NATFEN Awards Magazine Edition 3

NFA Digital NOVEMBER 2017 | ISSUE 3 [email protected]  @NatFenAwards

#NFA17 VOTING CLOSES ON THURSDAY 30TH NOV 11PM! #NFA17 VOTIN CLOSES ON THURSDAY 30TH NOV 11PM! #NFA17 VOTING CLOSES ON THURSDAY 3 NOV 11PM!

17 facets of the UK fenestration industry represented 17 facets of the UK fenestration industry represented Awards built and decided by industry nominations and votes 17 facets of the UK fenestration industry represented Awards built and decided by industry nominations and votes Awards built and decided by industry omi ations an votes No judging panels Open, honest and all-inclusive No judging panels Email: [email protected] No judging panels Open, honest and all-inclusive Open, honest and all-inclusive Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Twitter: @NatFenAwards

#NFA17 OPEN #NFA17 OPEN #NFA17 OPEN

Twitter: @NatFenAwards Twitter: @NatFenAwards

GENERAL

#NFA17 VOTING LISTS ANNOUNCED

O n Thursday 5th October we were very happy to announce the 2017 National Fenestration Awards finalists. These were compiled by a record 299 nominations across 17 industry categories. Since then, people and companies have been casting their votes to decide on this year’s overall winners. So far, nearly 2000 votes have already been cast, a record number in the time that has elapsed so far. With voting frantic and still plenty of time to go, this number will only continue to rise, and absolutely everything is to play for.

Voting ends this year on Thursday 30th November. So if you are yet to cast your vote, the good news is that there is still plenty of time to do so. We have also worked to make the voting process a whole lot easier. Instead of being required to be registered on the NFA website and be logged in, you can now visit each category page, fill in a few details on a voting form and press submit. That’s it. Really simply, really quick and even easier to play your part in the industry’s most participated awards. To participate in the voting process this year, simply follow this link: www.fenestrationawards.co.uk/2017-categories

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GENERAL

THE COOL WALL

the industry will vote for the coolest installation of the year from the 11 monthly winners during this campaign. This will be a short, energetic vote, with the company with the winning project being declared coolest of the year, as well as being invited to the #NFA17 Winners Event to receive their trophy. It’s free to take part it, with no need to register on the NFA website. It’s a really busy time for the NFAs right now, with new sponsorships being announced, record voting numbers and a Cool Wall that continues to lead the way in UK fenestration projects.

We are also in the last monthly Cool Wall competition of this campaign. The standard and quality of submissions this year has simply been phenomenal, and the NFA Cool Wall continues to be the leading installations competition in the industry. The search for the November Cool Wall winner is now on, and you can upload and vote in this last monthly competition here: www.fenestrationawards.co.uk/november- 2017-cool-wall In December, we will be launching our end of year Wall of Winners competition. This is where

Jason Grafton-Holt Director

CONTENTS: MAIN EVENT SPONSORS �������� 4 COOLWALL ................................30 CATEGORY SPONSORS ��������� 34 INDUSTRY NEWS .....................35

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FRAMEXPRESS BECOMES A MAIN SPONSOR OF NATIONAL FENESTRATION AWARDS 2017 INTO 2018

F rameXpress Ltd is delighted to announce that it has become a main sponsor of the National Fenestration Awards. With the company celebrating 20 years as a leading fabricator of windows, doors and conservatory products next year, this will also incorporate sponsorship of the 2017 Winners Event in April 2018. As a fabricator, FrameXpress has already been recognised by the independent Awards with a nomination for Fabricator of the Year 2017. Having then gone on to become a finalist in the category, this has led to very positive feedback from customers and suppliers, whilst al-so really boosting team morale.

Managing Director, Mark Westbrook comments: “The NFAs have grown substantially since the initial launch five years ago, and it is evident that the whole event reflects the exception-ally high standards of the best in the industry. The decision to get involved with the initiative as sponsors has come along at the right time for us as a company. The accolades are held in high esteem and have become increasingly popular since being introduced, giving a very fair reflection of the high calibre quality, ser-vices and growth potential that the industry has to offer.” FrameXpress has remained a solid and stable constant over the last 20 years, in a sector that has had extremely turbulent times economically. Celebrating that successful milestone is

something managing directors, Stuart Green and Mark Westbrook felt should be done in a focused industry arena which acknowledges excellence and has a commitment to setting new benchmarks. Stuart Green comments, “The NFAs lend real credibility as a whole to the industry by con- tinually helping to raise standards. This is a fabulous way to celebrate success and to rec- ognise companies committed to moving forward progressively.” Jason Grafton-Holt, co-founder of the NFAs, commented: “FrameXpress is a leading fabri-cator with a reputation for quality and reliability. We look forward to working with them throughout the campaign, and beyond!”

