It’s 2015. We are selling the most advanced and beautiful doors and windows the UK fenestration industry has ever sold, well, at least in PVC. Glass has never been so efficient. The choice in colour has never been so extensive. We’re charging more for our products than ever have done. And yet, despite such advancements in other areas, we still get regularly pitting door handles and letter boxes!
Pitting in non-coastal areas
When you have a property near the coast, you can understand why polished hardware, especially letter boxes and handles, eventually pits. The sea air is full of salt and bombards the surface of finish, causing it to pit. But the majority of us work and live inland, with decent air quality and little air pollution. So what could be the reason why so many of us, including myself on my own door, have so much hardware pitting?
These were some examples of pitted hardware tweeted by Nigel Grant:
This isn’t the first time Nigel has brought up his issues with pitting hardware. In fact, it’s almost becoming a weekly tradition. In all seriousness though, the problem of failing hardware isn’t just a tedious little side problem. It’s costly to the installer and supplier, and harms the reputation of the installer too.
Reputation rubs off
When your customer spends top dollar on the very best door you do, you would hope that the hardware that it comes with matches the overall quality of the door. Yet in so many cases it doesn’t. The polished chrome and gold stuff just doesn’t seem to last.
It starts to make the installer look like they’ve cut corners. And although that might sound a bit dramatic, that’s really how it comes across to the customer. If you’re having to go out on a regular basis for something as trivial as pitting hardware, the novelty of a quality installation quickly rubs off.
When you look at all the other developments in our industry, that fact we haven’t yet cracked the pitting problem is an odd one. Admittedly, there are some hardware companies who have less of a problem with this sort of thing than some others. It was proposed on Twitter that perhaps a poll could be included to see who the industry thought supplied the most reliable hardware. Well, instead, comments on this, and who people think might be the best, are all welcome in the section below.
Come on hardware guys, lets crack this once and for all and give the installers one less problem to worry about!
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I eventually got my supplier to use only hoppee handles on my doors and the problem has gone away. I trust no hardware without the manufacturers name on it as it means it’s cheap and nasty, and no one will put their name to it
Hi Jason, as I’m sure you’ll remember we, together with Petita from MACO, discussed the issue of general hardware quality sometime ago on here. As I said back then, I believe the quality has a lot to do with the origin of manufacture. When manufacturers outsource production to the Far East, for instance, they benefit from lower production costs, but at the expense of quality in my opinion. I personally have had issues with Yale letterplates pitting in the past, and have ongoing issues with flaws in the finish of Trojan stainless steel door furniture – only last week I… Read more »
It’s all about price, the products are available for a slight premium, but the market won’t always pay for them. As a company we’ve been supplying door and window hardware for over 30 years and concentrate on quality products most of which have a European heritage and quality. Unfortunately we are still continually amazed at how low prices can go and this can make it difficult to compete with the products which we offer. Last year we introduced a new composite door package which includes quality products such as Winkhaus, Hoppe and Karcher Design. The package is sold on the… Read more »
The visible breakdown of the plating is caused by the corrosion of the base metal, the underlying alloys (brass, aluminum etc) along with any corrosion preventive treatments (Nickel, Zinc, Copper etc) react violently when exposed to the earths elements and cause the Chromium plating to erupt like a volcano (haze, crack, pit). You can argue that some brands do indeed fare better than others (mainly down to the thickness of the plating applied) but for absolute longevity the base metal should be corrosion resistant to begin with. Some hardware manufactures now offer Chromium plated SS304. That being said, all decorative… Read more »
What you might find odd, and that supports some of the arguments made above and previously, is that our exporting business is booming with sales increasing rapidly to Germany, USA, China and Japan for our solid brass and aluminium goods in polished and brushed finishes, they seem to really respect the Made in Britain badge. Obviously solid items don’t suffer the defects shown on these pictures and the brass items actually build up a nice verdigris which is considered desirable. There were examples of this at the last Fensterbau exhibition that were proving really popular and there were even some… Read more »
Hi Anthony and thanks for your comment
Well done on the exports business, I hope that it continues to grow in the future. Coming back to the UK market though, it sounds like you know what you’re doing. Fancy putting your knowledge and skills to putting the “standard” stuff over here right? I am sure every installer would be very appreciative lol!
Jason
Lol… Marks comment before mine is a good description of the Cathodic effects of metals under atmospheric conditions. These can be isolated through more rigorous specification of materials and coatings… But as you have noticed that costs a bit more money… Not a lot more though… I’d love to be able to knock the Chinese or Indian foundries but they can make outstanding products if asked.. Not surprisingly though they tend to come up to UK prices then… My door is always open to anyone who wants to look at alternatives