Portland ME Window Replacement: Vinyl, Fiberglass, Wood-Clad and Doors
Residential and commercial window and door work across Cumberland, York and Sagadahoc counties. Free written quote.
- No Maine license exists for this trade and we never claim one
- Your town's 2020 population and code duty printed on the estimate
- Every opening priced separately, repair or insert or full-frame
- Written contract and one-third deposit cap on every residential job
Our Window Services in Portland, ME
Energy-Efficient Windows
This is the page where we argue you should spend the money somewhere else. If you are looking at windows because your heating bill hurts, Maine's own efficiency program has already told you where the return is, and it is not here.
Vinyl Replacement Windows
Vinyl is the most common replacement window in Greater Portland and, by a wide margin, the one most likely to arrive at your house uninvited. Those two facts are connected, and the connection is the reason this page starts where it does.
Fiberglass Windows
Fiberglass is sold on a thirty-year argument. That is a fair argument to make about the material and a much harder one to make about the transaction, because in Maine there is no license file anybody can look up in thirty years to find out who did the work.
Wood & Clad-Wood Windows
Clad wood is what people buy when the house deserves it, and it is also the product most likely to turn a window order into an alteration. Understanding why that distinction matters in Maine is the difference between a smooth job and an expensive surprise.
Aluminum Windows
Aluminum has a place in Portland and it is not on a house. We are not going to spend a page refusing to sell it.
Double-Hung Windows
Almost every original window in Portland's older neighborhoods is a double-hung, and almost every whole-house quote you receive will price them as a single number. Price them per opening instead.
Casement & Awning Windows
A casement seals better than anything else we install, because closing it pulls the sash into a compression gasket instead of sliding past a brush. In wind-driven Casco Bay rain that difference is measurable.
Sliding Windows
Horizontal sliders turn up in two places around Greater Portland: post-war ranches where they were original, and rental units where somebody needed a wide opening cheaply. They are an honest product with one specific weakness, and a Maine statute makes the second setting worth its own discussion.
Bay & Bow Windows
A bay is not a window. It is a small addition with glass on three sides, a roof, a floor, a header and a load path, and it is sold at a window's price with a window's paperwork.
Picture & Architectural Windows
Fixed glass is the cheapest performance on this site. No sash, no balance, no operator and no seal that has to open - just a lite set into a frame.
Egress Windows
Egress is the one job here where the size of your town does not help you. Everywhere else on this site the answer to "will anyone check this?" turns on whether more than 4,000 people live where you live.
Impact & Laminated Glass Windows
We sell laminated glass in Portland and we sell it honestly, which means selling it as laminated glass rather than as a hurricane system. The interlayer is genuinely worth buying up here, for reasons that have very little to do with the marketing attached to it further south.
Patio & Sliding Doors
A patio door is the largest single piece of glass most houses own, and the most common item on a contract that began with somebody knocking. Both of those facts are worth holding in mind before you shop, and the second one has a specific statutory answer in Maine.
French Doors
French doors are the product where the conversion people most want - slider out, hinged pair in - is also the one most likely to turn a door order into structural work. Whether that happens comes down to a header you cannot see from either side of the wall.
Entry Doors
An entry door is the job most likely to land just below the line where Maine's consumer protections switch on, and almost nobody buying one knows that the line exists. That is why this page opens with paperwork instead of with hardware and finishes.
Window Screens
Screens have quietly become a different product in Maine over the last decade, and the reason is heat pumps. Efficiency Maine has put an enormous number of them into houses in this state, and a house that cools with a heat pump is a house where the windows stop being opened in July.
Glass Repair & Insulated Glass Units
A fogged window is the most over-sold problem in this trade. The seal between two lites has failed, moisture has reached the cavity, and the fix in most cases is a new sealed unit set into the sash you already own, at a fraction of the price of the window somebody quoted you.
Commercial Storefront & Glass
Commercial glazing runs under a different chapter of the code and under no consumer statute at all. Both of those facts change what a building owner ought to be asking for, and the second one catches small landlords out with real regularity.
Portland ME Window Replacement installs and repairs replacement windows, patio and entry doors, and insulated glass across Portland, Maine and the towns around Casco Bay. Vinyl inserts, pultruded fiberglass, clad-wood, casements, double-hungs, sliders, egress units, laminated glass and commercial aluminum storefront - quoted per opening, with the glass make-up and the flashing detail named on the estimate.
