Whether you have double hung windows or a handcrafted bay window in your home, each Wallside product was created by local employees at our Taylor, Mich., Factory. It’s not a cookie-cutter window that was just sitting around in a storage area gathering dust; windows are made - by hand - by one of our skilled workers to custom fit your home.
A custom-made Wallside window starts off as a piece of vinyl that will be cut into sashes and then fashioned into frames.
And you can see for yourself, on a free tour of our Michigan factory. Tours can be scheduled in advance by calling Wallside. Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll find.
The day at Wallside starts at 5 a.m., when our Factory workers begin their shifts at our 72,000-square-foot site on Trolley Industrial Drive in Taylor. Most shifts last 8 and a half hours per day.
On a busy day, we’ll make up to 700 windows. Inside the workshop area, Wallside employees work in sync and are spread across several different areas. The sounds of high-tech welding machines and cutters pierce the air.
It begins with long pieces of vinyl that are cut into sashes, that then form a custom frame. A four-point welder fuses these pieces together, then the glass is dropped into the frame.
About 140 employees work at Wallside Windows’ Factory in Taylor. The shift starts bright and early at 5 a.m. and ends at 1:30 p.m. Public tours are available when scheduled in advance.
Even though The Factory is optimized for efficiency, it’s our highly skilled employees who craft these products – putting them together by hand each day.
When the windows come off the line here at The Factory, they are ready to be sorted for our delivery orders and are placed on carts. Signs bearing numbers or letters attached to the carts stand at the ready just outside Wallside Windows, waiting to be picked up.
Morning comes early. Around 6 a.m., 45 installation crews pack The Factory, looking over the jobs for the day before they fan out across Michigan and northern Ohio. It’s something to see.
And there is no reason to be concerned if you happen to have a style window that isn’t produced on a regular basis.
Perhaps the most interesting part of our Factory Tour gives a glimpse of the Parts Room. Adam Blanck, Wallside’s chief of staff and grandson of founder Martin Blanck, assures us that any part customers need is right there. The area houses all outdated parts - those that are no longer made for modern windows, as well as an old-style welding machine. It’s where Wallside employees patch up old-school windows. And it’s carefully organized. Imagine a library of vinyl window parts and you’ve got the idea.
Here in the Parts Room, Wallside stocks thousands of extra pieces. Bins and boxes hold parts of window styles that haven't been made in years. When you have a long warranty on your windows, you need to have a stockpile of parts like this.
Even when certain parts are retired, customers are covered. If your windows were made 15 years ago, in a style that isn’t constructed any more, chances are good the part to repair it lies in one of the scores of blue bins that fill this room. It’s the key to Wallside’s 35-year warranty.
The tour ends in the Wallside showroom - where you can view all the different types of windows and perhaps even learn a little bit of company trivia. Did you know that according to Urban Dictionary, Wallside Windows is credited with the term doorwall.
Formerly occupied by RCA, The Factory became Wallside Windows’s home in 1992. The company was originally located on Schaefer Road in Detroit. About 140 employees currently work at our Taylor factory - and Wallside Windows employs hundreds of contractors.
Want to check out the action for yourself? Set up your personal tour of The Factory today by calling 1-800-521-7800.
