VIEWPOINT

‘Do We Now Need A Green Deal II?’

By Phil Slinger – CAB Chief Executive

The rate at which energy prices have risen in the last few months has been staggering and there are no indications of an end to the rises anytime soon. With further price rises expected this coming winter, rising costs are fuelling inflation and pushing many households into debt. So is it time to look again at some form of ‘Green Deal’ from the Government or is there anything we can do as home and business owner occupiers?

We talk of ‘sustainability’ which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “The use of natural products and energy in a way that does not harm the environment” We are reliably reminded that we continue to harm our global environment, the sooner we stop the sooner we can slow global warming. A great deal of work has already been achieved in the move towards sustainability, but there is much more work to be done.

The original ‘Green Deal’ was a Government initiative launched in January 2013 which encouraged consumers to apply for a loan to insulate their homes which included building fabric insulation, new windows and doors. These loans were taken out over a 10 to 25 year period and were intended to be paid off from the savings that improvements would make. The scheme was not a huge success, by the end of June 2015, only 10,000 households had installed energy saving measures using Green Deal finance. At this time, energy costs, whilst not cheap, were relatively stable and whilst the improvements would reduce energy consumption, there would be no initial saving for the consumer until the loan had been paid off. That said, the 10,000 forward thinking consumers on the ‘Green Deal’ then, will now be realising their cost of energy savings with a lower rate of consumption.

Phil Slinger

It is very unlikely that energy costs will fall back to anywhere near 2013/15 costs so is it now time that we really should encourage Government to do something, both to help us all to reduce our energy consumption to reduce the cost of living, but also to get us on the roadmap to a promised carbon-neutral future by 2050?

We can reduce energy consumption for hot water and space heating by changing from gas to ground source or air source heat pumps. In reality, whilst some savings in running costs can be achieved, these will take quite some time to realise as the investment in the change can be excessive, so, like the old ‘Green Deal’ not immediately practical for most consumers.

The most immediate savings on space heating can be made by correctly installing property insulation, these savings will reduce carbon emissions. According to LETI (London Energy Transformation Initiative), currently 18% of the UK’s annual carbon emissions comes from our domestic housing stock, 80% of which is estimated to still be in use by 2050. Not only will insulation help reduce costs and carbon emissions, it is estimated by Public Health England that some 10,000 people each year die prematurely as a result of cold homes.

Replacing an old window with a modern high performance window can make a contribution to energy saving, but only if it is installed correctly by ensuring minimal cold bridging around the window reveal otherwise much of the insulation savings can be lost. Is it not time for us to review alongside replacement window and door installations the need for building fabric insulation to make the most of the capital investment in replacement windows and doors? Not only is this the right thing to do, but it is potentially a huge ‘range building’ opportunity for business, especially in the home improvement sector. There is no doubt that a retrofitted energy efficient home, or ‘low-carbon’ home, will retain the insulation investment once sold.

A ‘Green Deal II’ could be part funded by Government and by profitable energy companies, but there are also consumers who could afford to update their existing homes to a ‘low-carbon’ standard, if they were educated into what that standard needs to be. The movement, ’Insulate Britain’ make some bold statements on their website, but in essence are calling on Government to immediately make provision to update social housing to help bring people out of ‘fuel poverty’. Whilst Building Regulations are beginning to change for new dwellings, it is clear that a detailed plan is needed to refurbish much of our current building stock to reduce our reliance on foil fuels, only then can we switch to a reduced electricity consumption for keeping property warm in the winter months. It is also worth mentioning a correctly insulated building also works in reverse by helping to keep out the heat of anticipated future heatwaves in the UK.

The Council for Aluminium in Building for their part are beginning to work closely with other associations and groups in order pool knowledge and help expedite recommendations for home improvement and refurbishment of commercial property. It is hoped that cost effective solutions can be found that will help us all on the way to a carbon neutral 2050.

