Customade Group Sponsors G17 Awards

Image Above: Claire Miller, Customade Group Marketing Director

Customade Group has become Main Event Sponsor at the G17 awards, which will be held at the London Hilton on Park Lane on 17 November.

Claire Miller, Customade Group’s marketing director, says: “The G Awards are the highlight of the year for our industry and we’re very excited indeed to be part of the event.

“I’m incredibly proud to be in an industry that’s so enthusiastic about progression and improvement. We’re making giant strides in new product development, people and service and awards events such as this are key to celebrating the achievements of the companies and individuals who excel.

“These awards are also about inspiring further development and cultivating talent so it’s terrific to gather everyone together to share our collective passion for the industry and its future. And, of course, it’s a chance for the winners to shout about their achievements, which they should be very proud of.

“This event will be the perfect round-off to the biggest year ever in Customade Group’s history. This year, the Group became the largest fabricator in the UK and we now offer the widest range of fenestration products out there. We have some ambitious plans for the future and I have no doubt that our customers and the industry as a whole will benefit from this combined ability.”

Earlier this year, Polyframe merged with the Customade Group to create the UK’s largest fabricator, with revenues of more than £100 million. The group’s product portfolio now spans across PVC-u and aluminium windows and doors, composite doors, aluminium glazed roof products, sealed glass units and specialist glazing. Operating nationwide, the group employs 900 people in multiple manufacturing sites across the UK.

Since the merger, the group has maintained a high concentration of dedicated sales staff. This enables customers to continue working alongside their own regional sales manager, whilst being able to access all the products within the group.

Customade Group now includes Polyframe (PVC-u), REAL Aluminium (aluminium), Atlas Glazed Roof Solutions (glazed roofs), Virtuoso (composite and panelled doors), Hourglass Seal (sealed glass units), and Fineline Aluminium (specialist glazing).

www.customade.co.uk

Picture above: Paul Briggs (R), MD of Watergate Flood Solutions Ltd inspects one of the new composite flood defence doors alongside Martin Porter (L), Head of Production.

Halo customer Watergate Flood Solutions Ltd has been certified with the recently-revised PAS1188 BSI Kitemark for Flood Protection Products for its composite flood door.

Watergate – based in Hebburn, Tyne & Wear – spent 18 months honing its design and subjecting products to rigorous testing in order to achieve the accreditation, with support from VEKA Group. The anti-flood specialist – which fabricates up to 50 doors every week – made the switch to Halo profile in 2015, and has been using its outer frames exclusively ever since. The most recent PAS1188 certificate will be the company’s second, having already received one for its PVC-U door models.

Rachael Radcliffe, Business Development Manager for Watergate at VEKA Group said: “We’ve been working closely with Watergate over the past year-and-a-half in trying to achieve the PAS1188 so we are very proud to have been a part of them obtaining this worthy certification. Ensuring the PVC-U profile system that their new products would be used with is of the best possible quality has been paramount throughout, which is why Halo’s reputation for excellence within the industry – for flood doors especially – seemed to be the perfect fit.

“As the demand from homeowners for safe and effective flood-resistant products increases with every wet weather forecast, it has been become more and more pertinent for companies within the door and window profile industry to really step up to the challenge. Watergate has done just that by providing not just one but two products that offer complete peace of mind when it comes to protecting our most valuable possessions and, of course, family. ”

Watergate’s Sales Manager Gerard Hiscock said: “Having previously gained PAS1188 for our PVC panel doors, to now have the same accreditation for the composite flood door is a testament to the hard work of all involved and commitment to a cause that is incredibly important to an ever-increasing number of homeowners across the UK. During research, we worked extensively with authorities at both a local and national level, to make sure we were bringing something to the market that homeowners, especially those most at risk from rising water levels, could really put their trust in.

“The PAS1188 standard was updated in 2014 with even more stringent guidelines and particular attention being paid to the amount of leakage that would be deemed acceptable for any products requesting the certification, so to hold this official safety standard means our clients can share our absolute confidence in this product and Watergate as a whole. After receiving the official Kitemark certificate in March 2017, we also obtained confirmation from the BSI in June that we were the only company in the UK to have the accreditation for that type of composite flood door at that time, which was even more of a celebration.”

TruFrame have announced an unprecedented £3.2m CAPEX programme at their Melton Mowbray uPVC window and door manufacturing facility, that’s part of a longer-term, ‘Building for the Future’ strategy.  Already one of the Top 5 largest manufacturers of uPVC frames in the UK, this new investment by TruFrame across all aspects of manufacturing, will help streamline processes, bring in new production methodologies and improve their already renowned manufacturing quality even further. As a staunch business based on family values, there’s also an element of succession planning underpinning this significant capital investment.

