6 minute read
Interview - Domus Windows and Doors
DISASTER RESISTANT
Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Terrance Ortt, Chief Executive Officer at Domus Windows & Doors Ltd., about hurricane resistant products, rigorous product testing, and guarantees of efficiency.
By Izzy Moss
Domus Windows & Doors Ltd. was founded in 2006 on the island of St. Kitts, launching a year later with the intention of manufacturing Unplasticized Poly Vinyl Chloride (uPVC) windows and doors for the Caribbean on home turf. The components of Domus’s uPVC products are designed to resist rust, peeling, corrosion, rot, swelling or blistering for over 20 years.
In the beginning, an old sugar factory building was used for manufacturing until their world class factory could be constructed in 2018. Today, the company has offices in St. Kitts, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua, broadening and redesigning with a strong research and development ethic in selling locally-made, high quality, long-lasting hurricane-resistant products to the Caribbean market.
SOPHISTICATED MANUFACTURING
“Domus uses a sophisticated computer integrated manufacturing system, which costs roughly TT$30 million,”,” says Terrance Ortt, Chief Executive Officer from Domus Windows & Doors Ltd. “It has 1,000 different models that can be customized to any size and configuration. Moreover, we have the only glass lamination plant in the Eastern Caribbean. We can laminate any two pieces of glass, including very high efficiency Solar-E from Pilkington, which cuts the solar heat gain through the windows almost in half. Pilkington is the leading glass company in terms of research and development. A large percentage of our customers are now purchasing Solar-E energy saving glass.”
The company’s labor costs are considerably lower per unit compared to the average, despite overall costs often being greater. “There are cheaper products everywhere, but there aren’t better products anywhere,” says Mr. Ortt. “The efficiency of the manufacturing system allows us to put that same labor-cost-saving back into higher quality materials such as stainless steel and special coatings over the screws, so they don’t corrode in salt air.”
HURRICANE-PROOF PRODUCTS
Natural disasters like hurricanes are very common in the Caribbean, causing immense pressure on the windows and doors of housing. “Hurricanes have two menacing conditions that can occur,” says Mr. Ortt. “One is wind-borne debris that can knock the glass out of windows unless it is laminated and glued into properly secured frames, and the other is wind load. A Category 1 hurricane may have 25-40 pounds per square foot in terms of wind load. By the time you get the strongest Category 5 hurricane at 190 miles per hour, that turns out to be 90 pounds per square foot which is almost twice the pressure that standard floors are designed to withstand. A window which is being subjected to almost twice the force that a house would have for its floor, most units will structurally fail at that point. Once a window is blown out, the buildup of pressure inside is the same kind of pressure on the outside making it very likely to lose the roof of the house.”
“Hurricanes are getting much stronger due to climate change,” explains Mr. Ortt. “Traditionally weather disturbances that came across the Atlantic became tropical storms or rarely Category 1 or 2 hurricanes. By the time they hit the United States or Mexico, they may have picked up more steam and become a stronger hurricane whereas recently hurricanes have been at maximum strength when they pass the Eastern Caribbean islands.”
TRIED AND TESTED
Domus Windows & Doors Ltd. test their products in these intense conditions. “We have to protect from both of these hurricane conditions,” says Mr. Ortt. “In terms of wind loads, we heavily reinforce our products. Domus has the only test laboratory in the Eastern Caribbean that can properly test for wind load, at up to 250-mph. There have been two of the strongest hurricanes in the Caribbean in the last 150 years that have been up to 190-mph. Our specification now is 200-mph, which is the highest wind load standard in the industry. We had to redesign a lot of products and use extra reinforcement in order to meet the 200 mph standard. Also the screws that go around the perimeter must be much longer and installed differently. When a customer buys
from us, and we say it is hurricane resistant, we would attach to that the 200-mph specification.”
MISSILE-PROOF
There are two types of hurricane-resistant products available to customers at two price points. “We had two different types of our products installed in St Maarten when Hurricane Irma hit,” says Mr. Ortt. “The high impact hurricane product, which carried with it a 2.5-millimeter laminate, was tested to ASTM E1996 Missile D. It takes three blows of an eight foot long, two inches by four-inch wooden missile shot from a cannon at 50 feet per second. “We had less expensive Security Laminate products in some buildings since some customers did not want to spend the full amount of money for the high-impact. To our surprise these products performed almost as well in terms of resisting impacts.”
“This product is a security laminate, which is intended for more security purposes, but we found that it performed almost as well in terms of resisting impact,” explains Mr. Ortt. “There were almost no failures whatsoever with this thinner laminate, which costs a lot less money. The impact of the debris flying around in the Caribbean seems to, in most cases, be sufficiently stopped by this thinner laminate. We have launched the only economical hurricane product line with the same wind load requirement. Another advantage of our hurricane resistant swing doors is they will also reduce the impact of flooding, which very often goes along with hurricanes or tropical storms.”
CUSTOMER WARRANTIES
Aluminum and PVC dominate the windows and doors market. “In Germany, two thirds of all windows are uPVC,” says Mr. Ortt. “In all of Europe and the UK about two-third of all windows are uPVC, while in North America it can range from 60% to 90%. The rest of the windows that are not uPVC are mostly aluminum, which is generally less expensive and is easy to make. But the problem with aluminum is that it conducts heat far more than uPVC, making it less energy efficient – and it corrodes more easily when exposed to airborne contaminants, such as the salt that can be found occurring naturally in the air for miles around Caribbean island coastlines. Aluminum also requires a huge amount of energy in order to create the raw material itself relative to uPVC.
Not only are Domus Windows & Doors Ltd. products hurricane-resistant, but they are energy efficient also. “Pilkington Solar-E is long-lasting, reduces solar heat gain, and does not scratch,” says Mr. Ortt. “Customers end up saving a lot of energy over time. In our showroom people are amazed that you can walk around on a sunny day, and they hardly feel the sun coming through these windows. The Air Conditioning (AC) plant can be reduced in size, because the AC load is going to be lower. Having been able to build and launch the factory and train the staff, we are now ready for a lot of growth. Having the products in line with the highest hurricane standards and energy efficiency, we want to continue to expand into more Caribbean markets.” c
