Not that long ago, I tweeted to ask whether the UK fenestration sector would learn the lessons from this ongoing crisis, or whether it would bury it's head in the sand and hope the same problems in the supply chain never come back again. It got a bigger response than I thought, so I [...]
In what was a widely expected announcement, on Monday evening Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the final stage of the lifting of lockdown, due to take place on June 21st, would be delayed by four weeks to July 19th. It comes as the spread of the Delta variant, first discovered in India, is [...]
This is a guest article by CAB: A lot has been claimed about the benefits of aluminium by CAB and many other associations, but we should also ask: “Where would we be today without this material?” With a high strength to weight ratio, aluminium is a structural engineering material, without it we would not [...]
This is a letter to the editor from Brisant Secure: Dear Jason, I’m writing to congratulate Giovanni Laporta for Smart Ready®’s milestone win in its trademark dispute with Yale (letter dated 20th May 2021). Brisant has seen many of our initiatives blatantly copied. While we normally just poke fun at it on social media, [...]
For a while, the UK fenestration sector has talked about the need to produce more here and rely less on imports. There is a genuine argument for this. This is highlighted by the current supply problems and you have to wonder if we did make more fenestration products here in the UK then would [...]
Demand in the home improvement sector is very high right now. Perhaps at record highs for some companies. Since the start of this huge bounce-back, which originated in mid-May of 2020, the debate has since been about predicting when things might end. The answer might be a lot longer than we thought. High home [...]
As consultations around the Government’s new Future Buildings Standard close, VEKA Plc’s Technical Director, Paul Kennington, applauds plans to make homes more energy efficient but questions whether the vexed issue of ventilation has been solved. The results are in; over the last two years, the Government has been running consultations that first covered domestic [...]
Andy Jones has announced he is to step down as Victorian Sliders Group Managing Director after two years. Here is his statement: Since my appointment as Group MD in 2019 we have embarked on an investment strategy that has enabled us to scale the business rapidly, and we have seen a real transformation during [...]
In my most recent polls on the DGB social media feeds, I asked fenestration installers their thoughts on the state of deliveries to them from their suppliers. Last week those polls on Linkedin and Twitter ended, and these were the results. Installers: what is the current situation? This was the question I posed to [...]
Whilst the fenestration sector is busy pumping out record numbers of windows and doors every week, straining every sinew to keep every happy and supplied, we need to remember that they are indeed only windows. We're working enormous hours, taking on huge workloads and stress levels, but we must not sacrifice the most important [...]
This is a press release from Saint-Gobain: Saint-Gobain announces the sale of Saint-Gobain Glassolutions Objekt-Center, which specializes in glass processing operations as part of the Glassolutions network in Germany, to the German privately-owned AEQUITA group based in Munich. This sale concerns two sites: Döring Berlin and Radeburg, which employ a total of almost 200 [...]
This is a press release issued by Glass Futures: St Helens Borough Council Planning Committee has today granted planning permission for delivery of the £54million global glass research and innovation facility located at Saints Retail Park. The planning application was prepared and submitted by developer and landowner Network Space, on behalf of not-for-profit research [...]
Whilst UK fenestration continues to enjoy an unprecedented bounce-back from the economic hit caused by the pandemic, the extreme pressures on the supply chain both inside and outside fenestration could cause a summer of major disruption for the sector. Fenestration could be hit hard Installers continue to be flooded with new business from the [...]
It is said that no one ever intends to work in the fenestration industry. Everyone you speak to says that they fell into it rather than aspired to be in it. Whilst that is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed, especially against a backdrop of a skills and youth gap, I thought [...]
It has long been known that the fenestration sector is going through an acute skills and youth shortage that remains one of the biggest problems the sector has to tackle. At this present time, with demand at extraordinary levels and continuing to grow, that skills gap has become ever more pressing, with installers and [...]
The team at fenestration industry disruptors FENEX continues to grow as the sector’s first virtual expo platform welcomes the very talented Ben Allen as their new Business Development Manager. Ben joins a growing team at FENEX which is changing how the fenestration sector connects both with itself and the public, as well as providing [...]
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