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It’s hard to believe that we’re into November now. I’m not sure where the year has gone. I know that we have all been very busy, and the busier we are the quicker time seems to fly by.

As we all start looking towards the end of the year and the well earned Christmas break, it’s time to take a look back at the big stories in the UK window and door industry in the month of October, and of course give you my usual breakdown in performance of this old site too.

Christmas rush gains traction

I have noticed a very distinct pickup in business during October at our place. Leads were very healthy and so were sales. In fact we had one of our best months of the year in October. The big running theme with our customers was the need to get things bought and installed before Christmas. To be fair this began in September but it really did step up a gear last month.

Naturally, this puts pressure on installers and indeed fabricators to be able to service all this business coming up. Up to press, we are managing well, but we only have a couple of working weeks left to fill per fitting crew and then that’s it for 2017. We’ll be booking into the New Year after that.

From my usual conversations and anecdotal evidence that I pick up, for many our scenario is their scenario. The pre-Christmas dash to get windows and doors installed appears to be in full swing for many. I am already seeing tweets from quite a few installers saying that they are now full for this year and are booking into the New Year. That is great news, if true, and shows that despite recent reports of a slowdown in the industry, there are areas where companies continue to do well and appear to be growing strongly.

In my experience most Novembers are a tad manic, especially as we near the end of the month and manufacturing deadlines start to close in. Home owners begin to rush and become more agitated as more and more get told that they have left it too late and will have to wait until the New Year. Always a fun period for installers. Then December comes and it generally goes very quiet very quickly. I don’t often mind that, it gives me a chance to catch up on other things and start to relax a bit.

Fairly quiet news month

September was perhaps the most busy month in terms of news flow and the magnitude of the stories being played out. October was totally the opposite. No major mergers and acquisitions to speak of. No bankruptcies. It felt like a month where the industry just got it’s head down and did some work.

That being said, there were a few subjects of note to talk about during October. Insight Data released their latest industry report, which although gave us no jaw dropping surprises, did shed some light on some key areas in which the industry was changing very quickly. You can catch up on one of those posts here.

At the start of October the voting lists for the 2017 National Fenestration Awards were announced. It was the biggest one yet, with a record 299 nominations cast. There are too many great people and companies to mention in this post, but if you click here you can go to the NFA page where all the categories, voting lists and voting forms are.

One subject that continued to gain traction throughout the month of October was the guest post published by Colin Torley of the Saveheat Group. He has taken on the subject of heritage glazing and non-compliant IGUs. The issue has grown since the original article was published which you can catch up on here. It’s a serious issue that continues to plague the industry in a big way, perhaps bigger than some people appreciate.

How DGB did

As always, I give you a run down on how this website performed during the past month. Despite a slower news month, DGB still managed to post pretty impressive traffic stats. Take a look at the infographic…

I will be honest, I suffered some pretty major burnout during October. My motivation suffered quite a bit, and I wasn’t always best pleased with the quality of my writing and stories. I also spent the very end of the month in London on a short break, so I took time away from promotion of the site for those few days as well.

Despite that, the site still managed to post pretty impressive growth compared to October of last year. What it has done is propel me to reaching my own yearly targets for the major traffic metrics comfortably before the end of the year. It is likely that I will reach my page views and visitor goals by the end of November, and my unique visitors goal in the last third of December. So one more good solid month of traffic then I’m set.

Top 5 most read posts

This is a list of the top five most read posts published on DGB in October

1. Guest Post: Breaking The Law With Heritage Glazing?

2. Those Out For A Pound Of Flesh

3. Enough Is Enough. Time For Prosecutions

4. The Window Industry Is Getting Smaller In A Lot Of Areas

5. How Long Can 70mm Profiles Dominate?

Looking forward to November

As I mentioned at the start, November should see the traditional mad dash from home owners to get their last minute window and door purchases installed and ready for Christmas. Installers will become stressed. Fabricators will be under increased pressure to eek out every single order by their deadlines. It should be a fun old time.

A ‘hoard’ of PIGS (People in Glazing), gathered at the Pitcher and Piano at Brindley Place in Birmingham recently, for the fourth and final PIGS event of the year, with a total of 39 companies sponsoring the evening’s food and drink

PIGS organiser, Sarah Ball, said: “Birmingham is always our busiest event, but I think this year we drew in more PIGs than ever. We reckon there may have been up to 200 people! It was a really busy evening and it was great to see PIGS, old and new join us for our last event of the year.

