GLASSHUS SUPPLIES TECHNAL MX STRUCTURAL GLAZING FOR SUNDERLAND COLLEGE CONTRACT

The development of a brand new college campus in the North-east has seen a leading fabricator for the Technal brand – part of the Sapa Group – design, manufacture and install a major glazing package, which included a double-storey façade featuring the use of the MX SG structural glazing system.

The flagship campus for Sunderland College was completed by BAM Construction in time for the start of the current academic year, with locally based Glasshus Ltd being the specialist fabricator involved. Such has been the success of the relationship established during the project that Glasshus Ltd has gone on to be awarded three further contracts with BAM, involving other education sector schemes.

Simon Tuckwell of Glasshus commented: “This was our first project for BAM Construction, won in competitive tender, based on the use of Technal systems for which we are a dedicated dealer covering the whole of the country. Not only was the site a restricted access one in a tight urban location, but also involved a demanding programme. It has, though been a real success and led to other significant contracts.

“There were a number of Technal FY Top Hung Open Out windows produced for the link bridge, as well as a variety of PY door types supplied, but the main part of the package involved use of the MX structural glazing for the curtain wall; all designed in house by ourselves to meet the aesthetic challenges of the original design. It is in effect a dual height, three-sided shaped screen, some 40 metres in width.”

Based at its Gateshead office, BAM’s Design Manager, Mark Farnell, confirmed the growing interaction with Glasshus and its Technal system solutions. He said: “This was the first time that Glasshus had worked for us, though since the successful completion of the Sunderland College contract, they have won three more jobs including a student accommodation building in Newcastle and a school in Sheffield.”

With the design for the building targeting the higher levels of BREEAM, energy performance was a key issue in the specification of the MX SG screen, involving the selection of special IG units. These featured an argon filled 18 mm cavity, with a 12.8mm laminated inner leaf and a 6mm toughened outer: offering a centre pane U-value of 1.1 W/m² K.

The PY 55 doors produced for the project included both automatic sliders and side hung sets for access compliant with the equality act, as well as some manual opening doorsets. In common with the top hung FY 65 windows, the frame elements were all finished in a RAL 7036 light grey polyester powder coat.

The new £29 million City Campus has been constructed on land opposite Park Lane Interchange and provides space for 2,000 students to undertake a range of courses including engineering, manufacturing and construction, as well as having facilities open to the public such as a restaurant, hairdressers, barbers, spa and a travel agency.

Funding for the high-tech campus came from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), Sunderland City Council and college reserves, while land was secured from the HCA, which worked with all the partners to ensure delivery of the new campus.

“The new City Campus building houses state- of-the-art teaching and learning spaces and is playing a pivotal role in the regeneration of the city centre. We’re therefore delighted to have worked with Sunderland College again on this exciting new development,” Andrew Warwick, Construction Director for BAM concluded.

Technal is part of the Sapa Group, a world leader in aluminium solutions that also encompasses sister brands Sapa Building System and Wicona. Through its globally renowned Sapa Technology Hubs, the Group is shaping a sustainable future, with innovative products that satisfy and surpass customer expectations, in line with demands of CSR and increasing environmental regulations.

The installation of a beautiful bespoke door from Apeer was recently completed by experienced installers Joe Roche Glass & Glazing at a property local to their showroom in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, Ireland.

The family run company, who have been in business with Apeer and installing their products for over 15 years, said that this was the most personalised Apeer design that they have ever worked with, as Director Joe Roche explained:

‘The development process took around 6 weeks in total with much discussion taking place on each aspect of the design to help get every detail just right. Apeer have an in-house spraying facility so were able to offer a beautiful bespoke RAL colour which really complemented the door’s orchid themed glass design. The glass was also a tailor-made feature created by Apeer’s in-house glass team at the client’s request.

‘The customer was over the moon with the final result, telling us that for the first time in their life they had been able to get exactly what they wanted! As all of our business is generated by word of mouth it was lovely to receive such a positive response and know that we have another happy customer spreading our word. It goes to show that even the largest manufacturers focused on mass production can still be just as capable of producing high quality bespoke designs.’

Joe added: ‘Apeer already offer an impressive number of off the shelf designs – we have over 20 of them here in our showroom – but still equally accommodate those customers who want something more personalised. This coupled with the outstanding insulation values provided by their solid foam core design is what makes them so popular, in my opinion.’

Joe Roche Glass & Glazing is a well-established company operating in and around Dungarvan, Co.Waterford with 35 years of experience in the window and door industry. For more information visit: www.joeroche.ie

Local taxpayers will be forced to spend £1 billion covering the cost of planning applications by 2022, the Local Government Association warns today.

Planning fees are set nationally, which means councils are prevented from recovering the full cost of processing the 486,500 planning applications they receive on average each year.

