Replacing a storefront is not one job. It is a survey, a demolition, a framing installation, a glazing operation and a hardware fit, and each one can be the thing that complicates the others.
Survey and takeoff
The opening gets measured as built — head, center, sill, both diagonals. On an older building this frequently reveals that the opening is not square, and by how much. That number shapes everything downstream.
Removing what is there
Existing glass comes out first, then stops, then framing and anchors. On older frontage this is where surprises live: a filled transom, a notched lintel, an earlier storefront left in place and framed over, or anchoring into something that will not take a new fixing. A contractor who has allowed for none of that will be back asking for more money.
Framing
New framing is set, shimmed plumb and square, anchored into sound structure, and sealed at the perimeter. Shimming is what reconciles a straight frame with a crooked opening, and it is the difference between a front that seals and one that leaks in the first storm.
Glazing
Glass is set on setting blocks at the quarter points, so the weight of the pane is carried at specific spots rather than resting on the aluminum. Stops and gaskets go back and the glazing joint is sealed. Done properly, this is what a future reglaze depends on.
Entrances
Doors are hung, then the closer, pivots or hinges, threshold, weatherstrip and locking hardware are fitted and adjusted with the door under its own weight. Panic and exit hardware, where the door is on a required egress path, has to release in a single motion without a key.
Handover
Every door operated, every seal checked, site cleared. Fragments of tempered glass travel further than people expect, so a proper clear-down matters more than it sounds.
What drives the cost
Four things, roughly in order. Glass make-up — laminated and insulating units cost multiples of clear tempered. Opening size, because larger panes get heavier and harder to handle disproportionately fast. Access, since anything needing lift equipment or a street closure adds cost unrelated to the glass. And hardware, where the difference between a basic closer and a heavy-duty specification is real but repays itself in avoided callouts.
What does not drive it much: the aluminum itself. If two quotes differ substantially, the difference is almost always in the glass specification or in what has been allowed for on the demolition.
