In the quest for ever more advanced window and door products, across the glazing materials spectrum, have you noticed that in a way, we’re actually moving backwards?

In terms of technology, build quality, energy efficiency and security, these are all moving forward of course. I mean moving backwards in time when it comes to aesthetics. Our PVCu and some aluminium products have never looked so authentically timber. The original fenestration material.

In pretty much all established parts of our market, we’re all going old school!

Modern materials, old school styling

There has been a most definite shift in the past half decade or so towards traditional aesthetics. You only need to look at the very sharp rise in popularity of timber alternative PVCu products, those made by the likes of Residence Collection, Evolution and others. The strength and rise of these types of companies is as a direct result of home owners wanting to have the look of traditional timber, but built with modern materials like PVCu and all the benefits it brings with it.

Entrance doors are another good example. In the composite door sector there are a number of major industry suppliers who have dedicated ranges of composite doors designed to look like their timber counterparts from many moons ago.

Even some residential aluminium products, a material usually reserved for those looking for clean, architectural lines, look more like their timber ancestors than they ever have done.

What I think we’re seeing is a white PVCu hangover. Three, nearly four decades where PVCu, mainly in White, dominated most people’s homes and their windows and doors. There was very little option. Aluminium had a variety of cons which saw it drop off the radar. People moved in droves away from timber in the search for an option which required less maintenance. PVCu seemed to be the only alternative for a very long time.

Then we started to see home owner tastes change. Home owners wanted choice. An alternative to the same White windows and doors. And they didn’t want to buy something which looked a lot like what they already had. So, some of the forward thinking fabricators and manufacturers got to work in providing some genuine alternatives fit for a fenestration industry that really needed jolting forward.

Since then, our industry’s windows and doors have never looked so good as they do now.

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No looking back

As far as I can tell, there is no going back in terms of traditional aesthetics. There will always be a proportion of residential windows and doors who want a clean and striking look to their windows and doors. That is fine, and that part of the market will probably always be reserved for the residential aluminium part of the market.

However, when it comes to residential PVCu, I can see this area of the sector becoming even more traditionally designed over the coming years. Things like build quality, energy efficiency and security will always get better. But I believe design will continue down a traditional path. A path that will pit PVCu against timber more and more each year.

We’ll see rises in flush window sales. We’ll see expanded wood grain stock options from fabricators. We’ll see even more traditional hardware suites. We’ll see wood grain effects become even better. Things like mechanical joints will be common place. There will be no looking back.

And nor should we be looking back. As far as I’m concerned, those initial decades of PVCu windows and doors in the UK were the early outliers for it’s future. If we had a second chance to introduce PVCu to the UK market, knowing what we know now, I’m certain that we wouldn’t have done it in the way we first did.

How PVCu is being done now is how it should have been done in the first place. This is the beauty of hindsight. I hope that our industry will continue down this path and evolve PVCu windows and doors in the image of it’s timber predecessors.

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