Austin Quality Windows installs commercial storefront glass in Austin, TX, and is a trusted Travis County glazing specialist, specializing in aluminum storefront framing, thermally broken curtain wall and tempered entrance lites. We offer laminated security glazing and insulating units with a low-E coating.
Our team provides spandrel panels and perimeter sealant work, delivering clean sightlines for retail tenants and weather-tight, code-ready facades for both residential and commercial projects. Our own crew surveys every existing opening before a number is written, and we install to shop drawings your architect approves and to the manufacturer's written instructions, then water-test the perimeter before we leave the elevation.
From the thermal break inside each aluminum mullion to a phased storefront change-out on an occupied ground floor, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin, Sunset Valley and Lakeway, we plan each phase so the doors stay open and the rent keeps coming in.
Why Austin Quality Windows
No handoffs between a salesperson, a measurer and a subcontracted crew. The crew that measures your openings installs the windows.
The first question on any commercial bid is which system the building actually carries, because the two are engineered for different jobs. A storefront system is a ground-level assembly of aluminum framing and glass set into an opening in the structure: the retail bay, the lobby, the entrance vestibule. A curtain wall is a non-structural exterior wall that hangs on the building frame and carries no load beyond its own weight, and it is designed to span multiple floors, which means it has to account for building sway, movement, and thermal expansion and contraction.
That difference drives everything downstream. A one-storey strip center facade is storefront work. A glass stair tower or a two-storey lobby that runs past a floor slab is curtain wall, and it is detailed, anchored and sealed as one.
Stick systems go up piece by piece, with vertical mullions between floors and the glass set in the field. Unitized systems arrive as factory-assembled panels, often already glazed, which moves labor into a controlled plant.
Mullions are the vertical framing members and transoms the horizontal ones, usually aluminum extrusions today. A spandrel panel of opaque glass, metal panel or stone veneer hides a slab or column so the elevation reads as one surface.
Commercial glazing is specified lite by lite, and each one answers to a different requirement.
US building codes require tempered or laminated safety glazing in several locations, including glass near doorways and stairways and large panes. Which lites on your elevation fall inside those locations is decided against the adopted code and shown on the shop drawings before any glass is ordered.
One detail property managers rarely hear until afterwards: metallic low-E coatings can block radio signals, and a building with no distributed antenna system may lose cell reception behind a new low-E facade. It belongs in the specification conversation, not in a tenant complaint.
Every bid starts on site. We walk the building, measure the existing openings, note the condition of the framing and the sealant joints, and record which bays are occupied and when. On a renovation, the survey is the document the rest of the job is built from, and on an older storefront it is where out-of-square openings and past water damage at the sill turn up.
From the survey we prepare the submittal package: product data for the framing system and each glass type, the glass makeup lite by lite, finish and color, and shop drawings showing elevations, sections, anchorage and the perimeter joint. Your architect or engineer reviews them. We build to the approved drawings rather than re-designing the facade, and a change after approval goes back through the same review.
Where new framing meets the existing structure, the perimeter joint is the line between a dry building and a leak. Taking out old sealant and replacing it takes meticulous surface preparation and proper detailing, and poor firestopping at slab edges on multi-storey glazing is a known route for water damage and mold. The joint is drawn on the shop drawings, not improvised on the lift.
A building that needs new storefront glass often cannot close while it goes in. A restaurant, a medical office or a retail tenant needs the door working at opening time, so the job is broken into phases that each open, glaze and close a defined run of the facade. On a curtain wall renovation, the choice between stick-built and unitized usually follows the same constraints: the access you have, the size of the openings and how much of the facade can be open at once.
The phasing plan goes in writing with the bid, so a GC can drop it into the master schedule and a property manager can send tenants a date before the first lite comes out.
A commercial scope carries requirements a house never sees, and the bid should say which ones apply.
Under the TDLR architectural barriers program, projects with costs of $50,000 or more are registered and their construction documents reviewed by a Registered Accessibility Specialist before inspection. Smaller projects must still meet the Texas Accessibility Standards.
From January 1, 2026, Travis County Code Chapter 201 adopts the 2021 International Fire Code for unincorporated Travis County and requires a building permit there for commercial establishments, public buildings and larger multifamily buildings.
Inside Austin's wildland-urban interface zones, alteration and repair work follows the WUI Code, and in the zone closest to wildland, window glass must be tempered, dual-pane, glass block or 20-minute fire rated.
On a storefront job, the accessibility scope usually lands on the entrance: the door hardware, the clear opening and the threshold. We tell you at the survey whether the project is likely to cross the TDLR registration threshold, and the registration itself sits with the owner's design team.
Outside city limits, the county permit covers construction or substantial improvement, and its multifamily line starts at buildings of more than three units, so a retail, office or apartment building beyond a city's limits is checked against it. Inside Austin, a building on a greenbelt edge is checked against the WUI map before the glass is specified. Codes change, so every one of these is checked against the current rule at the time of the bid.
We do not publish a price for commercial work, because no two facades share a scope. These are the variables that move a bid, and each one is settled at the survey and in the drawings.
The bid comes after the survey, itemized by phase, with the glass package and framing system named so it can be compared line for line.
Send us the address, the elevations or photos you have, and whether the building is occupied. We will set a survey, walk it with your property manager or superintendent, and return a scope, a phasing plan and a bid. Call to book the survey; we take bids by phone.
The process
Four steps, and nothing is ordered until you have signed off on the drawings and the price.
We measure every opening, check the framing and the header, and talk through glass, frame material and how each window should operate.
You get drawings of every unit for your approval and for any HOA or historic review, with one written price.
Units are ordered to the approved sizes and glass package, and checked against the drawings when they arrive.
Old units out, openings flashed, new units set, sealed and water tested, then trim and cleanup.
Questions
The system type, the glass makeup, framing and finish, the size and number of openings, phasing around tenants, access, and the condition of what is coming out. We price after the survey, never from a photo, and the bid is itemized by phase.
Yes. The job is broken into phases that each open, glaze and close a defined run of the facade, with entrances sequenced so there is always a way in. The phasing plan is written into the bid.
Yes. We survey the openings, then submit product data and shop drawings for review and build to the approved set. We do not re-design the facade, and any change after approval goes back through review.
US building codes require safety glazing in several locations, including glass near doorways and stairways and large panes. The lites on your elevation that fall in those locations are identified against the adopted code and marked on the shop drawings.
Projects with costs at or above the TDLR threshold must be registered and reviewed by a Registered Accessibility Specialist, and smaller ones must still meet the Texas Accessibility Standards. We flag it at the survey; the owner's design team files it.
It depends on the framing system and the glass makeup, since each is fabricated to size. We give you the date in writing with the bid, and the phasing plan is built around it.
A failed insulating unit or a single broken lite can often be reglazed in the existing frame. Framing that leaks at the perimeter, has no thermal break or no longer meets the code for its location is usually the case for a new system. The survey tells you which.
Yes, across Travis County, including Sunset Valley, Lakeway and West Lake Hills. In unincorporated Travis County a commercial building is checked against the county fire code, and inside a city it follows that city's adopted codes.
Yes, the work carries a written warranty, and the framing and glass carry their manufacturers' own. The terms are set out in writing with the bid.
Free in-home measure across Austin and the west side. We call you back to set a time.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