Since 2012 – the last time the national fees were increased – communities have footed the bill for as much as a third of all planning applications. This represents desperately-needed resources being diverted away from other vital local services.

Analysis by the LGA reveals the bill for local taxpayers to cover the cost of planning applications is growing at a rate of around £200 million a year and will reach £1 billion by 2022. This is the equivalent of:

·         Repairing 4.35 million potholes – potholes cost £46 to repair, on average.

·         Providing grant funding to help councils and housing associations provide 8,507 new affordable homes. The Homes and Communities Agency, on the last round of funding allocation through the Affordable Homes Programme, issued an average grant per home of £23,510.

·         Creating more than 828 miles of public pavements, almost 4 times the length of the M6 – footways are estimated to cost around £150 per meter.

The LGA is warning this ongoing fees shortfall is hampering planning departments’ ability to stimulate housing growth in communities.

With councils facing an overall £5.8 billion funding gap by 2020, the LGA is calling on government to urgently bring forward its Housing White Paper commitment, to allow councils to increase planning fees, and also commit to testing a fair and transparent scheme of local fee setting, to allow councils to recover actual costs.

Cllr Martin Tett, LGA Housing spokesman, said:

“It is wrong for communities to keep being forced to spend hundreds of millions each year to cover the cost of all planning applications.

“Councils are working flat-out to approve almost nine in ten planning applications, with the majority processed quickly.

“But the shortfall in the amount of fees councils can charge and the cost of processing applications is heaping further pressure on the stretched planning departments which are so crucial to building the homes and roads that local communities need.

“Councils need to be able to recover the actual cost of applications and end such a needless waste of taxpayers’ money.

“Locally-set fees would also allow councils to prevent increased costs being passed on to residents, while developers could contribute more to maintain high-quality planning decisions, and improve the ability of councils to speed up the planning process.”

From rolling up his sleeves to providing marketing advice, Matt Janicki, the Area Sales Manager for the North West for REHAU Windows Solutions, is always on hand to offer his help to customers.

Although still relatively new to the sales team at REHAU, Matt has been part of the wider REHAU team for many years – and this experience in a multitude of roles is still paying dividends and staying true to the company‘s promise to keep it all in hand.

“I first joined the industry as a REHAU PVC fabricator back in 2005, ” says Matt, “and from that position I’ve worked as an order processor, in accounts, on the factory floor, in marketing before moving onto sales.

“This experience has helped me in many ways – not only do I know the products inside out, but I also understand the day to day issues faced by my customers. The everyday things that businesses are dealing with, machinery faults, staff shortages, all of this was what I dealt with in the past and that really helps. On top of that I also know how to speak to the end user and what they need to know about the product, which is an additional help.”

And since joining the sales team at REHAU, a key part of the company’s total support package provided to customers, Matt has had to often put some of these practical skills to the test.

“The first time my experience really came to help was within the first few weeks on the job, when a customer expressed some concern about a profile, ” said Matt. “I suspected it to be a problem with the machine so I took my tie off and within half an hour it was working much better. I recommended a full service with one of my contacts and since then there has been no problem at all.“

Further to the hands on experience Matt has also been able to add value to his customers marketing approach by suggesting ways to target potential customers.

“Sometime it’s looking at things from a different angle, or with different experience,” Matt added.

But all in all it’s this willingness to go the extra mile that drew Matt to the REHAU team.

“I really enjoy the family feeling that REHAU offers to both its customers and employees. We not only invest in gaining knowledge within the team but we share that with our customers. This push to always expand our knowledge and continually innovate is a huge motivation for me as part of the team here. ”

For more information about REHAU please visit www.rehau.com/gb-en

VELUX® is offering its UK customers rewards, redeemable at a range of top-brand partners, each time they buy white-painted roof windows and flat rooflights during September and October.

The exclusive promotion, which includes the world’s first curved glass rooflight, is aimed at people working on autumn renovations and extensions projects.

Up to £65 of VELUX rewards are available on flat glass and the new curved glass rooflights range. The innovative curved glass top lets rainwater completely drain off, letting daylight shine through without raindrops spoiling the view. The eight different sizes of flat rooflights provide homeowners with flexibility and variety to match their room size.

Installers can also claim £25 rewards for every white-painted roof window they purchase, perfect for homeowners wanting a lighter, brighter living space as the white finish reflects more light back into a room.

Tesco and John Lewis online are the latest retailers to join the VELUX Rewards scheme alongside M&S, Argos, Pizza Express, Thomas Cook, Ticketmaster, Curry’s PC World.

Richard McArthur, marketing manager from VELUX said: “Autumn is traditionally a busy time for installers who are taking advantage of the better weather to carry out renovations and home improvement projects on behalf of homeowners.