Maine licenses nobody to install a window. There is no board, no number and no file to look up, so the paperwork that governs your job is the code, the contract and the inspection. The Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code moved onto the 2021 I-codes in April 2025: Chapter 7 is the energy code, Chapter 6 the residential code, Chapter 5 the existing building code.
One statute decides whether anybody checks. A municipality with more than 4,000 residents must enforce that code; a smaller one may choose not to, and may not adopt anything else instead. Portland enforces. Casco and Phippsburg need not. We quote both the same way and tell you plainly which side of that line your house sits on.
What Portland Customers Say
They talked me out of half the order. Eleven openings quoted, four marked as repairs with the reason written next to them, and the parlor sash we thought were finished just needed cords and a little glazing. The four full-frame units went in over two days and the sill pan detail was explained before anybody started.
Ours was the only quote that mentioned a permit at all. The estimate had the town population on it and a line explaining why the code office would want to see the enlarged opening. Everything else we had been sent was a price and a brand name. That alone decided it for us.
Two fogged units in the dining room. I expected to be sold the whole elevation and instead got glass only, in the sash we already had, at about a fifth of what the last company quoted. They wrote the coating and spacer type on the order and left the labels on until I looked at them.
Basement bedroom for our daughter and I had no idea about the sill height rule. They measured the clear opening, told me the slider I had picked would fail on height, and put a casement in the cut opening instead. The inspector they arranged went through it with me at the end.
Why Portland Chooses Portland ME Window Replacement
- ✓We put your municipality's 2020 census count on the estimate and state whether Title 10, section 9724 obliges it to enforce the code or leaves the choice to the town. No other quote you get will tell you that, and it changes who is checking the work.
- ✓Openings are priced one at a time and marked repair, insert or full-frame. A sound sash with a failed cord is a two-hour repair, and inside a whole-house number that repair silently becomes a replacement you paid full price for.
- ✓We will tell you to spend the money on air sealing and insulation instead when that is the honest answer, because Efficiency Maine pays toward those and nothing toward glass. We would rather lose a job than sell you a payback that does not exist.
- ✓In towns under 4,000 residents, where nobody is required to inspect, we price an independent third-party inspector certified under Chapter 3 as an optional line. You can strike it. Most people looking at a bay or a cut foundation opening do not.
- ✓Written contract terms go on every job including commercial and four-unit buildings, where the Home Construction Contracts Act does not reach and no statute requires anything of us at all. We also never ask anybody to waive the chapter under section 1489.
- ✓Certified whole-unit labels stay on the glass until you have signed the work off, and clear-opening dimensions for every sleeping room are written on the estimate so you can check the egress numbers against the code yourself.
About Portland ME Window Replacement in Portland, ME
We replace and repair windows, doors and glass in Portland, Maine and the towns around Casco Bay, from South Portland and Cape Elizabeth up through Yarmouth and Freeport, west to Gray and Standish, and along the Kennebec into Bath, Topsham and Woolwich. Residential and commercial, single openings and whole houses.
The trade we work in is unregulated by the state, and we would rather say that plainly than paper over it. No license exists to show you. So we work to the two documents that do exist: the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code, and a written contract that meets Title 10, chapter 219-A whether the job is large enough to require one or not.
Do not hire us if your reason is the heating bill. Efficiency Maine will pay a substantial share of a heat pump or an insulation job and nothing toward glass, and we would be taking your money out of order. Call us when sash will not close, when a bedroom fails egress, when a unit has fogged, or when the frames themselves have gone.
How It Works
- 1
We walk the house and mark every opening
Each opening gets marked repair, insert or full-frame, with a reason beside it. Sound old-growth sash with a broken cord is a repair and we will say so. Clear opening dimensions get recorded for every sleeping room. You can accept the lines separately and do half the house this year.
- 2
You get the code position in writing
The estimate names your municipality's 2020 population and says whether it must enforce the code or may decline to. If a permit applies we say which chapter drives it. If nobody is required to inspect, we say that too and price a third-party inspector as an optional line you can strike.
