Foiling folly?

It’s always been a gripe among some PVC-U systems houses that others may be using foil to cover recycled profile of uncertain origin. Now, at a time when colours and woodgrains are very much in the ascendant, aluplast’s Ian Cocken has once again raised the issue of substrate quality in a letter that goes on to say that even co-extrusion or ‘skinning’ may not be the automatic solution if the recycled core itself is not stable. As ever, we would be very interested to hear from anyone else who may have thoughts on the matter. Read Letter

Elsewhere, with no apology – especially from a Yorkshireman – for bringing you a surfeit of news from the city of Bradford, firstly the ongoing saga of Safestyle v Safeglaze is living up to our forecast of last week that we would be hearing more.
Read Story

…And, in an age when it seems everything we buy is made of bits from every corner of the known world, we have news of a company that’s actually starting to make things itself.
Read Story

Finally, for everyone on their way to Fensterbau, we will of course be there and we look forward to bringing you all the highlights from the show very soon.

Meanwhile, do enjoy this week’s issue.

Chris Church Editor

Please send all your news stories to news@the-glazine.com

This Week's News

Two leave Safestyle board – one to Safeglaze

The Glazine learned this week that two directors have recently left Safestyle – one of whom has gone to Safeglaze, the newly formed disruptor believed to be the ‘aggressive new market entrant’ cited by Safestyle in its Stock Market Trading Update as having impacted the group’s results.

The other is Mark Scaife, Safestyle’s long-standing Group Operations Director who moved to become its Group Technical Director last month before leaving the company to become Group Chief Operating Officer of Customade Group earlier this month.

Read More Here...

Eurocell ‘strong’ despite raw materials costs

Eurocell PLC has reported a year of ‘strong performance’ though profitability was hit by higher raw materials costs as well as a subdued market for repair, maintenance and improvements.

Sales grew 10% to £224.9million (8% excluding acquisitions). Pre-tax profit fell by 1% to £23.7million “though on an adjusted basis the figure rose by 1% to GBP24.5 million,” the report adds.

Read More Here...

Debar puts £500,000 into manufacturing move

Debar Bi-fold Hardware this week celebrated its £500,000 move into in-house manufacturing with the official opening of its new 42,000 sq ft HQ and factory in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

The company, which had previously bought-in components working from 22,000sq ft spread across five separate units, is now making its own hinges, rollers and guides in-house for the first time.

Read More Here...

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From: Ian Cocken
Director of sales and marketing, Aluplast

According to Palmer foils have seen growth of 45% in volume since 2013. They’re a key driver of higher margin sales in PVC-U. So all good then? Well for the most part ‘yes’ but there have been a number of reports flagging base surface stability as an issue, with potentially significant liabilities for fabricators.

Foils are invariably sold with a 10-year guarantee so if they’re failing for whatever reason, manufacturers and systems companies could face potentially crippling replacement costs.

Read More

From: Sean Parnaby,
Managing Director, West Port

Last summer, after decades on the side-lines, fire safety was finally centre-stage – for the worst possible reasons.

Grenfell was a national catastrophe – one of those traumatic moments that scar a generation, and ensures that, for better or for worse, things will never be the same again.

It’s a tragedy that it took a disaster on that horrifying scale to make us sit up and take notice. But we’re now faced with a once-in-a-generation chance to drastically improve fire safety standards throughout construction – and in our own sector, glass and glazing, we can start with the most basic fire safety product of them all: fire doors.

Read More

From: Chris Alderson,
Edgetech

In recent years, the structure of the IGU market has seen some dramatic changes.

Since 2007, the number of companies manufacturing glass units in the UK has dropped by one third to just 848. But, despite this, in recent years the total number of units being fabricated has seen a steady increase.

Many of your readers will surely be wondering how this is possible and here at Edgetech, we believe that automation is largely responsible.

Read More