“The promotion includes the entire VELUX range that is available in white-painted, from manual, centre-pivot and top-hung standard roof windows to combination solutions, and remote controlled VELUX INTEGRA® roof windows. We have also added our newest product, the curved glass rooflight, to complement our existing range of flat glass rooflights. These windows help create lighter, brighter interiors inside the home as well as improve the overall look of flat roof extensions.

“We know that our customers enjoy rewards that allow them to give themselves and their friends and families a treat, so whether you are a frequent installer of VELUX products or use them just a few times a year, it really makes sense to join VELUX Rewards and start earning points with every purchase.”

Installers have a two-month window from 1 September until 31 October to buy products and earn rewards that they can claim for by 17 November. VELUX rewards are redeemable only by registering to the scheme online at www.velux.co.uk/rewards.

August tends to be a quiet month on the news front. Most news-generating things are taking time off, like the Government, families etc. They’re all on holiday. But this August has been a little different. The saga with Entu has reached a climax it seems. It has kept many of us glued to screens to see what happens next.

I am very happy to say that on August 23rd this website smashed it’s all-time records for page views, visitors and unique visitors in a single day. And it was the Synseal post with regards to it’s new finance deal that helped me smash my daily record. In case you haven’t read it already, you can click here to catch up on the news.

These are the stats that matter.

All major metrics records

These were my previous daily highs:

Previous visitors record: 1144 – February 11th 2016

Previous unique visitors record: 1062 – February 11th 2016

Previous page views record: 1811 – October 8th 2014

These are records that have stood for a little while. The page views record goes back nearly three years. So it was going to be a big ask to break even one of these records, never mind all three in a single day.

But it was the Synseal story that really give DGB a traffic push on Wednesday of this week. In retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. Synseal is one of the biggest companies in our sector, and the rumour mill was going into hyper-drive. Up to the writing of this post, the Synseal article on here has been read a total of 1283 times in less than three days.

These are the new records that were set, again all on the same day this week:

New visitors record: 1641

New unique visitors record: 1283

New page views record: 2104

As you can see, these records weren’t just nudged a bit higher, they were all well beaten. They have raised the bar, and it’s likely that either a very serious industry story like a buyout, an administration or something else along those lines of magnitude will ever get close to breaking these new records. A big thanks though to everyone who sent traffic my way that day!

At the start of the year I set myself some fairly hefty targets for this calendar year for my major traffic metrics. My first goal is to surpass the traffic generated in 2016, and that is an absolute certainty. At current rates I should surpass 2016 traffic at some point in early November. From there, the aim will be to cash in on as much traffic as possible up to the end of the year to hopefully reach my overall 2017 goals.

2017 Goals:

170,000 visitors

120,000 unique visitors

225,000 page views

These are high goals based on 2016 traffic, but you get nowhere by taking things easy! As it stands at the moment and looking at my daily averages I am set to surpass my visitors goal by around 4000 visitors and I am due to hit the 225k pages views goal absolutely on the nose right now. At the moment I am about 1.6% behind on my unique visitors in comparison to the year before. It was at 5% not too long ago so I am quickly catching myself up on that particular traffic metric, and the current trend suggest that I will hit my unique visitors goal just about at the end of the year.

There are certain things which I am doing to help me in my site goals. My weekly email subscriber list grows daily, and currently stands at 1123 total subscribers. This always gives me a big traffic boost every Wednesday when it goes out to subscribers. I am also continuing to grow my Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook communities which is also helping to drive traffic. I am now well over 2000 Linkedin connections and approaching 10,000 Twitter followers. All of this, along with a focus on creating quality content every single time and boosting paid PR publication helps to get me to my goals.

Some question why I focus so much on my stats. I admit that I do get a tad obsessive about stats on DGB. But, stats are the single best way to track the progress of a website, or any type of business. Stats show you where your growth is coming from, what articles are being read, which ones aren’t. You can identify on areas to improve on and things which you can boost further to create even more growth. Stats tell the story of this website from when it was just starting out to where it stands right now. You can’t do it any other way.

We’re still in a pretty turbulent time in the industry right now, with the fortunes of battered Entu the focus of the industry eye right now, even though some other media outlets aren’t reporting on it. I suspect that early next week we will be hit with another trading update from KPMG and Entu. This is one to watch as if the company, as already warned, goes into administration, this is going to have serious ripples across many parts of the industry.

There’s going to be plenty more to report on in the coming days and weeks!

The collection and recycling of waste PVC in the UK reached a new high of 120,392 tonnes in 2016, according to the latest figures from Recovinyl, the PVC industry’s recycling scheme.

It’s an increase of 12% compared to the previous year (2015: 107,593). According to Recovinyl, the window profiles recycled represent the equivalent to more than five million window frames (5,158,483) or enough to glaze 515,848 houses (assuming each house has 10 windows). That’s reportedly enough to renovate all the dwellings in both Manchester (217,240 homes) and Liverpool (206,500 households).