“As usual, I would like to give a special thanks to all of our fabulous PIGS Birmingham sponsors. Without your generous sponsorship, PIGS couldn’t happen.

“The next official PIGS event isn’t until March 2018, when we will be returning to Manchester, but we’re looking forward to catching up with all of our G-Award nominated PIGS sponsors at the ceremony in November.”

The post Big PIGS appeared first on Glass & Glazing Products Magazine (GGP).

Windows manufacturer, TA Windows, says it has rebranded as Wooden Windows to ‘enhance the brand’s visibility’.

The company was established in 2013 and has reportedly gone from strength to strength, leading the directors to make the decision to rebrand as Wooden Windows.

Director, Mark Winter, commented: “We are a fast-growing company and have recently expanded so we wanted to develop a more customer facing business which is easy to find.

“Wooden windows ‘is what we do’ – essentially we wanted to make a recognisable brand which ‘does what is says on the tin’, as the expression goes.”

According to Wooden Windows, it produces ‘top quality timber windows and doors’ with ‘exceptional’ customer service. Its manufacturing complex is also said to boast the very latest technology.

The rebrand was complemented with a new logo, colour scheme and website, which also showcases the WindowBuilder app.

The post Rebrand for TA Windows appeared first on Glass & Glazing Products Magazine (GGP).

Picture above:  The Vocational College’s Health and Safety Manager John Bradshaw delivers the training using over 20 years’ experience in health and safety in the glass industry.

The Vocational College prides itself on instilling a strong health and safety ethic in all its students. The health and safety award-winning college, which runs apprenticeships for the glazing industry, has introduced a range of training initiatives related to health and safety in the glass industry.

Health and safety compliance can be difficult to meet, but with the Classic membership, aimed at businesses with between five and 50 employees, TVC provides comprehensive up-to-date health and safety documentation, covering all aspects of this important but complicated area. Peace of mind is ensured at a cost of just £500

The £2000 Premium membership fee is aimed at medium-to-large businesses employing 50 to 250 staff. In addition to the benefits that the Classic membership provides, the Premium also includes an annual health and safety audit and action plan, and access to a competent health and safety practitioner with OSHCR membership who is a chartered member of IOSH. This higher level of membership also includes use of a dedicated health and safety telephone helpline and reduced prices for IOSH training courses.

Other services on offer outside these two key packages include guidance on CHAS compliance, Construction Phase Plan CDM 2015 and short courses on Manual Handling, Asbestos Awareness, Working at Height and Heart Start.

Health and Safety Manager John Bradshaw delivers the service using over 20 years’ experience in health and safety in the glass industry. John is a member of the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR), which is bound by its professional body’s code of conduct and committed to providing sensible and proportionate health and safety advice.

John Bradshaw, Health and Safety Manager at TVC, explains: “We’re committed to ensuring that the college’s reputation for reliable, credible health and safety advice continues to be recognised as industry-leading. We have always made sure that the specific needs and concerns of employers and employees are addressed, and that all the advice we provide is useful and practical. My extensive experience in this field is useful in identifying areas of importance.

“On-site, glass can be one of the most dangerous materials to handle safely, so knowing beforehand what to expect and how to react to situations is something everyone in the industry needs to be aware of. We’re very pleased to be able to offer a health and safety solution that covers a wide range of issues in a straightforward, comprehensive way”.

At its core, the college offers a range of specialist apprenticeships in the field of glazing, from manufacture and handling all the way through to on-site installation. The college’s award-winning glass department hosts GQA qualifications and diplomas and has a team of 40 tutors and assessors based throughout the UK, four internal verifiers and a delivery coordinator. In addition, TVC also offers a range of training initiatives related to health and safety in the glass industry.

For further information on apprenticeship opportunities available to new and existing staff in the UK, contact Paul Gray, business development manager at The Vocational College, on 0151 944 1744.

Mila’s Test Centre in Daventry has just been awarded UKAS accreditation, allowing it to formally assess window and door hardware to both PAS24 2016 for security and BS EN1670 2007 for corrosion resistance.

This is the culmination of many months of hard work by the specialist Mila team behind the Test Centre, where the focus is exclusively on testing of windows and doors. It has centred around the fine calibration of equipment and the formalisation of procedures to meet the strict UKAS audit requirements.

