window that Argon is filled to 90% whereas others might be 60%... or something to that affect.
-we did talk about argon starting to leak after 3yrs at about 1%. I also asked about the difficulty a customer might have on trying to make warranty claim on argon leaking etc.

Also received quotes on
Excalibur (without all of the extra’s grid, full screen, etc this was within $500)
Seaway – encore – comparable price but not impressed with salesman or warranty
Softlite – used a used car tactic on me and I wasn’t impressed with his 2:30hr presentation. After slashing his prices twice it was $6000 with the same features.

what are your thoughts?