By Michelle Price
Special to the UCBJ
COOKEVILLE – Window Depot Cookeville, located at 520 S. Willow Ave., held its official ribbon cutting today with the Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce and will celebrate its grand opening on Saturday, July 23 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m with Chick-fil-a lunch, a money machine and the Country Giant 94.7 doing a remote.
Window Depot started in Ohio. It is the second largest remodel company in the nation. The company specializes in replacement windows, doors, siding, roofs and gutters. They do offer their products to builders for new construction; however, 90% of their business in the remodeling sector. Interior design services will also be offered.
Window Depot is a local-owned, family business. The Nashville franchise was originally started by Dale who built the business by going door-to-door selling its services. When Dale’s wife, Erika became ill, her son Dustin Atchley assumed the responsibility of running the business, which he purchased soon after her death.
Opening a location in Cookeville just made sense for Atchley who brought in Bradley Mitchell, Project Manager for Cookeville. The two were friends in college and both graduated from Tennessee Tech in 2013.
The Cookeville Showroom is running into the supply issues felt by many others. It currently has window samples and will offer samples of all materials as soon as the supply chain allows.
Atchley hopes to make a big impact on the local construction market.
“We are going to try to change the market here with builders, like we have done in Nashville, and get them using a higher quality window,” Atchley said. “We try to steer them away from ‘builders grade’ because you can get a high-quality new construction window that is the same as replacement windows for about $30 more per window. Then you have a 30-year warranty with them.”
Builders will be glad to know that for white windows are available in six weeks. Colors, such as architectural bronze, brown, black, green, whatever color you want will still be 12-16 weeks. Windows can be ordered six months ahead of time, and Window Depot will store them until needed.
Service is key to the success of Window Depot.
“All installers are in-house labor, not sub-contractors,” said Atchley. “The people that come into your house will be people that we’ve known and trusted forever. We’re not subbing that out to just whomever.”
“The reason that is important is from a service standpoint,” said Dale. “If you are subbing something out and something goes wrong, it can be six to eight months before you get someone back over there. With our crews being in-house, we can call them and say, ‘We want you over there tomorrow,’ and they will be over there tomorrow.”
The company consists of three stores, Window Depot Cookeville, Window Depot Nashville and Window Depot Crossville, serving all of Middle Tennessee. Dale, who is moving to east Tennessee to take care of his aging mother, will soon open another location, Window Depot Knoxville, located near Turkey Creek.
“It’s been good to be back in Cookeville,” Atchley said. “We all graduated from Tennessee Tech in 2013. I loved it here and didn’t want to leave but job opportunities took me away. Now we’re back.”
Atchley and his family live in Tullahoma, but he says that he is in Cookeville 1-2 times each week. Mitchell and his wife live in Cookeville.
Store hours will be Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 931-265-6893.