Replace the windows on a house once and you learn something no advert will tell you. Who you buy from matters every bit as much as what you buy.
Put two quotes side by side and the products can look nearly identical. What differs is everything around them: the buying, the fitting and the twenty years of living with the result afterwards, and most of that traces back to one decision made early on. Local firm or national chain.
Imperial Windows is a local firm, so you can see where this is going. The points below are the ones customers who have tried both keep making to us, and they’re worth putting to whoever you end up choosing.
The person who quotes you should be the one accountable
The national model tends to split the job between people who never meet. A salesperson comes out and disappears once the paperwork is signed. A surveyor arrives afterwards to check that what was sold is actually buildable. On fitting day a fitting crew (sometimes subcontracted) turns up, paid by the job and often booked back to back with the next one. Ring up with a problem in year three and whoever takes the call has never seen your house.
A smaller firm doesn’t have that structure to hide behind, and a decent one wouldn’t want it. Ask us for a quote and one of our own team comes out, measures up and gives you a fixed price in writing. The people who fit the windows work for us rather than being brought in for the week, so the same faces carry the job from the first visit through to the last piece of trim. If something needs attention later, those are the people who deal with it. That isn’t a policy statement. It’s what happens when you live and work in the same handful of towns as your customers.
Nobody needs a three hour sales presentation
Anyone who has sat through the full national routine knows the shape of it. The visit that outlasts the afternoon, the call to head office, the price that mysteriously drops if you sign tonight.
That pressure exists for a reason. The salesperson probably won’t get another crack at you, so everything rides on closing before they leave. A local business works the other way round, on repeat customers and on what gets said about it afterwards. Around here a name travels along garden fences and through village Facebook groups faster than any advert manages, and one pushy sale would cost far more than it ever brought in. So we give you a fair fixed price in writing and leave you to think about it for as long as you like. That isn’t high minded. It’s the only sensible way to run a business you’d like to still be running in twenty years.
Local knowledge shows up in the finished job
Surrey housing stock is a mixed bag in the best possible way. Victorian terraces, thirties semis, post war estates, barn conversions and new developments can all sit within a mile of one another, and each brings its own quirks of construction, proportion and, in a few areas, conservation requirements.
Someone who has worked these streets for years has almost certainly fitted windows into a house much like yours, quite possibly in your road. That turns into better advice about what will actually suit the property, and it shows in the details. Matching an original design so the replacements look as though they’ve always been there is the sort of thing our fitters have done again and again for people who wanted the benefits without changing the face of their home.
Ask who will still be trading in ten years
This industry has watched a lot of heavily advertised names restructure, rebrand or quietly disappear, which is worth remembering when you’re comparing promises about aftercare. Whatever a company commits to on paper only means something if the company is still there to answer the phone.
Imperial Windows has been working out of the same corner of Surrey since 1977, and customers who bought from us decades ago still get in touch when they’re ready for the next project. We’re FENSA and Certass registered, so certification and building regulations are handled properly on every installation rather than left for you to chase up.
The money stays nearby
There’s a quieter argument as well. Spending locally keeps the work, the wages and the aftercare in the area you live in rather than funding a television campaign. Nobody chooses their windows out of civic duty, but when the local option is also the better service, it’s a decent bonus.
How to test any of this for yourself
None of this means every local firm is good or every national one poor. The fair test is easy enough to run.
Get quotes from both, then compare more than the number at the bottom. Who came out? Who will actually be fitting them? What happens if there’s a problem in year six? How the quote is written and how long it stands. Ask directly whether the fitters are employed or subcontracted, and how long the company has traded under its current name. The answers usually make the decision for you. If you’re getting quotes for new windows, get in touch with Imperial Windows for a free quote.