Aluminium remains at the top of consumers minds as the most ‘sustainable’ material for windows and doors, not only is the material fully recyclable, it is estimated that aluminium systems have a life expectancy twice that of competing materials. The continued rise in demand for aluminium systems is clearly demonstrated by these competing material systems companies adopting or designing aluminium products as premium ranges. www.c-a-b.org.uk

Work Smart For Improved Profits, Says Sternfenster

We’ve seen this coming some years back. For example, we were the first UK fabricator to own a Graf Welder, and we now have three at our facility in Lincoln. They can produce a near invisible weld on our foiled StyleLine sashes, and the flush sash option accounts for approximately 40% of all our PVC business. The demand for colour, too, continues to grow, which we can comfortably meet thanks to continued investment. Other fabricators are not so lucky. They are unable to make the most of those profitable product lines because the standard white casements they produce, while at volume, don’t leave a great deal of wriggle room as input costs rise.

In an open letter, Nathan Court, sales director at Sternfenster, asks other fabricators if now is the right time to re-evaluate their business structure, and to consider partnering with companies who can make them more profitable.

Some people say that we are very good at talking ourselves into a recession, which I think is unfortunately true. Too many people are happy to look for the challenges rather than the opportunities.

And as the market starts to cool after what has got to be one of the most difficult three years of trading, we are hearing the usual doom-laden tales of woe, about how small-to-medium-sized fabricators are going to fail because high input costs and reduced demand are squeezing profits and threatening cash flow

Sadly, the only effect this has is to cause panic, and for companies to react counter-intuitively – ie, they under-invest and overstretch themselves. In fact, we are already starting to see that happen. Let’s not sugar-coat the situation. We are in for a tough few months. Some forecasters are saying inflation could peak at 13.3% in October this year, which has been driven in the most part by high fuel prices, high food prices, and the ludicrous jump in the cost of energy – all the things that eat into households’ budgets and prevent spending elsewhere, including home improvement.

Taken at face value, and the situation doesn’t look that rosy, but don’t forget that not all households are affected equally by the squeeze on the cost of living. Many homeowners will be irritated most by rising costs, and will have money for those refurbishment projects dreamt up during lockdown and beyond. According to the ONS, half of all home improvement spending between 2011 and 2020 came from the upper fifth households by income – these are the people we should be targeting.

At Sternfenster, we have invested in the machinery, infrastructure and product design to meet the increased demand for high-end, high-margin products. We see sustained activity at the top end of the market until at least the end of the year, and we are geared to make the most of those opportunities.

At Sternfenster, we have the capacity to take that high volume work off your hands, so that you can concentrate on the more profitable niche products such as foiled flush sash casements. You will still be making a decent profit on those frames, but you don’t have to worry about investing in machinery, or about the continued labour shortage.

And you will benefit from the exceptional service offer that we have built for our installation customers. Specifically, we are seen as a single point of contact for aluminium, PVC-U, and glass, and we provide a broad digital marketing support offer, which includes a virtual showroom, production transparency, and business advice.

Despite the negative words of some, there are still opportunities, and we can help you make the most of them.

Nathan Court, sales director, Sternfenster.

The Business Pilot Barometer offers a monthly analysis of the key trends defining window and door retail. It draws on real industry data collated by Business Pilot, the cloud-based business management tool.To find out more see www.businesspilot.co.uk/barometer

The Business Pilot Barometer Sales down but order values up

write home about. The three-month trend, is however, worth noting. The market is down, inflation has hit, and the boom is over. Year-on-year, things are stark. Sales are down June 2022 on June 2021 by 30%. Leads are down 29% over the same period. As we have stated previously, this doesn’t indicate that we’re heading for a crash, the year-on-year change is nonetheless striking. Average order values, did, however, continue to climb, up 1% on May. Year-on-year, June 2022 compared to June 2021, the increase is 43%.

