The seventh weekly review on DGB and we creep ever closer to Christmas! Sorry guys, I’m a Christmas fan! It’s been a busy week as always on DGB, and has been a week where we’ve seen stock markets tumble, oil prices crash and Green Deal activity rise just a little. Lets jump in then…

The Beginning Of The End For Green Deal?

Yes Monday saw me cover the news of a massive Green Deal business teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. It is worth pointing out at this stage that the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund is about to reopen in November with another £100m to hand out. But given the how poorly the last lot of money was shared out, I can’t see the fund making much of a difference.

There remains many Green Deal businesses in danger after the sudden closing of the GDHIF in July, and with the bad news about this multi-million pound Green Deal company also on the edge, surely it can’t be long until the Government decides enough is enough.

Could it be finally happening? Is the Green Deal finally starting to crumble away into the abyss? Well it certainly looks like it to me. The Green Deal Finance Company, the business providing the whole of the funding keeping Green Deal alive has warned that it is running out of cash and struggling to find more to keep itself going. What’s more, the country’s biggest Green Deal installers are on the brink of administration as the business struggles with mounting debt and a drying up of cash from the Green Deal Finance Company. You can read more about this story by clicking here.

I’ve never been a fan of the Green Deal as you will all know. It’s flawed from beginning to end. The quicker the Government stops funding this total waste of time and resources and focuses on reducing VAT for ALL energy saving products the better.

Kevin From Grand Designs Is A Perfect Example Of Barriers To Youth

Tuesday saw me tackle an issue from the excellent show that is Grand Designs. The week previously the show’s presenter, Kevin McLeod, annoyed me and a few others watching by the way he derided the young age of the architect on that particular project.

As some of you may know, I am only 25 myself, and I am a big advocate of getting more youth into our industry, as well as the wider building and construction industry. This was something that really did wind me up.

His tone was very derisive when he explained that the architect for such a demanding and difficult build was only 28 years old. As a twenty something myself, the tone in which he described him was a perfect example of old attitudes when it comes to working with younger people. It’s as though he thought the build should have only had an experienced, older person working on it, and what could a 28 year old possibly know about a project like this. That’s how it came across to me.

It was something I felt I had to cover as it is attitudes like this which can form barriers to some young people in industry. I know Kevin has the experience and knowledge most would be jealous of, but it should be people like him actively encouraging younger people to get stuck in. Not all will have agreed with me on my views on this one, but then again, it’s not often people agree with me anyway!

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Get Back In The Water…

Wednesday saw me cover the trials and tribulations of the global economy. After a fairly medium sized period of calm and relative positivity, the stock markets started shedding weight, and the oil price continued it’s strong decline. Good for petrol prices, not good for most world economies however.

At the time of writing this post oil was trading at a tad over $85 per barrel. It has been steadily dropping since the summer on the fears of a slowdown in demand. Demand always drops because economies aren’t performing as they would like. And this is exactly the scenario. Europe is sliding back into recession. Germany, the Eurozone’s biggest economy, has just revised down their annual GDP forecast to 1.2% growth down from 1.8%. Italy is back in recession proper. At current rates, the Eurozone will be back in recession as a whole too.

I know we won’t want to admit this to ourselves after a few quarters of positive growth, but there are still a lot of problems in the world economy that have yet to be solved. These will affect the UK economy in one way or another, it’s as simple as that. This is why I decided to cover this on DGB this week.

On the plus side, the UK economy seems to be the only one performing. Growth has been good, consumer confidence remains high and I think many of us are still positive. I do hope the media in the UK don’t over-hype the problems as they did during the recession. I think that does as much damage sometimes.

What Caused The Drop In The Bi-Fold Market?

This was a post I was waiting to write ever since the latest Palmer report came out a few weeks ago. For me, despite the generally positive figures from the report, the one stat that stood out for me was the surprise drop in the bi-fold market by a fairly significant 7%. Thursday I decided to explore a few ideas as to why this happened.

But the last couple of years has seen the UK shift from recession to recovery, and so has the housing market. So my theory is that now people are moving house again, bi-folds as a priority product has now fallen down the list. When people move house, it tends to be the windows and doors that get changed first, along with boilers and the other usual suspects. Bi-folds, glazed extensions etc come later as people start to settle in and think about more longer term projects.

I think out of all the reasons stated, I felt the housing market was the main reason. However, Paul from Olsen UK gave his feedback on the matter:

Some good points DGB!
But there is one thing that we always come across at Olsen is that sliding doors are often the better option. They can take bigger glass units, so less frame, more views. We can do a 6 meter opening in a two panel slider – meaning only one mullion interrupting the view. Whereas with bi-folds you would have to have this in a minimum of 6 panels (5 at a push) with 5 mullions – that’s a lot more frame & a lot less glass. The only real argument against this is you can’t have sliders (without pocket doors) that open completely but in reality how many days a year in the British climate are you going to have them entirely open anyway?
In our North Nott’s showroom we have bi-folds next to sliders and the percentage of people we have visit with the intention of buying bi-folds but then switch to the lift & slide doors is very high!

Also you make the point that more people are now moving instead of improving at the moment – if this were true surely business would be slow? We’re busier than ever!

I had never really thought about the sliding door option. Paul weighed in on this one with some good points!

The Yellow Pages Gets Smaller, Again!

Last but not least, a bit more of a light hearted subject to finish the week on. A couple of weeks ago I got my latest Yellow Pages through the door. Remember when it used to make a thud when it landed on the floor? Yeah me neither. The YP now looks more like a chunky pamphlet more than anything else. On Friday I wrote about it’s demise from the world of marketing.

The other fact we have to consider is that abundance of free and cheap advertising online. Google’s targeted adverts, free websites and organic search engine results mean the idea of paying thousands of pounds a year to be in a very old fashioned and shrinking yellow book just really isn’t appealing any more.

It’s sad to see the YP like this, it’s almost embarrassing. If I were owners Hibu, I’d close it down whilst I still had some cash to spend and work on another idea, because this one certainly isn’t working any more. Do any of you guys still use the YP?

Elsewhere in the industry…

#TNMP2 (Tweet N Meet Part 2) the industry night out many have been looking forward to begins on Saturday 17th at 7pm. Everyone welcome! Click here to read more.

I wonder what next week will bring? One thing is for sure, plenty of #TNMP2 pictures! I’ll do a nice big review of that on DGB too!