The first phase of the programme, which is already well underway, has seen the installation and commissioning of three new Urban AKS 1150 single-head butt welders, which offer an impressive weld restriction of just 0.2mm for an improved finish. In addition, a new Rotox EKA 574 CNC corner, transom and crucifix cleaner has been added, which will support the two Rotox SEK 503 crucifix welders due for delivery in the summer, alongside the first brand new cutting and machining centre.

David Firmager, managing director of TruFrame, commented: “This investment programme is a fundamental part of our vision for the future at TruFrame. This substantial outlay has a number of facets to it, including the improvement of manufacturing processes, staying ahead of our peers in terms of product quality and ultimately, putting the resources in place for the future of the business.” He continues: “We’ve also spent some time putting into place a new board of experienced directors, with just one new appointment to conclude, as part of our ‘Building for the Future’ strategy.”

For further information on becoming a TruFrame partner visit www.truframe.co.uk, e-mail sales@truframe.co.uk or call the office directly on 01664 410 140. You can also add to their growing following on Twitter @TruFrame.

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Clayton Glass has produced a time-lapse video to showcase the ‘revolutionary’ self-tinting Smartglass Dynamic in action on a conservatory roof on a hot summer’s day.

The new video, which can be viewed on the Smartglass website at www.smart-glass.co.uk/products/smartglass-dynamic is 2:39 minutes long and shows the change in the conservatory roof glass from clear at the beginning and end of the day to a darkened tint during the middle of the day, when outside temperatures touched 30º. It can also be seen on YouTube at here.

According to Clayton Glass, Smartglass Ultra 86 already provides the greatest performance of any conservatory roof glass with fixed performance levels, but it claims the new Dynamic glass offers a better G-value at 10% and tint of 6% when needed during the hottest days of this summer. Yet during the early and latter parts of the day this glass technology offers a 60% light transmission, approaching that of a standard IGU, along with an ‘impressive’ G-value of 34%.

There are also other videos on the website that showcase this glass technology for conservatory and lantern roofs, along with other residential and commercial glazing applications. This includes a production that shows how the new interactive Smartglass Dynamic sample kits work with just a cup of hot fluid.

Jason McCabe, commercial and site director Clayton Glass commented: “The feedback has been phenomenal from the homeowners of the first few installations and this new video really does help convey how this dynamic glass technology works. With a 10-14 day delivery UK wide, availability in any shape and no requirement for wires and controls, we believe this is certainly the future technology that the industry will adopt in the coming years.”

www.smart-glass.co.uk

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It is an irritating thing, being charge a couple of extra percent to pay for things on your credit card. Holidays, kitchens, and other big ticket items. Large purchases to the consumer can go up a fair few pounds just because of the type of card that is used.

The good news from a consumer perspective is that from January 2018, businesses here in the UK will have to stop charging customers anything at all to use their credit cards for purchases. This is a new EU Directive that comes into force banning it.

The bad news however, businesses will still have to continue to pay companies like Visa, or other card machine companies, to be able to use their card services. So businesses will still have to pay their charges, but consumers will have nothing to pay for using their credit cards.

This is going to affect all size of business, small or large. But from a window industry perspective, this is going to have some quite big implications for installers.

Take it on the chin?

I like this rule and I don’t. For example, I pay for my holidays, gig tickets, festivals etc all on credit cards. Mostly for the extra protection it gives me should anything terrible happen. I also accept that by doing so I am going to pay around 2% on top for the privilege. A £3000 holiday for example becomes £3060. Not a huge amount in the scheme of things, but it would pay for the booze that I want to bring back.

On the other hand, as I work for an installer, it irks me that as a business, we still have to pay the company we use to facilitate credit card payments. It’s only a small percentage per transaction, but those costs start to mount if we get a run of customers who decide to pay off large balances by credit card. For example, based on what I think we pay (I don’t do the finance stuff at work), if someone was to pay a £10k balance, £25-£50 gets added, I’m not sure what the exact tariff is.

Most established installers will offer the choice to home owners to pay their bills via credit card. So installers in our industry will face a choice at the beginning of next year: take yet another hit on their margins on the chin, or pass the increase on? Given how many price increases installers have had to stomach of late, they may be reluctant to take yet another hit on their margins.

How much the cost?

This may, or may not, be an issue for some installers. It may depend on how many of their customers actually pay by credit card. My guess is the younger demographic will use them more than older generations. So installers who appeal to a younger crown may find that they’re the ones worse off.