By Neil Cooper-Smith, Senior Analyst, Business Pilot

We can now say with confidence that the market cooled significantly in the last quarter, with sales dropping by around 12% in the three months from April to June.

It follows a small drop in average sales in June on May, down by 3%. The number of new leads also fell month-on-month, recording a 6% drop. As we highlighted last month, we attribute this to a shift away from single item and ad hoc aspirational spend, for example the purchase of bi-folds or a new front door, to a more comprehensive whole house approach to home improvements.

This is being driven by inflationary pressures, which is on the one hand driving an element of market contraction but on the other creating new opportunities, particularly in home energy efficiency.

Although the rate of house price inflation has slowed, simple pressures of supply and demand mean that the house prices have held firm. As long as people have equity in their properties and confidence in the housing market we can expect them to continue to want to invest.

The Greener Homes Attitudes Tracker from Natwest showed last month that the number of people planning green home improvements rose from 16% in at the end of 2021 to 22% in May this year. It also suggest that homeowners were bringing improvements forward in response to rising energy prices.

This indicates that those with a greater disposable income are continuing to spend. Those who are feeling the pinch, aren’t.

While council tax rebates and energy relief payments from government are welcome, they provide a short-term solution only. We would argue against this context and as called for by the Climate Change Committee at the end of June, the creation of a programme to support all homeowners in improving the energy efficiency of their homes is now pressing from an environmental but also socio-economic perspective.

We believe that this pattern is going to define the market going forward this year and into much of 2023.

The Bank of England says it expects Inflation to hit a high of 11% before falling back to around 2% by sometime in 2024.

The market is going to be tougher for the foreseeable future, so understanding where your leads are coming from and maximising conversions is going to be key. With a sophisticated lead tracking capability, lead heat mapping and sales pipeline management tool, Business Pilot helps you maximise leads, manage their conversion and then simplifies project delivery maximising your profitability on every job.

For more information visit www.businesspilot. co.uktoo early to say if we’re seeing a readjustment or the start of a downturn.

Either way, it appears things are going to be tougher, certainly than they were, and tightening up on your sales and operational processes, to convert more and get more from your teams by automating repetitive tasks and working in a far more connected way is sensible.

We have customers who have saved upwards of £40,000 a year by understanding and tracking operations more effectively. That could be £40,000 back on your bottom line, without having to sell more or work any harder.

Specify BS EN 12206 Or Qualicoat?

By Angus Mackie – Qualicoat UK & Ireland Chair

During the recent Qualicoat UK & Ireland conference held at the Building Centre in London, Chris Mansfield commercial director of Tomburn and licensed Qualicoat applicator, offered delegates an insight into the recently released BS EN 12206 for coated architectural aluminium having sat on the working group dealing with the revision.

In the UK we generally specify British Standards or a Euro Standard (EN) as a minimum requirement for many of our construction contracts often to the exclusion of lengthy written specifications. Even though we are out of the EU, the UK remain members of CEN/ CENELEC and has an obligation to implement an EN Standard as an identical national Standard and withdraw any conflicting national Standards. These Standards are based on a ‘fit for purpose’ minimum requirement and form a benchmark to qualify products and services. Standards are ‘self policed’ in other words, claimed as meeting the Standard by a producer who supplies a product.

Originally released in 2004, BS EN 12206 ‘Paints and varnishes, coating of aluminium and aluminium alloys for architectural purposes, coatings prepared from thermosetting coating powder’, was subject to a review process in 2016 and was eventually released as a new updated Standard in May 2021. The major changes to the new 2021 Standard are as follows:

In the 2004 Standard cleaning prior to applying the conversion layer was stated as ‘Before the conversion stage, the substrate shall be thoroughly cleaned and/ or pickled.’ The 2021 Standard now includes a requirement for a 1gm/m2 aluminium surface etch to ensure contaminants are removed. The 2004 Standard quoted ‘chrome-free’ as an alternate conversion layer, the new 2021 Standard now offers, chrome, chrome-free and pre-anodising as alternative pretreatments systems that can be used, all of which offer an equally desired outcome of surface pretreatment.

