Weather Tight Corporation Inc.: Custom Installation for Better Home Repair Solutions

Weather Tight Corporation Inc. (Weather Tight) remains a family-owned and -operated company after over 26 years in the home remodeling business. Specializing in energy efficient exterior products for residential consumers, the Wisconsin-based company offers a one-of-a-kind installation method.

In 1986 Tod Colbert, founder and CEO of Weather Tight, began his dream of starting a reliable home improvement company out of his small Milwaukee apartment. “I was a one-man-band starting out,” recalls Colbert. The company opened its first small office in Brookfield, Wis., with just a handful of employees. In 1995, after early success, Weather Tight moved to Franklin, Wis., to allow for more staff and a larger sales team.

The development of new product lines, as well as enhanced marketing and sales capabilities required more physical space for expansion. In 2008, Weather Tight realized the team’s dream of moving into a custom-built 25,000-square-foot facility.

Weather Tight’s new facility is complete with a state-of-the-art showroom, call center, warehouse and offices. The year following Weather Tight’s relocation of headquarters in West Allis, Wis., the company opened its first satellite location in Brookfield, Wis. “We’re now the largest specialty contractor of its kind in the state,” shares Colbert. “Depending on the season, we employ somewhere between 80 to 100 people.”

Full-frame Installation

“We’re as much a marketing operation as a contracting company,” details Colbert. “We sell direct to the consumer, laser focused on replacement windows, entry doors, siding, roofing, gutters and gutter protection.”

Weather Tight specializes in high-end, top-of-the-line energy-efficient windows and unique installation methods. “Our competitors are also selling directly to consumers, but they’re not offering the unique installation methods we do,” shares Colbert. “Most competitors offer only a pocket installation, which makes for a retrofit that doesn’t do the job completely in most cases. We’ve pioneered the full-frame installation.”

According to Colbert, full-frame installation removes the window jamb, whereas a pocket installation fits a frame within a frame, thus losing precious glass area and leaving behind untouched potentially rotted material.

“Our full-frame method guarantees a more solid, airtight, long-lasting installation with new preassemble, prefinished custom interior moldings with a furniture-grade finish,” details Colbert. “In short, exactly what the company thinks a remodel should be: weather tight. We get down to the rough opening with a specialty product that is made to fit rough openings. Our supplier builds us custom-made, prefinished trim boxes that allow us to us replace the interior moldings that match our new custom-made windows. We can do a whole household in a day in most cases. We’re in and out of people’s ways very quickly, leaving behind an absolutely beautiful product.”

Weather Tight teams up with trusted vendors through long-standing relationships to acquire the products needed for the job. According to Colbert, a critical part of an excellent installation is the right product for the job.

“It’s important to us to manage these relationships,” shares Colbert. “We invest a lot of time training the sales team about products so you can’t really jump from one to another. We use the same vendor every time.” Weather Tight works closely with Sunrise Window and New North Trim.

Increasing Efficiency

A solid product and installation not only adds to the beauty of a pleasing finish, but also helps homeowners increase energy savings. Therefore, Weather Tight offers many ways to help reduce home energy loss. The company offers custom prefinished entry doors and windows with extremely high energy efficiency ratings as measured by the National Fenestration Rating Council’s U-Factor, which corresponds to a product’s resistance to heat loss.

According to Colbert, the lower the U-Factor, the better the window product performs. This means of measurement provides the consumer an objective way to compare a product’s performance against another’s.

In addition to U-Factor, all window products offered by Weather Tight are labeled with other certified ratings to help customers determine the product best fit for their home. “Solar Heat Gain Coefficient, for example, rates how much radiation a window lets in from natural light, helping to offset heating and cooling costs depending on season and geographic location,” explains Colbert. Air Infiltration refers to the amount of air that comes through cracks in windows; the lower the number the tighter the window is.

Weather Tight understands the advantage of saving a buck after enduring the Great Recession. In the past two years, the company fell from generating $12 million annually to approximately $8 million. “It’s definitely been tough,” admits Colbert. “We were staffed and functioning at a much larger level and had to find ways to downsize our operations. For example, we were selling and installing sunroom additions. Then that market completely collapsed for those products and we had to dismantle that product division and other product lines like that and find ways to consolidate.”

Despite a slew of economic problems, Colbert is optimistic about the company’s future. “We’d like to reach outside of Wisconsin,” shares Colbert. “I think we’re in for a period of big expansion. We’re definitely on our way back up again.”

The company has made great strides after a quarter-century in the home remodeling business, managing to overcome the economy and its competition. Weather Tight Corporation Inc. continues to be the go-to supplier for specialized products and custom installations that save homeowners time and money.