In recent years, the Test Centre has been used primarily to test and validate Mila’s own products in development and to provide indicative testing for customers, before their windows and doors were submitted for formal testing elsewhere.

Now though, Mila is responding to requests from those same customers to provide a One Stop Shop facility, with both indicative and formal testing all available under one roof.

Danny Jones, Testing Engineer, said: “As well as our specialism in this sector, what sets us apart from other testing centres is the fact that we offer advice and guidance to customers at the indicative stage to make sure that their windows and doors are set up correctly in order to pass the various tests that follow. For security testing in particular, that might mean advising them on the combination of locking system and handle, or even which screws to use. We essentially make sure that customers don’t spend money on formal testing until we can be sure that their products will pass. That’s a huge advantage – not just in terms of money spent but also in time saved.”

The next stage in the development of Mila’s Test Centre is to achieve UKAS accreditation on its cycle and weather testing to BS6375.

The company then plans to announce a programme of incentives for customers so that they can make maximum use of what Mila believes is the only facility in the UK hardware sector offering this combination of indicative and formal testing together.

More details are available at: www.mila.co.uk

It was an obvious choice for Apeer R&D engineer Paul Vajda to have one of the doors he helped to design for his own home near the company’s Ballymena factory recently. So it was just as natural, when his father-in-law wanted a new front door, that Paul would recommend the company’s radical Lumi system.

The result, a striking combination of Lumi composite door with two full-height glazed sidelights in Chartwell Green exterior, with Winchester foil inside to complement the oak flooring, was obviously well-received as the customer is now looking to order matching Lumi windows.

Just as with the acclaimed Lumi windows, the entire system, door frame and sash is made of glass-fibre reinforced profiles and is triple glazed as standard. As well as U-Values as low as 0.8 W/m²K, the Lumi door is exceptionally strong and of course every component, from windows, entrance doors, patio and bi-folds, is perfectly co-ordinated in the same iconic styling that has marked Lumi since its launch in 2015.

The door was fitted by Apeer’s own fitting team manager Gary Neil, who said: “The system was designed for easy retrofit installation as well as new-build and that proved to be the case here. Once the old door was out, the new one was in and complete in just a couple of hours.”

Apeer Marketing Manager Linda Tomb added: “The look of the finished door shows once again that the Lumi system is just as much at home in a traditional setting as in the contemporary it was initially designed for. We can’t wait to see how the whole house will look when it has the full set of Lumi windows to match.”

Lumi proved to be a show-stopper from day one when the radically different window system was unveiled at Grand Designs London in 2015. Demand has grown exponentially since then and the system has been extended with the addition of patio and bi-fold doors as well as entrance doors, so now there is no installation, retrofit or new-build, that could not be completely fulfilled with Lumi.

www.apeer.co.uk

Since REHAU launched its AGILA sliding doors range sales of the PVC-U doors have been steadily growing and now more fabricators than ever are choosing to specify AGILA.

AGILA sliding doors are great for modern living, letting in light and creating openness in any space. They can be installed as a traditional patio door, entrance door or door to a conservatory, and are available in eight different colour options to provide a flexible solution which can be tailored to the individual needs of the customer. A perfect fit for REHAU’s popular TOTAL70 windows system, the AGILA sliding door also offers continuity of product across larger specifications.

As well as slimmer sightlines and superior aesthetics, AGILA sliding doors are incredibly energy efficient, with a triple glazing option on offer. They also come with enhanced security options and benefit from ERA’s new Total Security Guarantee for complete peace of mind.

Currently there are ten businesses fabricating the AGILA Sliding Door across the UK and Ireland. These include Climatec, Fenster Trade Frames, GRM, Polyframe, Euroglaze, Stormking, Hadrian, Costello PVC, O’Grady UPVC Ltd and Caledonia Doors in Cumbernauld being the most recent company to come on board .

To increase interest further, REHAU has released a new video online which highlights all the great features of the AGILA sliding doors to promote the product to fabricators and their customers.

Clare Higgins, Product Manager, from REHAU said: “The AGILA sliding door has been a fantastic addition to our doors offer, providing our partners with a high quality and flexible door solution they can offer to their customers individually or as part of a full portfolio of REHAU products. With the trend for large span doors continuing to gather pace in the domestic market, we expect to see even more contractors choosing to offer our sliding doors over the coming months and years.”

For further information please visit www.rehau.uk/agila