Even if an installer is only charged 0.25% per credit card transaction by the credit card company, these costs will start to mount if lots of credit card payments are placed. Especially if a series of large balances are all paid off in succession via those credit cards. So for those installers, how do they recover those costs?

I would deem it unfair for installers to take this on the chin, on top of all the other increases they’re having to juggle with, so I think passing it on to the consumer is what is going to happen. But the problem is, you can’t do this on a case by case basis. Installers won’t know how their home owner is going to pay their bill, so they won’t be able to account for that cost. The alternative is to introduce a blanket fee into their pricing structures, to cover all bases, just in case a home owner does decide to pay their balance by credit card. The problem there however is home owners who don’t pay by credit card are going to be hit with that fee, therefore paying more when they didn’t need to.

It’s going to be a balancing act for many. To weigh up absorbing the costs of credit card use versus passing on those costs to the home owner. It irks me too that it is once again business that is going to be taking up the burden of this. I am very much for consumer rights and protection of those rights and consumers. However, this is another EU Directive that only increases costs for the business. Would it not have been fairer to all the SME’s and home owners across the UK and Europe to look at the ways credit card companies charge for their facilities instead? Giving both business and consumer an advantage?

As an installer, what will you do? Will you take your credit card transaction fees on the chin? Or will you seek to recover your costs by raising your prices to home owners?

Jack Antosch has joined the team of LogiKal software technicians at BM Aluminium in Tewkesbury. Aged 18, Jack has been recruited as a trainee, but is already supporting customers with technical queries and updates.

Over the past 10 years, BM Aluminium says it has largely been able to mitigate the effects of the skills shortage by successfully training its own team. Senior installations technician Dan Hodges and junior technician Ben Knight, for example, both originally joined the company as trainees and benefited from the comprehensive workplace training programme which is in place.

In his new role, Jack is working closely with customers to customise their LogiKal software so that it takes into account bespoke options such as hardware and glass and enables them to generate their own reports.

Managing director, Dean Hodges, said: “Experience has shown that the best way for us to recruit and retain the high calibre staff we need is to provide our own training in house. Obviously, our software technicians have to acquire the technical skills necessary to support customers, but it’s also essential that they adopt our meticulous approach from the outset and deliver on our commitment to providing exceptional levels of customer service.”

www.bmaluminium.co.uk

The post BM Aluminium recruits new trainee appeared first on Glass & Glazing Products Magazine (GGP).

Emplas, managing director, Ryan Johnson is taking on the Great North Run for cancer support charity, Macmillan.

The largest half marathon in the world, the Great North run, covers a tough 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields.

Ryan is running for Macmillan in memory of his late Nan, Jean Handy, who received support and palliative care from Macmillan nurses and the Cynthia Spencer Hospice in Kettering.

Ryan said: “My Nan, Jean, was loved by everyone who knew her and she’s missed by all of her family and friends. Saying goodbye was very difficult for everyone.

“We were able to draw some comfort from the exceptional care that she received during her final days from the Cynthia Spencer Hospice, Age UK and the Macmillan nurses, who cared for her, allowing Jean to pass away in comfort and with dignity in her own home.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Macmillan, which is why I’m doing the run and asking anyone who can, to donate to my justgiving page. It doesn’t matter how much or how little. Every penny counts.”

To donate to Ryan’s justgiving page please visit http://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ryan-johnson12 or go direct to justgiving and search for Ryan Johnson.

The post Emplas boss to put his ‘best foot forward’ for cancer support charity appeared first on Glass & Glazing Products Magazine (GGP).

An award-winning rooflight company recently welcomed Bury St Edmunds MP, Jo Churchill, to its factory to demonstrate its full range of products.

Sunsquare, named Business of the Year in the East Anglian Daily Time Business Awards 2016, says it has ‘blazed a trail’ for ‘quality design and performance’ in the UK rooflight industry.

It claims to be the only skylight manufacturer in the UK to receive the BSI Kitemark Standard following rigorous testing of its products for air permeability, watertightness and wind resistance.

Chris Chaney, managing director of Sunsquare, said: “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to show our local MP our manufacturing facility and demonstrate our full range of products.

“We have great plans for 2017 and would like to continue to expand, providing more jobs in Suffolk and boosting its economy in the process.”

Jo Churchill visited the Sunsquare factory as part of her commitment to supporting business and enterprise in Suffolk. She said: “Enterprise and local businesses are a cornerstone of Bury St Edmunds and of the region.

“As a former business woman myself, I know what it takes to support and grow a business.

“I firmly believe that in order to grow and drive our towns forward, we must do this with the vision and tenacity of the local business community.”

www.sunsquare.co.uk

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