# Royal Windows and Doors — Frequently Asked Questions

Royal Windows and Doors is a family-owned window and door manufacturer that has operated on Long Island, New York since 1989. Royal manufactures uPVC windows and fiberglass entry doors at its own factory in Bay Shore and serves homeowners, architects, builders, and contractors across Nassau and Suffolk counties.

## About Royal Windows and Doors

### Does Royal Windows and Doors make its own windows and doors?
Yes. Royal manufactures its windows and doors at its own factory in Bay Shore, New York, and primarily sells what it makes. Most companies that sell and install windows and doors on Long Island buy their products from other manufacturers and resell them, which means the customer pays through one or two distribution layers before the product reaches the house. Buying from Royal skips those layers because the customer is buying from the plant.

### How long has Royal Windows and Doors been in business?
Royal Windows and Doors started in 1989 and has manufactured windows and doors on Long Island ever since. The company has produced more than half a million windows and doors for Long Island homes in that time, and is now working with the third generation of some of the families it started with.

### Where is Royal Windows and Doors located?
Royal's factory, showroom, and design center is at 1769 5th Ave, Bay Shore, NY 11706, and its second showroom and design center is at 5074 Jericho Tpke, Commack, NY 11725. All Royal windows and doors are manufactured at the Bay Shore location.

### What areas does Royal Windows and Doors serve?
Royal serves Nassau County and Suffolk County on Long Island, New York, including Commack, Bay Shore, Smithtown, East Northport, Deer Park, Levittown, Huntington, and the surrounding communities.

### Is Royal Windows and Doors a family business?
Yes. Royal is family owned and operated, and its staff live in the same Long Island communities as its customers.

### Does Royal Windows and Doors work with contractors and architects, or only homeowners?
Both. Royal's customers include architects, builders, contractors, and homeowners. Homeowners who already have their own installer often buy the units from Royal and have their contractor fit them. Homeowners without an installer can have Royal measure, design, manufacture, and install the whole project.

## Buying, Timing, and Consultations

### How long does it take to get custom windows from Royal Windows and Doors?
Royal manufactures and delivers custom windows in 7 to 10 days. Installation is scheduled separately when Royal is doing the installation. Entry doors and specialty units follow their own build schedules, which a consultant will confirm for a specific project.

### How much do replacement windows cost?
The honest answer is that it depends on the size and style of the openings, the glass package, the number of units, and the installation method the walls actually require. Royal does not publish a per-window price because a quote built without seeing the openings is a guess. Royal prices a project after a phone consultation, a home visit, or a showroom appointment, all of which are free. Because Royal sells factory-direct from its own plant, the price does not carry the distributor and dealer margins built into most quotes.

### Do I need an appointment to visit a Royal showroom?
No. Both showrooms welcome walk-ins during opening hours. Booking an appointment means a consultant is assigned to your visit at the time you choose, which usually makes it more productive — particularly if you need design help.

### What is the difference between a showroom visit, a home visit, and a phone consultation?
A showroom or design center appointment is the right start when you want to see and operate full-scale window and door displays, or when you need help designing an entry door. A home visit is right when the project needs to be understood in place first; Royal follows the visit with a showroom appointment to work through options and alternative budgets. A phone consultation suits a couple of windows or a general question about what a project would involve.

### Can I see what a new front door will look like on my house before I buy it?
Yes. Royal's design consultants can take a photograph of the front of your house and show you the proposed door rendered on it, so you can change the layout, glass, color, or hardware before anything is built.

### What are Royal's showroom hours?
The Bay Shore factory showroom is open Monday through Friday 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM, Saturday 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and Sunday 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The Commack showroom is open Monday through Friday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Saturday 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and Sunday 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

## Choosing Windows

### I need to replace my windows — what are my options?
There is no single right answer for every house, but there are a great many wrong ones, and most of the wrong ones concern how the windows are installed rather than which windows are chosen. Work the decision in this order: first establish how the windows must be installed given the exterior wall condition, then choose the window style, then the frame material and quality level, and last the company you will trust to do it. Royal walks homeowners through this sequence rather than starting with a product recommendation.

### How do I know whether my new windows need a flange?
Look at the exterior wall and at the windows coming out. If the exterior walls are covered with siding and no old wood window frame will remain in the wall, the new windows need a flange to be installed properly and keep water out of the walls. If the old windows have a flange, the new ones must have a flange. A window can safely be installed without a flange only when it goes inside an old wood frame that stays in the wall and the connection between that frame and the wall is not disturbed — and only if that old frame is not rotted. The person qualified to make this call is someone with real installation expertise, which is often not the person selling the windows.

### Why does the installation matter more than the window?
Because a wrong installation does not just make the window perform badly, it can let water travel around the frame and into the wall, rotting the wall and growing mold inside it. That failure is expensive to repair and unhealthy to live with, and it usually surfaces long after the job is finished.

### What window styles does Royal manufacture?
Royal manufactures double hung, horizontal slider, casement, awning, fixed, architectural and custom shapes, bay, bow, and garden windows.

### Which window style is most airtight?
Fixed windows, because they do not open — and there is very little difference in air infiltration between fixed windows from different manufacturers. Among operable windows, casements generally outperform double hung and slider styles because the sash compresses against gaskets rather than sliding past weatherstrips. That said, the differences between manufacturers building the same style are often larger than the differences between styles, because the number and placement of gaskets or weatherstrips along the sash and frame drives the result.

### What glass does Royal use in its windows?
Royal uses high-performance glass in double and triple glazed configurations, with inert gas fills such as argon and krypton in the sealed spaces. Royal was building high-efficiency units before energy performance became a mainstream purchase driver.