The revised Standard also expands on the Florida testing for ‘super durable’ and ‘hyper durable’ powder formulations where coatings are less flexible ensuring that these high-performance products now fall within the Standard. Other changes to the Standard include testing that is required on a finished coated sample, rather than just referring to a metal Standard. On packaging the Standard now requires that boxes containing coating powders are clearly labeled with full details of their contents to further help in reducing failures.

Current confusion regarding coating thicknesses has now been taken out of the Standard by removing the ‘average minimum thickness’ of 50 microns and just stating that the minimum thickness of coating should be 40 microns. Viewing distances for quality inspection has also been reduced to 1m from 3m in the previous Standard. This reduced distance allows for visual inspection to inclusions and scratches, however, for colour matching this distance can be increased as required. Furthermore on colour matching the new Standard also offers the option to use colour metric equipment to identify colour and variance.

Basically the new BS EN 12206-1:2021 now more closely aligned to the current Qualicoat specification which is constantly being updated with new methodology and devel-

opments, so which should you specify? There is no reason why you can’t specify both together if you wish to cover all bases, however should you do so, you could lose out on what benefit a Qualicoat specification can bring to architectural finishes. There are three things that clearly differentiate a Qualicoat specification:

BS EN 12206 does offer a testing methodology, but does not state a frequency of production testing, Qualicoat specifies both methodology and frequency of testing.

BS EN 12206 is self policing, relying on a suppliers word that they meet the Standard. Qualicoat licensed applicators are subject to twice yearly unannounced inspections by an independent test house to ensure the Qualicoat specification is being followed. A coater failing an inspection can mean an applicator member losing their status as a licence holder.

For those companies who work worldwide, BS EN 12206 covers just Europe, Qualicoat is a worldwide, third party inspected Specification.

Angus Mackie Simply put, A Qualicoat specification takes the ‘Due Diligence’ out of specifying a powder coater to coat to BS EN 12206.

The global Qualicoat Standard is incrementally revised in real time with regular update sheets and is revised to include all updates each year end. The Specification, its appendices and any update sheets are freely available for download at www.qualicoat.net. For details on the availability of various colours and finishes contact any Qualicoat UK & Ireland member for more information. For updated information about the use and specification of Qualicoat in the UK and Ireland, please visit the UK & Ireland Association website at www.qualicoatuki.org.

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Dear Gerald

alone to keep customers supplied during the boom – and none of that was passed on. We’ve absorbed numerous increases in raw material costs and big currency losses in the value of the £ against the USD since the start of Covid and our own margins have been eroded considerably as a result.

Like most importers, we obviously had to impose a surcharge on orders as our freight costs rocketed, but we were completely transparent about this with customers, kept it as low as we could and reduced it as soon as costs started to fall.

For Mila, and I’m sure for the vast majority of suppliers, imposing any kind of price rise or surcharge is always going to be very much a last resort. None of us wants to lose business, make our customers less competitive or undermine relationships that have been built up over many years.

However, for this industry to be able to respond to the challenges it faces in both the short and medium term, suppliers at the top of the market do have to be in a strong enough position to be able to invest in the kinds of products and process innovations which will stimulate demand and help those at the sharp end to win new business.

Dear Gerald

I’ve seen the recent appeal in the press from several large fabricators for suppliers to halt the current round of price increases, rather than pushing them down the supply chain at a time when the cost-of-living crisis is dampening consumer demand.

As a supplier MD, I’m hugely sympathetic to that position and applaud the massive efforts that so many fabricators have already made to absorb many of the price rises they’ve faced over past 18 months, either by reducing margins or improving efficiencies – or both.

However, I would point out that the vast majority of suppliers have been doing exactly the same. Mila spent more than £1.1m on air freight last year