South Coast Home Solutions
Beauty From the Outside In
Story by Sandra McClintock

"You only have one chance to make a good first impression." Whoever coined that phrase knew what they were talking about.

It's especially true when it comes to the impression your home makes when someone opens your gate or starts up your walkway. If your home doesn't give the kind of first impression you'd like, South Coast Home Solutions can help.

South Coast Home Solutions has everything you'll ever need for the exterior of your home. Even more important, they've got excellent service and reasonable prices to go with it.

Dave Palmer, owner of South Coast Home Solutions, makes sure his clients are satisfied with their products, installation and pre- and post-service. That's why he's been doing business successfully in Orange County for the past 13 years.

Palmer explains, "Since South Coast was first established in 1993, it has grown from a two-person operation to its current size of more than 60 employees. Our sales have grown from one client to more than 15,000 satisfied customers. Seventy-five percent of that growth is from previous customers and referrals."

That kind of steady growth has been due to good management, good products and great service. South Coast has an extremely low employee turnover rate and employs its own installers and service people. Nothing is contracted out, in contrast to many other suppliers.

The company's list of products includes garage and entry doors, windows and patio doors, vinyl shutters, vinyl siding, and exterior coating. Here's a brief description of what South Coast can supply for the exterior of your home. Garage door sagging? South Coast has wood, vinyl, and steel doors in both custom and stock varieties. They're HOA specialists too, important if you live in a condominium and need approval from your homeowners' association to install a new door.

Exterior paint or stucco looking sad? South Coast can install either vinyl siding that never needs painting or a permanent coating material to make your house look new again. Permanent coating is water resistant, keeping moisture out of your walls and the heat in. It can cover both wood and stucco to enhance the beauty and value of your home.

Windows and doors, the portals from the outside world into your home, are probably the most important exterior elements of any structure. Palmer learned, through experience with thousands of homeowners, what they wanted in their windows and doors. He then put all those elements together and has them made to order under his own brand, "Palmer Windows."

Since I'm in the process of evaluating the kind of windows to buy for my own home, I was grateful for Palmer's explanation of the important points to look for when replacing doors and windows.

"Most window installers use a retrofit technique. They leave the old frame intact and insert the new frame over it, then add a bead of caulking. This would work if all houses were exactly plumb, but it leaves gaps due to structural irregularities, movement and shifting, and you can end up with windows and doors that leak.

"We use a 'block' frame and fill it with foam to seal the void space. Then we take vinyl-coated aluminum, cut it and custom-form it to your windows. This seals both the window and the wall to account for any variations caused by out-of-plumb elements and shifting. It actually makes the windows look as if they were built right into the house instead of looking like typical replacement windows."

Since I live in a part of Orange County where earth movement is common, this is exactly what I've experienced. If this is an important element in your search for new windows.

It's worth a trip to South Coast Home Solutions to see a demonstration of their installation technique and samples of their products. They have actual "before and after" displays, not just photos of them, as well as the latest technologies available, such as self-cleaning windows.

If you're tired of washing windows, Palmer self-cleaning windows are the solution. Made with SunCleanTM glass from PPG, they feature a permanent self-cleaning exterior surface achieved through molecular fusion when the glass is in liquid state. The surface reacts to the sun's ultraviolet rays, even on overcast days. This process causes decomposition of organic materials that commonly adhere to windows. Just spray them with water, and dirt is simply flushed away.

When asked what separated South Coast from other companies, Palmer didn't hesitate. He immediately explained, "It's our passion to fulfill dreams and create beautiful lifelong experiences for all of our customers, as well as our team here at the company. How we treat our customers is what separates us from the rest of the people in our industry."

South Coast Home Solutions
9301 Irvine Blvd.,
Irvine, CA 92618 800.518.3925
www.nopaint.com

(SouthCoast Magazine Fall 2005)