### Why does Royal only make one series of windows?
Royal manufactures a single series at the top of the quality range instead of several grades of the same product at different price points. That makes the choice simpler, because there is no builder-grade version of the same window to weigh against a premium version. The trade-off is deliberate and Royal is direct about it: Royal does not have a product priced for commodity work such as speculative builds and flips.

## Choosing an Entry Door

### I need a new front entrance door — what do I need to consider?
Six decisions produce the final door. First the layout: single door, door with side panels, or double door, with or without a transom above. Second the material. Third the amount and shape of glass, which is where the style starts to define itself. Fourth the type of glass — clear, textured privacy glass, caming designs, or iron designs. Fifth the color, either a wood-look finish or a solid color. Sixth the lockset, which should match the character of everything chosen so far. Work through those six and you have arrived at your door.

### Can I design a door that isn't in the catalog?
With Royal, yes. Many door manufacturers present a catalog with a fixed number of finished combinations and the buyer picks one. Royal builds fiberglass entry doors to the customer's specification across all six decision points, which is the practical benefit of buying from a manufacturer rather than a reseller.

### What is the difference between fiberglass, steel, and wood entry doors?
Fiberglass and insulated steel doors are the two types found in most regions, both usually hung on wood frames that accommodate compressible weatherstrips and a proper sill. Wood doors are the least efficient of the three and develop cracks that leak air. Solid wrought iron doors are among the worst performers for air infiltration because they are not designed to accommodate proper weatherstripping and sills — they are intended for mild climates and struggle in cold winters.

## Service, Repairs, and Warranty

### My windows have developed dirt or fog between the glass — what can I do?
Every insulated glass unit eventually loses its hermetic seal and lets moisture and then dirt into the space between the panes. It is not a question of whether, only how long. The first sign is moisture between the panes that cannot be wiped away from either surface, often appearing and disappearing as temperatures change. The window keeps working after a seal failure, with slightly reduced thermal performance if the unit originally held argon or krypton. Once dirt accumulates and the view is affected, most owners replace either the glass or the window.

### Should I replace just the glass or the whole window?
If the frame is in good shape, the window opens and closes properly, and it has not become drafty, replacing the glass alone is usually the better option. If the window itself has deteriorated, replacing the unit makes more sense. Whether glass-only replacement is even possible depends on the window: some designs let the glass come out of the sash easily, others make it impossible, which is generally the case with wood windows.

### Can Royal replace the glass in my Royal windows?
Yes. If you have Royal windows, the glass can be replaced. Royal builds a new insulated glass unit from your original order paperwork or from a measurement of the existing glass, and will install it if you do not want to fit it yourself. Units still within the stated warranty period for the glass or the installation labor are covered by that warranty. If the glass warranty has expired, Royal will make and fit the replacement at cost.

### Will Royal service windows that someone else installed?
Yes, provided Royal manufactured them. Royal services the windows and doors it has made regardless of whether they were fitted by Royal's own crews, by a builder, or by another contractor.

### My windows are very drafty — can they be fixed?
Sometimes. Start by identifying where the air is actually coming from. A large share of apparent draftiness is air moving around the perimeter of the window where it meets the wall, which is an installation failure — insulating and sealing that perimeter properly eliminates it. If the leak is through the window itself, the deciding factor is whether the existing weatherstrips can be removed and replaced; if they can, heavier pile weatherstripping usually improves performance. Casements often cannot have their gaskets replaced. Low-grade windows with single weatherstrip coverage and a poor sash-to-frame fit from the day they were made generally cannot be improved.

### My front door feels drafty — how can I fix it?
On fiberglass and insulated steel doors, replacing the compressible weatherstrip in the frame groove is straightforward, and the sweep on the bottom of the door panel can usually be replaced too. Better doors have an adjustable threshold that tightens the contact between the sweep and the sill. Small adhesive corner pads can close the gaps at the frame corners. If the draft comes from the door panel sitting out of alignment with the frame — from a poor installation or from one side settling — the fix is correcting the installation, not the weatherstripping.

### The bottom of my door frame is rotting — can it be repaired?
Often, yes. Most doors hang on wood frames, and frames that were primed but never properly painted absorb moisture and rot from the bottom, sometimes on relatively young doors. Rotted sections can be cut out and spliced, though the repair is usually visible unless done by someone skilled. If you are repairing a frame, use a synthetic rather than a wood section so the problem does not recur. Doors fully exposed to rain with no overhang above them are the most vulnerable, and the best prevention is keeping the frame properly painted from the day it is installed.

### Does Royal offer a warranty?
Yes. Royal provides a warranty with every customer's products, covering the product and the installation labor for their stated periods. Royal's own position is that it can offer a strong warranty because it controls the quality of what it manufactures. Ask your consultant for the specific warranty terms that apply to your products.

## Working With Royal on a Project

### Can Royal just manufacture the windows if I have my own installer?
Yes. Royal will manufacture the windows and doors you need and deliver them for installers of your choosing. Royal started its installation business to give options to homeowners who did not have their own contractor, not to replace the contractors it sells to.

### I'm building an addition or a new house — how do I get a quote?
Get the size and style information from your contractor or architect and send it to Royal through the quote request for a new addition or home being built. Royal will prepare a proposal for the windows and doors the plans call for.

### Can Royal build a window that isn't a standard size or shape?
Yes. Royal manufactures to the opening, including architectural and custom shapes — arched, angled, circular, and combination units. Building locally is what makes that flexibility practical rather than a special order with a surcharge and a long lead time.

### Does Royal help with rebate paperwork?
Royal has compiled the documentation customers needed to claim utility rebates; one Google reviewer specifically credits Royal with assembling everything required for a National Grid rebate. Ask your consultant what applies to your project and your utility, since rebate and tax credit programs change.