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MORLEY MD LIFTS STRICTLY BALLROOM TROPHY AND RAISES £10,000 FOR VARIETY CHILDREN’S CHARITY

I ntegral blinds manufacturer Morley Glass & Glazing’s managing director Ian Short has been crowned the winner in the Variety’s Strictly Ballroom competition and raised more than £10,000 for the children’s charity. Ian was one of 10 amateur dancers and their professional dance partners who trained for three months before competing in front of a star- studded judging panel, featuring the X Factor’s Ray Quinn, choreographer Ian Banham and professional dancer Jemma Girling. The charity event, which was hosted by TV presenter Gethin Jones, raised a total of £39,500, which is enough to buy a new Sunshine Coach. Commenting on his achievement, Ian said: “This has been a life changing experience; I’ve lost 4 stone in weight, stopped smoking, and helped to raise more than £10,000 for a fabulous cause. It’s been completely humbling and I am so grateful to everyone who sponsored and supported me and my dance partner Olivia Choi from the North Leeds Dance Academy. We were absolutely thrilled to win both the judges’ and audience trophies.” Ian and Olivia danced the samba and have already committed to entering more dance competitions and will “keeeep dancing”.

Variety provides practical, tangible help to children in the UK coping with sickness, disability or disadvantage. TO SPONSOR IAN VISIT WWW.JUSTGIVING.COM/FUNDRAISING/IAN-SHORT5

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ASSA ABLOY ACQUIRES SMART LOCK MAKER AUGUST

B ig moves in the digital door tech world on Thursday as mega group ASSA ABLOY announced it was to acquire smart-lock maker August. August has been making big moves in the US with their digital smart-lock, and I have feature the company and their products on DGB in the past. ASSA ABLOY has signed an agreement to acquire August Home, a leading smart lock business in the US. “I am very pleased to welcome August into the ASSA ABLOY Group. August constitutes a strategic addition to the Group and reinforces our position in the residential smart door market,” says Johan Molin, President and CEO of ASSA ABLOY. “August Home strengthens our residential smart door strategy with complementary smart locks, expansion into video doorbells and comprehensive solutions for home delivery,” says Thanasis Molokotos, Executive Vice President of ASSA ABLOY and Head of the Americas Division. August was founded in 2013. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has approximately 90 employees. Here is the full ASSA ABLOY press release, as featured on their website:

Sales for 2018 are expected to reach around USD 60 million (approx. SEK 500 million). The acquisition will be dilutive to EPS. The acquisition is conditional upon regulatory approval and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2017. Although an American purchase, this acquisition has all sorts of ramifications for smart home tech and general door technology. But before I move on to that, it’s worth noting that within the ASSA ABLOY group there is Yale, who have recently launches their own smart door handle, the Conexis, as well as a range of home security products that link to your home’s WiFi and can be integrated with Amazon’s Alexa AI platform. So the question is, with another rival like August moving into the stable, will they be kept apart and be allowed to operate as separate entities? Or will the two firms move closer together, naturally influencing each other’s tech? Or, could one eventually out-power the other in a battle of the door tech products?

See the original press release on the ASSA ABLOY website here

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HARDWARE GIANTS MOVING WITH THE TIMES This is a signal of intent to get heavy into the smart door look game. Obviously they have their own arm in that department with what Yale are doing, but it is not yet established in the way they perhaps might have liked. Yale have been at it with their electronic door handles for a few years now, and whilst they have continued to sell, I don’t think the numbers are enough to start changing the locking habits of the British public. In the US however August, along with other smart door lock start-ups have been making waves in both the door market and the tech markets. Something which isn’t easy to do. August is regularly featured in leading tech website The Verge and other similar sites, helping to create a bridge between tech and the residential door market. Through this purchase ASSA ABLOY gets ready made access to that combined crossover without having to create their own. ASSA ABLOY aren’t the only hardware giant to have smart door locks in the product portfolio. MACO have their own smart door tech in the forms of openLife and openDoor , which are both comprehensive offerings in their own rights. These

are mega hardware businesses that recognise eventually the conventional forms of locking entrances, be them residential or commercial, will turn digital. It will go this way not because of ease or the frankly archaic and very mechanical way of securing a door, but because of the additional benefits it will bring. Smart door locks and other similar products bring us the ability to record who might be lurking outside, or to direct a delivery person to not just leave a package hanging about somewhere. We can be given alerts to our phones for when we have a visitor. We can lock or unlock a door remotely depending on who we want to let into our homes. They can make sure our door is locked if we forget to do it manually ourselves. Right now, at least in the British market, I don’t think we have done all that good a job in integrating the existing technology into the everyday use of our doors. We have not yet properly convinced the public that this is tech worth spending on. That day is coming though I believe. We are edging closer to a point where home owners will want to actively seek out door tech like August. When that happens, we know we’ll have turned that corner.

