Only the finest solid woods are used; never finger jointed or other “engineered” products. Our primary choice of wood is Spanish cedar; a visually appealing wood known for its stability and longevity—classified by the U.S. Forest Service as highly resistant to decay. Spanish cedar is a deciduous tree (a hardwood) that grows from Mexico through Argentina, and is ideal for exterior architectural applications. Its appearance is very similar to mahogany, but with a wonderful fragrance of aromatic cedar – hence it’s name.
Traditional mortise and tenon joinery is used throughout our products; a method that has evolved over hundreds of years and provides the longest lasting and most durable joints for windows and doors.
Hardware choices are many, in fact – if you can find it, we can incorporate it into your project! Our advice will always be to choose hardware with the best possible properties of longevity and maintainability, balanced with energy performance considerations. Glazing choices are equally diverse, from using existing historic art glass pieces to high performance insulated units.
All of our materials and methods are selected with one goal in mind: longevity of the product. Customers routinely ask us to duplicate windows and doors that are well over 100 years old. For today’s building industry, it is the norm for products to have an engineered life span of 15 years. However, we, at Allied Millwork of Pittsburgh, pride ourselves on manufacturing products that surpass the industry’s expectations, and our clients have come to rely on us for producing products with paramount longevity. A note on design: although our products maintain a classic, historic look, they can meet modern energy standards.
We pride ourselves on our attention to the smallest details. If we feel that a particular product offers a significant benefit, we utilize it. This is done without regard to a slight increase in our manufacturing cost (something that larger companies will not do). You, the customer, benefit from this approach and we sleep better at night with the knowledge that we have supplied you with the best possible product!
