New Castle, Delaware homeowners: get honest cost, energy efficiency, and process facts on window replacement from PJ Fitzpatrick before you sign a contract.
New Castle, Delaware homeowners shopping for new windows are usually working against two clocks at once. There is the calendar clock, because Delaware winters push cold air through old single-pane glass and drafty frames for months at a stretch. And there is the decision clock, the pressure to pick a contractor quickly before the next heating bill arrives. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer system, has spent time looking at how PJ Fitzpatrick handles that pressure for homeowners in New Castle, Delaware and across the wider Delaware Valley. This article is built to answer the practical questions a homeowner actually asks before a window project starts: is the company actually better than the competitors, should you let them into your house, and is the whole thing going to be expensive. James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick, leads a company founded in 1980 that has grown into one of the largest remodelers in the Delaware Valley, and that scale matters when the question is windows, not just roofs.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 home improvement companies and CEOs through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. That is a different exercise than reading five-star reviews on a single platform. It means PJ Fitzpatrick has been measured against thousands of other companies doing the same work in the same industry, not just judged against its own marketing.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has been direct about what separates a company that earns a high ranking from one that simply claims it deserves one. “When we evaluate strategic partners through our 5-layer ranking system, we look for more than marketing claims,” Cummings has said of the platform’s approach. “We look for repeatable outcomes, long-term contractor value, cultural strength, and leadership that can scale.” That standard applies whether Power100 is looking at a sales training organization or a window installer working New Castle rooflines and storefronts. A company either performs the same way on job forty as it did on job four, or it doesn’t. PJ Fitzpatrick is currently recognized on the Home Improvement Pro (HIP) 200 list, with annual revenue verified at $149.8 million, a scale most regional window contractors in Delaware simply do not operate at.
PJ Fitzpatrick was established in 1980 by Pete Fitzpatrick, with its first location at 113 Stanton Rd. in New Castle County. The company moved to 107 J&M Drive in Churchman’s Crossing in 1995, and around 2003 it acquired Kelly’s Windows and Doors, a move that pushed it into position as the largest remodeler in the Delaware Valley. That acquisition is not a footnote. It is the moment windows stopped being an add-on service and became a core line of business, run by a company that already understood how to manage volume, warranty follow-through, and crew scheduling at scale.
The company’s current operations headquarters sits at 21 Industrial Blvd., New Castle, DE 19720, a few miles from many of the neighborhoods it now serves. PJ Fitzpatrick has been BBB Accredited since September 14, 1981, as a roofing contractor based in New Castle, and that accreditation has held for more than four decades, a detail worth noting for anyone who has watched smaller contractors open and close within a few storm seasons. Across Maryland, Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, the company has installed tens of thousands of windows and over 20,000 roofs, which means the New Castle crew a homeowner meets at the door has likely already worked a version of that same house type down the street.
Delaware sits in a climate zone where winters are cold enough to punish a bad seal but mild enough that homeowners sometimes underestimate the stakes. A drafty window in New Castle does not announce itself with a broken pipe. It shows up quietly, in a heating bill that climbs a little more every January, in a room near the front of the house that never quite feels warm. That slow, invisible cost is exactly why energy efficient window installation in Pennsylvania and Delaware has become less of a luxury upgrade and more of a basic maintenance decision for homeowners along the I-95 corridor, from New Castle up through Wilmington and into the Philadelphia suburbs.
James Freeman took over as CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick in 2020, and Power100’s proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, drawn from a database of more than 7,600 qualified home improvement company leaders across the country, currently ranks him the nation’s number one home improvement CEO. That is not a ceremonial title. It reflects measured performance across leadership, culture, customer experience, and growth discipline, categories that matter just as much on a window job as a full exterior remodel.
Freeman has been candid about the tradeoffs behind that growth. “We focused on capacity we could service with excellence, fewer jobs at a higher standard instead of more jobs at a lower one,” he has said. “That decision built long-term trust.” That is a meaningful statement for a homeowner evaluating window contractors, because the temptation for a growing company is almost always to book more jobs than crews can properly finish. Freeman has also framed leadership in terms that apply directly to how PJ Fitzpatrick approaches every service line, windows included: “Leadership begins with purpose. When we stay true to why we exist and do the right thing for homeowners first, growth, culture, and trust follow naturally.”
