Letters

YOUR LETTERS

WHAT’S YOUR OPINION?

Feel free to get in touch with your views on the industry, legislation, government, or even the newspaper.

Contact Chris:

chris@glassnews.co.uk

OPEN LETTER: PRODUCT AND SERVICE

Dear Chris,

The window and door industry never fails to surprise me. I see stuff and have conversations with suppliers and customers every day that you wouldn’t think would happen - but they do.

So, with that in mind, I find myself half expecting to be surprised again this year by what comes next.

As unlikely as it seemed at its start, we saw a global pandemic drive exponential growth in consumer demand for two-years. So, what war, inflation and an energy crisis will do to window and door sales now is not a foregone conclusion - some sort of a slowdown, is, however likely. So where does that leave fabricators and installers? For me, in the midst of a lot of market complexity and challenge - and I don’t think I’m over-simplifying things - it comes back to product and service. For the last two years, suppliers have been able to get away with a less than exemplary level of service (and at the odd moment, I’m big enough to admit, that that’s included us), because demand has been so high, it really hasn’t mattered.

The same goes for product. There has been a distinct lack of innovation, particularly at systems level for the past two-years. That’s understandable given the context of Covid, and it’s been ok because demand has been there - but now both these things do matter again. Actually, they never stopped mattering. We’ve always been an innovator. In 2017 we pioneered the development of a non-glassbonded 90° jointed R9 window inside and out using Timberweld®. We now offer the complete Residence Collection in a 90° joint on both sides of a welded sash, adding the new 70mm Kömmerling Flush casement to our range this year. None of that is easy to do, but we’ve done it because puts us in a place which we believe reflects the direction of travel in the market.

It’s not only product but the model. We took a decision to stop volume manufacture at the start of this year and focus on our specialist PVC-U flush and aluminium offers. We supply installers but also other fabricators.

It’s about moving forwards in what we offer as an industry and how we do it - and that’s what we need to do now, if, as we expect, the market becomes less forgiving. Service and product - in my humble opinion as Yorkshireman, those things still count and consumers, (at least the ones you want to deal with), are still prepared to pay for them. People will pay more for a flush window with a 90° joint on both sides, because it looks so much better on their home. They’ll pay more for a door that matches it, and they’ll pay more for a colourmatched aluminium bi-fold.

That those products need to be energy efficient is a given because it’s what homeowners want, and in the current climate, with average household energy bills at the £2,000 mark, it’s not only more important to them, but also offers faster pay back. It’s about product, service and particularly in retail, how we communicate that. In short, how we sell. The smart installers get that. Those who don’t are going to find the next few months a wake-up call. For more information email s ales@hwlwindows.co.uk call 0113 2449006 or log on at www.hwlwindows.co.uk. Mark Haley, Managing Director, HWL Windows

ENERGY EFFICIENCY. FRONT AND CENTRE.

Dear Chris,

So, according to Business Pilot, retail saw a slowdown in April, with fewer sales and fewer leads. This was attributed to economic uncertainty and the cost-of-living crisis, something driven by hikes seen in energy prices in April.

That analysis is pretty much on the money. The bubble was going to burst at some point, and things were going to slowdown. Inflation - forecast to hit 10% by the end of this year - plus rising interest rates was always going to take some of the heat out of what was an over-heated market.

Things are going to be tougher, but they couldn’t always be so easy. And the key driver of inflation - the raising of the energy price cap in April – generates opportunity. Forecast to rise by a further 47% in October, average fuel bills could hit £2,900 a year. Analysts at investment bank Goldman Sachs predicted in the press last weekend [15/5/22], that rising energy prices were delivering a shift in consumer behaviour, doing more to drive the UK’s journey to Net Zero than anything agreed at last November’s Cop26 climate conference. This is borne out in new figures from the National Audit Office, which reported that 40% of homeowners had noticed higher costs and were turning down thermostats and driving their cars less. This puts energy efficiency front and centre of the social - and political agendas. Rising energy prices make energy efficient home improvements a priority for homeowners. The question is can they afford them? And clearly many won’t be able to. The ‘care-free furlough-fuelled’ spending on home improvements that we saw in 2020 and 2021, is behind us.

The future is about home energy efficiency. Something that in the immediate term will be driven less by regulatory change despite Part L, but more by consumer pressure. The cost-of-living crisis will narrow our market, but core markets will still make purchases - the impetus for them to do so is greater than ever. (It’s worth noting that higher energy prices also make payback on energy efficient home improvements faster). And because, homes account for around 14% of UK greenhouse gas emissions; and because failure to address the cost-of-living crisis will cost the Government votes; energy efficiency is also front and centre of the political agenda. Emissions from UK homes need to fall by at least 24% by 2030 from 1990 levels. Still way off track and with no meaningful successor to the Green Deal, in place, Government will also have to deliver longer term initiatives to support homeowners and landlords in improving the energy efficiency of existing stock. The cost-of-living crisis is real, and society must make sure that vulnerable households don’t slip through the net and into fuel poverty. For others, those that have a choice to invest in new windows and doors, the argument for doing so, becomes more compelling. We simply have to connect the dots in the homeowner’s mind.

Rob McGlennon

Managing Director, Deceuninck