New door & window report reveals PVCU market trends
The PVCU, aluminium and timber industries have been slow to learn from one another, but changing market conditions have driven leading companies to adapt, adopting ideas and practices from other materials to strengthen their offerings and move the industry forward.
It’s remarkable how long it’s taken PVCU, aluminium and timber companies, to learn from each other. But what works in the early days doesn’t work so well decades later. Industries (people) can be extremely reluctance to change, and accepted thinking becomes a corporate blind spot. It takes and new market conditions and sustained competitive pressure for companies to accept the need for change. But each material has faced its challenges and adapted.
Or to be more accurate, some of the standard bearers for each material have learned from other materials and plugged gaps in their offer and way of doing things. And the industry has been the better for it.
Timber adapted first with Wood for Good campaign in the late 1990s. TimberWindows.com pioneered engineered timber and factory finished windows and doors for the retail market in the 2000s. More recently, The Joinery Network and its Lignum system has brought systems thinking to wood, and Joe Trueman is blazing a Glyngary trail for timber trade fabricators.
Alan Burgess championed the PVCU vertical slider, and Dan Gill launched PVCU flush windows in 2013, and got planners to accept properly imensioned PVCU windows in conservation areas and listed buildings. And Roy Frost, at Deceuninck, made it possible for fabricators and installers to sell PVCU colour on demand by holding it in stock.
Roger Hartshorn, Garnalex, brought PVCU systems thinking, vertical integration, and PVCU service levels so aluminium fabricators and installers could compete with full aluminium range in the retail market.
Paradoxically, to retain their market share, several PVCU Syscos also sell aluminium.
The new report highlights that close to 83% of installers now sell PVCU, down from just below 90% in 2022. PVCU accounts for around 61% of the window & door market value, and 79% by volume.
The data comes from Tommy Trinder’s database, which contains quotes from over 700 of the UK’s leading installers, and from Windowbase.
Do you want to read the report in full? You can download the report on the PROSPECTManager website.