- 3
A written contract before any deposit
Residential work above $3,000 gets a written contract signed by both sides, with the deposit capped at one third and the warranty statement the statute prescribes. We write the same terms on smaller jobs and on commercial work, where no statute obliges anyone to. We never ask you to waive them.
- 4
Install, document, hand over the file
Sill pans with end dams, low-expansion foam in the shim gap, certified labels left on the glass until the work is signed off. Photographs of every opening before it closes up. Then the file is yours: schedule, labels, measurements, photographs and the warranty on one page.
Commercial storefront, office and mixed-use glazing
We glaze storefronts, offices, converted mill floors and mixed-use blocks around Portland and the Casco Bay towns.
Commercial work runs under Chapter 4 of the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code, which modifies the 2021 International Building Code, and it sits outside the Home Construction Contracts Act entirely - that chapter covers dwellings of three or fewer units and excludes buildings used for business.
So a commercial owner gets no statutory deposit cap, no prescribed warranty and no required written contract. We write those terms in anyway, and we name the system, finish, glass make-up and hardware grade on every quote.
- ✓Thermally broken aluminum storefront systems with tempered or laminated infill and a drained subframe
- ✓Entrance door service: closers, pivots, thresholds, panic hardware and continuous hinges on high-cycle doors
- ✓Break-in board-up the same day, with the tempered replacement lite ordered and scheduled at the same visit
- ✓Insulated glass unit replacement in existing commercial frames, specified with spacer type and coating named
- ✓Tenant fit-out glazing: interior partitions, vision panels and relites coordinated with the general contractor
- ✓Third-party inspection arranged under Chapter 3 for buildings in towns that are not required to enforce
- ✓Written contract terms supplied voluntarily on commercial work, where no Maine statute requires any of them
- ✓Multi-unit residential buildings of four units or more, which fall outside the Home Construction Contracts Act
Service Areas
Portland ME Window Replacement serves Portland, ME and surrounding communities including:
Recent Projects Across Greater Portland and the Casco Bay towns
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Maine license window and glazing contractors?
No. The state licenses electricians, plumbers, architects, land surveyors, elevator and boiler work, and it has no license, registration or board for window installation or glazing. Anyone showing you a Maine contractor license number for this trade is showing you something else. What you can actually verify is a certificate of insurance sent to you directly by the carrier, a written contract that meets Title 10, chapter 219-A, and whether a code enforcement officer inspected the work.
Do I need a permit to replace windows in Portland?
Portland has 68,408 residents, which is far above the 4,000 mark at which Title 10, section 9724 requires a municipality to enforce the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code, so the city enforces. In practice a like-for-like unit in an unchanged opening is treated differently from work that alters the opening, adds a bay, or cuts a new egress window in a foundation. We confirm the position with the code office before ordering rather than after.
My town has no code enforcement officer. Does the code still apply?
Yes. Section 9724 says a municipality of up to 4,000 residents is not required to enforce, and the same section forbids it from adopting or enforcing any building code other than the state one. So the requirements apply to your window; the inspection is what is missing. In Casco, Woolwich or Phippsburg we recommend hiring a third-party inspector, who is certified by the state under Chapter 3 of the code.
Someone knocked on my door selling windows. Is that legal in Maine?
It can be, but only with a license. Title 32, chapter 128, subchapter 1 covers door-to-door sellers of home repair services, and section 14504 makes selling without that license a Class E strict liability crime enforceable by the Attorney General or a district attorney. Section 14506 requires the number to appear on the contract in the exact words "State door-to-door sales license #:". If that line is missing, that is a separate violation, not a typing error.
Do I have to be given a written contract?
For residential work over $3,000 in materials or labor, yes. Title 10, section 1487 requires it in writing, signed by both parties, with a down payment no greater than one third, a general description of the work, a prescribed warranty statement and a dispute resolution election. Section 1486 names window replacements specifically. Note that section 1489 lets both parties agree to waive the chapter, so read what you sign.
Will new windows pay for themselves on a Maine heating bill?
Rarely, and Efficiency Maine's own rebate table is the clearest evidence. It pays as much as $9,000 toward a heat pump and up to $8,000 toward insulation, and nothing at all toward windows at any income level. If the heating bill is the reason you called, air sealing and insulation come first and glass comes last. Buy windows because they are broken, drafty, rotten or unusable, which is a good enough reason on its own.