The UK’s performance is said to represent 21% of the total recycled across Europe with Recovinyl being the main contributor. A total of 560,492 tonnes of waste PVC was recycled through Recovinyl last year across its 18 European member countries. The Recovinyl network currently comprises 153 recycler partners.

Recovinyl is the organisation aimed at facilitating PVC waste collection and recycling within the VinylPlus framework of the European PVC industry’s Voluntary Commitments. This programme is aimed at tackling the sustainability challenges for PVC and delivery of current recycling targets to 2020.

According to Recovinyl, waste PVC-U profiles comprised 62% of the UK’s recycling achievement in 2016, with pipes, rigid and flexible PVC films and cables making up the rest.

“The recycling of PVC is maintaining an upward trend thanks to on-going investment in recycling infrastructure and strong commitment from the sector. It’s a significant achievement that demonstrates the sustainability of this readily-recyclable material,” commented project manager Jane Gardner of Axion, Recovinyl’s UK agents.

Recovinyl says that a major factor driving the recycling success is increasing demand from manufacturers for good quality recycled material. Capable of being recycled up to seven times without any loss of performance, PVC can be reused in many diverse new and long-life products from construction products such as windows to flooring and electrical components.

Cumulatively, some 3.5 million tonnes of PVC is said to have been recycled through the Vinyl 2010 and VinylPlus frameworks across Europe since 2000. Building on this, Recovinyl says its strategy continues with consolidating and increasing the steady supply of PVC waste being recycled in Europe by creating demand – a ‘pull-market’ for recycled PVC material – from the converting industry.

Further recycling initiatives for PVC have been established in the UK, such as the collection of single-use waste PVC medical devices via RecoMed. RecoMed is funded by VinylPlus and undertaken jointly by Axion and the British Plastics Federation.

The post UK Recovinyl PVC figures reach new high appeared first on Glass & Glazing Products Magazine (GGP).

Residence Collection has been shortlisted in the ‘Best Windows’ category of the national Build-It awards.

The prestigious annual event recognises innovation and excellence in the custom and self-build sector, bringing together architects, manufacturers and key industry figures. Residence entered its new, innovative flush sash window R7 with outstanding benefits in performance, looks and design. The entry included a case study where R7 was chosen for a replacement installation because of its authentic design and character. The property owners were looking for timber windows but were immensely impressed by the quality, style, and timber-alternative solution of R7. They said the windows had ‘transformed’ their home.

Residence Collection General Manager Sarah Hitchings says: “We’re extremely pleased to be shortlisted for these awards. We’ve been active in developing and positioning our systems as the best flush sash windows on the market. Our strong growth this year and achievements like this are a credit to our team’s efforts and success.

“R9 is an established timber-alternative flush sash system targeted at the super premium market. It’s ideal for period or heritage properties, or those in conservation areas,” continues Sarah. “R7 is the new kid on the block. A uniquely flush system, inside and out, it opens up a new market for us in high-end contemporary homes and self-builds, modern new builds and city apartments. We’re looking forward to the award ceremony and keeping our fingers crossed!”

The winners will be announced in a glittering Gala Dinner on 22^nd September in London, hosted by celebrated comedian, Marcus Brigstocke.

Visit www.residencecollection.co.uk, call 01452 300 912 or follow @Residence9 on Twitter.

TruFrame, which has built its reputation on producing hand finished windows, has started buying professional fenestration tools from Mila, following the hardware specialist’s announcement that it has added the Xpert Tools range to its product line up.

Mila is now supplying TruFrame with everything from moon knives to air blow guns for use at every stage of fabrication; and providing exactly the same expert advice and guaranteed next day delivery service which it offers on its hardware range.

The Melton Mowbray based trade fabricator already buys a large proportion of its window and door hardware from Mila, so says it makes perfect sense to buy the Xpert Tools from them as well.

TruFrame’s Marketing Director Paul Roper said: “Mila has long supplied TruFrame with a whole range of quality hardware including ProSecure handles and hinges, ProLinea door handles, ProLinea Curve window handles, Evolution door hinges and Supa stainless steel pull bars and escutcheons. It is one of our most valued partners and has shown that it shares our commitment to providing the very best customer service and consistently meets our very demanding requirements on quality and delivery.

“Quality control is absolutely paramount at TruFrame and a big part of that is obviously having the right tools for the job. Mila’s Xpert Tools range is packed with products which are tailored specifically for this sector and we have been impressed with the choice, quality and next day availability.”

The full Xpert Tools range from Mila includes air tools, glass lifters, hand tools and measuring devices as well as four different grades of Teflon sheet for use as a release barrier during welding. It is available alongside ancillaries, tools and adhesives and gives customers the option of ‘One Stop Shop’ ordering.

The range is included in Mila’s new The Key 8 catalogue which is due for publication soon and is also available on the company’s website at www.mila.co.uk