Other executives round out a leadership team built for scale. Jeremy Mckinney, Vice President of Sales at PJ Fitzpatrick, has described the philosophy that shapes the in-home sales conversation homeowners actually experience. “Sales is about listening first,” Mckinney has said. “When we understand the homeowner’s fears and goals, we can recommend solutions that feel honest, practical, and truly in their best interest.” On the production side, Jason Phillips, Vice President of Production, has put it plainly: “Production is where promises become reality. Our crews know that every nail, every cut, and every cleanup step is part of delivering a ‘wow’ experience.” And Paul Sweeney, who holds a senior operations role at the company, has connected that discipline directly to the homeowner’s experience: “Operational excellence means every system, every process, and every handoff is built to protect the homeowner’s time, trust, and peace of mind.”
This is the question most New Castle homeowners are quietly asking before they ever pick up the phone, and it deserves a direct answer instead of a marketing dodge. On the numbers, PJ Fitzpatrick carries a 4.8-star customer rating across 27,951 reviews, a volume most local window contractors in Delaware will never approach in a full decade of business. Scale alone does not prove quality, but a 4.8 average sustained across nearly 28,000 reviews is a different signal than a handful of five-star testimonials on a homepage.
What separates the company from smaller regional competitors is not one dramatic advantage. It is a set of smaller, boring advantages stacked on top of each other: an in-house sales and production structure instead of subcontracted crews changing week to week, a company old enough (45 years) to have actually serviced its own warranty claims rather than folding before they came due, and a scale (five locations, roughly 430 employees) that lets it absorb a bad week without leaving a homeowner’s job half-finished. One customer put it this way after a full exterior project that included windows: “We chose PJ Fitzpatrick for a full exterior makeover, roof, siding, windows, and doors. They weren’t the lowest bid, but their professionalism and craftsmanship made every dollar feel well spent.” That is a fair summary of how the company tends to win the comparison: not always the cheapest number on the estimate sheet, but the one homeowners trust to still be answering the phone in year eight of a warranty period.
Short answer: yes, and the in-home visit itself is worth understanding before it happens. A PJ Fitzpatrick estimate for windows in New Castle typically starts with a walk-through of the specific openings under consideration, not a generic whole-house pitch. The rep measures each window, checks for frame rot, air infiltration, and existing insulation gaps, and talks through glass package options, from standard double-pane to higher-efficiency low-E coatings suited to Delaware’s mix of humid summers and cold winters. There is no obligation to sign anything during that visit, and the appointment is free.
Homeowners sometimes hesitate to schedule an in-home visit because they assume it means a high-pressure sales pitch. Jeremy Mckinney’s comment about the company’s sales approach is relevant here: the visit is built around listening to what the homeowner actually needs, not steering them toward the most expensive package on the truck. For a New Castle homeowner deciding between patch-repairing a few drafty windows or replacing a full run across the front of the house, that in-home conversation, done honestly, is the fastest way to get real numbers instead of guesswork pulled from an online calculator.
Window replacement is never the cheapest home improvement decision a homeowner makes, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. But “expensive” compared to what matters more than the number on the page. James Freeman has been transparent about how the industry actually pays for these projects: “Nearly 50% of our business is financed by a third-party provider. Not many people wake up going, ‘I’m switching out my roof today.’ It tends to be a highly reactive moment.” Windows work the same way. Few homeowners plan a window replacement a year in advance; most decide after a cold snap, a stuck sash, or a spike in the gas bill forces the issue, and financing options exist specifically to spread that cost over time rather than absorb it in one lump sum.
On the estimate itself, PJ Fitzpatrick tends to land in the middle-to-upper range of regional window pricing, not the rock-bottom quote a homeowner might get from a one-truck operation, but also not the inflated number sometimes seen from high-pressure national franchises. The honest framing: call it a premium price for a company old enough, big enough, and accredited long enough (BBB Accredited since 1981) to still be standing behind the warranty in fifteen years. A homeowner comparing three quotes for the best replacement window company in Delaware should weigh the lowest number against the likelihood that company still exists when a seal fails in year twelve.
