Sorry for the delay for the July review. A wedding and a honeymoon got in the way!

Wow. We’re into the second half of the year already. Where did that time go? It didn’t feel all that long ago that it was snowing at Easter. As we know, pretty much from then we have been baking, along with the rest of Europe, with record heat, sunshine and almost no water falling out of the sky. We had an excellent World Cup in that time, almost ran out of beer and CO2.

The window industry on the other hand felt like it began to meander in the heat. July was another hot and dry one. The kind of weather that gets people outside doing outside things, rather than looking at their homes wondering whether to get their windows replaced or not.

Before we look at what may lie ahead in August, I want to take my usual look back at the previous month to try and gauge what has been.

Weather taking it’s toll?

July was hot. As in, properly hot. As in, a serious summer only seen in other parts of the world. Temperatures regularly over 30 degrees. Wall to wall sunshine. No rain…at all. And the end of the school year. It will be a July we all remember for a while.

I did get the impression that the industry did begin to drift in the heat a little. As we know, when the weather is good, people are more like to spend time outside and spend their cash on things like beer, food and BBQs. The thought of new windows and doors might not have been on the top of most people’s priority list. Especially with the end of the school year, many will have been looking forward to their summer holidays. I have spoken with home owners in the past few weeks who have said just that. When it came to showroom weekend visits, the pub or the coast seemed like a better idea.

I use our own installations business as a bit of a bell-weather, and can report back that things did drop off at the end of the month. Lead levels stayed about normal, but the number of people going ahead with work slowed. Was it a problem? Not so much. Fitting schedules were fine. And to be honest, it happens at the same time every year. Families go away on holiday and have the whole of August to keep their kids entertained. The thought of new windows and doors would have been pushed way back.

I’ll say this. Our fitters found it very hard work in July, as I imagine many other installers will have found it, with the extreme heat and sun. This type of work can be very hard when the weather turns to one extreme or another. Our lads told me one day that they would prefer it to be cold because at least then they could warm up. There’s only so many layers they can take off before it gets embarrassing in front of the home owner! They had to make sure they drunk enough water and kept the sunscreen on, else risk heatstroke. I think they were happy to see the back of summer this year!

The big stories

July was pretty sedate as far as industry news was concerned. It tends to be this time of year. But if I look back at all the stories published on DGB, it has to be the volatile nature of Safestyle’s share price and their mixed fortunes.

Their tumultuous year has been one of the standout long running stories of 2018 so far, and in July we saw that story continue as a new chairman was appointed and their share price proceeded to drop a further 12%. To catch up on that story click here.

It’s worth pointing out that since then a slew of new articles have been published since, including a successful litigation settlement and a very negative H1 results report, which has since seen their share price rise over 20% in recent days.

DGB Business

How DGB did…

As always, I provide a report as to how DGB performed in the month, and I am quite surprised at how well it did considering I was not able to put as much time towards it as I normally do. These are the stats you need to know:

The fact I was over 25k for my page views in the month was staggering to me, considering that I published far less content than I usually do in a month. I put that down to good old SEO doing some of the leg work for me, and my readership base continuing to check on on any new content even if there isn’t anything new to read.

July always tends to be a bit quiet because of the summer, but on reflection these numbers are pretty strong. These figures keep me right on track for smashing my yearly targets well in advance and helping me to break the 300k page views barrier in a single year before we hit New Years. August’s review is coming up soon so I’ll be able to give you a better insight as to how the yearly progression is coming along.

Top 5 most read posts

Here are you top 5 most read posts published in July:

  1. Floyd “Money” Mayweather Advertises For Love Windows

  2. There’s A Crisis In Glass, And It’s Going To Get Worse

  3. Another Window Installer Fined For Bad Selling Methods

  4. Safestyle Fined Again & Court Update

  5. Enjoying The Hot Weather? Your PVCu Probably Isn’t

A look ahead to August

Well, seen as though I’m writing this after the month has passed I already know what happened! I spent the vast majority of it on honeymoon, so the review might be a tad shorter than usual!

Looking back at the year so far, I’m pretty happy with how things are panning out for DGB and our own family run business. It’s certainly not been easy on either front. In fact running an installations business in this current climate becomes harder each year and does tend to grind you down. I remember starting 13 years ago things were much easier. I might reflect further on that in a future post.

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