Is There A Limit To The Potential Of Composite Doors?

Every year, reports from the various reporting bodies state that growth in the composite door sector continues to be strong. Outperforming most other sub-sectors in the industry. It’s certainly a growth model most other fenestration sectors would love to have.

Since their introduction to the UK market, they have taken the general public by storm. Ask a home owner what type of door they would most likely go for if they were in the market for a new one and it would probably be a composite door. It has become a widely recognized brand of product. Something our industry hasn’t always been able to achieve with some of our more marquee products.

But is there a limit? Could we ever reach “peak composite door”?

A potential to peak?

There’s a lot of doors being sold at the moment. If there is a report out there in the ether which says exactly how many doors were sold in the past year I would love to see it. But it’s clear from what installers are saying, as well as fabricators, that doors are a very desirable purchase at the moment.

Composite doors are leading that charge. They were the first door product to introduce genuine colour choices into the mainstream market and get that idea to take hold. Now we have a range of suppliers across the industry offering a total rainbow of colours and all other in between.

How long can this growth be sustained? Is there potential to reach “peak composite door”? Could home owners even get bored of the product group altogether and decide they want something new to look at instead?

I would probably say that the latter point is a way off yet. If you look at the PVCu full panel door market is took decades for the bottom of that market to drop out. It is composite doors that have replaced it and decimated much of that industry. It may be decades away before we see the composite door market go the same way.

There is however, at least I believe, potential for “peak composite door” if the industry allows itself to become stagnant. At the moment, there are a number of very large composite door manufacturers, producing many thousands of doors per week each. Competition is fierce and most established composite door suppliers are growing well. The industry however doesn’t want to see street after street of homes populated by very similar styles of composite door.

The product is established. The task now is to make sure the product continues to evolve at a fast enough pace so that they stay relevant and desirable. If it does that, it should be able to sustain itself.

A matter of quality

Another factor that is going to work in the favour of the composite door market in the long term is the varying quality levels across the sector. Namely, the budget doors, made cheaply and sold cheaply. It is these that are going to fail much quicker than the better quality ones.

Assuming that the home owner isn’t put off by that, and sees the long term benefits in purchasing a better quality composite door next time round, we will already be looking at a second generation composite door market.

We may already be seeing the roots of one emerging already. We replaced a number of first generation composite doors during 2016. Much poorer quality versions that had discoloured, warped and generally broken down well before time.

Composite doors smashing all others online

Take a look at these rather impressive Google Trends charts. These are charts based on search terms for the four main product categories in doors:

Key: Blue – composite doors | Red – PVCu doors | Yellow – aluminium doors | Green – timber doors

12 year trend:

5 year trend:

1 year trend:

In all three of these charts there is a very clear winner. The 12 and 5 year trend charts are probably the most impressive. PVCu doors have probably suffered the worst. In the 1 year trend chart they didn’t get anywhere close to challenging the other three materials.

Aluminium has seen a gentle resurgence and timber has been middle of the road since Google started recording it’s data in this way.

What is clear though is the momentum is still firmly behind the composite door market and I can’t see any short or medium term problems that could knock it off it’s upwards course. So, is there a limit to the potential for composite doors? In my opinion, no. It’s time to cash in whilst the opportunities are there!