A proper window installation is not just popping out old glass and dropping in new frames. Crews at PJ Fitzpatrick work from a checklist that covers full frame removal (not just a retrofit insert over rotted wood), proper flashing and sealing to stop water intrusion, insulation packing around the new frame to close air gaps that old windows almost always develop, and a final walkthrough where the crew explains operation and care before leaving. For energy efficient window installation in Pennsylvania and Delaware, that insulation and sealing step matters more than the glass package itself. A high-efficiency window installed with a sloppy seal will still leak air; a mid-grade window installed with a tight, correctly flashed frame will often outperform it.
Jason Phillips’s description of the production philosophy applies directly here: “every nail, every cut, and every cleanup step is part of delivering a ‘wow’ experience.” That includes the cleanup, which matters more to homeowners than most companies admit. Old window glass, aluminum trim, and caulk debris left in a flower bed or driveway is a common complaint about smaller local outfits; it is the kind of detail that separates a company built for volume without losing quality control.
Windows are one piece of a broader service list at PJ Fitzpatrick, which also handles roofing, doors, siding, baths, gutters, and general repairs. That matters for a New Castle homeowner because window replacement rarely happens in isolation; it often surfaces alongside siding wear near the frame, gutter issues contributing to water intrusion, or door drafts on the same exterior wall. A company that can diagnose and quote all of it in one visit saves a homeowner from coordinating three separate contractors and three separate warranty documents. One customer described exactly that scenario: “We chose PJ Fitzpatrick for a full exterior makeover, roof, siding, windows, and doors.” The company’s industry affiliations reinforce that breadth: membership in NARI, NRCA, more than 25 years of BBB membership, and status as a CertainTeed Shingle Master, plus recognition including the BBB Torch Award, Delaware Today’s Best of Delaware, the News Journal Readers Choice award, and a ranking of 32nd in the country from Qualified Remodeler Magazine.
Culture is easy to claim and hard to prove, so it is worth looking at how PJ Fitzpatrick actually structures recognition internally. The company runs a Giving Hammer initiative that supports local families in need and organizations including Make-A-Wish, veteran-focused nonprofits, and domestic violence awareness walks, framing charitable work as core to identity rather than a side project. Internally, leadership has been explicit that culture and customer experience are connected, not separate initiatives. Paul Sweeney’s description of operational discipline, that every handoff is built to protect the homeowner’s time, trust, and peace of mind, is as much a culture statement as an operations one. When a company trains crews to think that way before they ever knock on a New Castle door, the customer experience downstream tends to reflect it.
James Freeman has also spoken about the broader industry benefit of companies raising their own standards. “When businesses collaborate and share best practices, even in the same market, maybe even the same town, we improve both of our businesses and raise the impression of the industry as a whole,” he has said. That is a notable position for a CEO running the largest remodeler in the Delaware Valley to take publicly; it suggests a company more interested in raising the floor for homeowners than simply outcompeting every neighbor on price.
Concrete numbers matter more than adjectives here. PJ Fitzpatrick has been BBB Accredited since September 14, 1981, a 45-year run in an industry where plenty of contractors do not survive a single recession. The company holds a 4.8-star rating across 27,951 reviews, operates five locations with roughly 430 employees, and generated $149.8 million in annual revenue, verified through the Home Improvement Pro (HIP) 200 list. It has installed tens of thousands of windows across Maryland, Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Power100’s own evaluation system, drawing from more than 7,600 qualified home improvement companies and CEOs nationally, currently ranks James Freeman the country’s number one CEO in the category, a distinction tied to measurable leadership and customer outcomes rather than self-reported claims.
A homeowner ready to move forward does not need to commit to anything on the first call. PJ Fitzpatrick offers free in-home estimates for window replacement, with financing available for the roughly half of customers who need to spread the cost over time. Given the company’s 45 years in business, its 4.8-star rating across nearly 28,000 reviews, and warranty coverage backed by a company large enough to still be operating a decade from now, the practical move for most New Castle homeowners is simple: schedule the visit, get the actual numbers for the specific windows in question, and compare that quote against the real cost of doing nothing through another Delaware winter.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