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DGB | 2017

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DYNAMIC, SHARP, AND ENGAGING

WITH OVER 3000 PUBLISHED ARTICLES, 5850 COMMENTS AND OVER A MILLION PAGE VIEWS, THE GLAZING INDUSTRY'S FRESHEST, SHARPEST AND RELEVANT OPINION AND DISCUSSION IS ON DGB. During 2017 DGB is set to be read by over 170,000 people, with over 120,000 of those unique. They will generate over 225,000 page views this year alone. This year has also seen DGB surpass 1,000,000 page views in total. One of only a few, perhaps the only, UK glazing online publication to surpass this milestone. Join the industry's best conversation: www.doubleglazingblogger.com

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“SIGNIFICANT HEADWINDS” WARNS LATEST PALMER MARKET RESEARCH

I t’s been a good year for many. Not so for some familiar names. But on the whole I would guess that 2017 will go down as a decent year for many of our installers and fabricators. But could the good times be about to come to a halt again? Palmer Market Research has published it’s latest report into the UK window and door industry and state a number of factors are going to contribute and create significant headwinds for the market in the coming years. Yes, Brexit is one of them. 2016 OUTPERFORMED Their latest report states that 2016 the industry outperformed forecasts. This is good news of course, and reflects a lot of comments I have heard myself, especially when it came to the second half of last year. I remember the months after the referendum all the way up to Christmas being absolutely flat out. I am guessing that a very It’s not all bad news though...

strong second half was the contributing factor to the over performance. They say that the market grew 1% in terms of volume and 7% in terms of value, rising to £4.5bn in 2016. This was due to a drive towards higher end products. A trend that many of us have seen and experienced in the past few years. This included significant growth in bi-fold doors and growing sales of foiled and mechanically jointed/timber effect PVC-U windows, the former up 9.3% in 2016 to 42,700 door sets. We all know the popularity of bi-folds, and that will continue for years to come. But it’s also good to see timber effect windows being recognised as an area of growth within the sector too. Timber effect windows, timber look joints, flush sashes and all other things timber-esque are going to be a huge growth area in our industry, no matter what happens in the coming years. They go on to say:

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It wasn’t great news for timber windows though:

The ‘trade-off’ to this growth was a slowing in the volume PVC-U market and a continuing decline in sales of timber windows – which have fallen in volume by more than 60% since 2000. This flies in the face of the general commentary coming out of the industry that seems to suggest timber windows are enjoying a renaissance. Could we be wrong on that front? Is it only aluminium enjoying such a strong comeback? More positively, the report found that average installed prices of conservatories was up by 12%, while conservatory replacements saw growth of 6%, although this was offset by a decline in first time installations of 4%. I am happy to see prices going up. For two reasons. Firstly, I think our industry is due some inflationary price increases anyway. Secondly, it might be a demonstration that installers are passing their price increases onto the home owners. The correct part of the supply chain that should ultimately be paying. So, all good pretty much for 2016. The news goes downhill from there though. Read the full Palmer summary and access the full report here. No sugar coating this one, Palmer Market Research doesn’t see good news for 2017, 2018 or 2019 either: The report paints a complex picture defined by pockets of substantial growth but delivered against a forecast backdrop of market contraction – in volume terms at least – of 4% this year, 2% in 2018 and 1% in 2019 before a return to moderate growth in 2020. Decent news on the conservatory front: MARKET CONTRACTIONS COMING

“The industry has out-performed our forecasts last year but we’re now seeing near stagnation in the housing market, which is a tell tail sign of tougher economic conditions to come. This and the uncertainty around Brexit has led to a weakening of consumer confidence, which we expect to bite in the second half of this year and through next”, explained Robert Palmer, Director, Palmer Market Research. He continued: “This is already contributing to a level of hesitancy among housebuilders, which will make government policy and continuing investment in the Help-to-Buy scheme, increasingly key going forward. “The social sector may be less effected by Brexit but it faces its own budgetary pressures, while we expect some funding to be diverted to the replacement of cladding and improvements to the safety of high-rise buildings in the fallout from the Grenfell Tower disaster.” If I was being honest, I think 4% is undershooting it. My sense of things right now is there are certain parts of our industry that lie in the volume part which are suffering more than most. I think

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that when the 2017 figures are crunched, 4% could be more like 5% or even 6%. Just my guess, could be wrong, but it’s my sense that certain areas and under-performing significantly and that could have an adverse effect on already negative figures. The prospect of no growth until 2020 could be focus minds in the industry. But it might also motivate to defy the figures too. If 2016 was a year that over-performed, why not other years? 1% contraction in 2019 isn’t that large a number. There is a possibility that it could be turned into small growth. There is no denying the headwinds in this report however. Certainty for business around Brexit needs to be found as quickly as possible. Easier said than done when you’re trying to negotiate and not give all your cards away. But until we arrive at that we won’t see the forward progress from business we would all like to see. The housing market problem is almost a permanent one now, and a slowing economy will only exacerbate that problem.

This downturn is predicted without any further shocks to the system. You have to wonder what level of damage something unexpected might happen. Our industry, whilst continuing to try to prove the figures wrong, should also be taking measures at this juncture to protect themselves from any damage that might be incurred during the coming years. Read the full Palmer summary and access the full report here.

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