There’s a real sense of momentum in the fire doors market, according to British Woodworking Federation chief executive Richard Lambert.
“While we’re always cautious about reading too much into the volume figures in the survey because the mix of companies questioned varies each time, there’s no mistaking the upward trend. We’ve also seen growth in the number of frames sold and, more pleasingly, a fall in the number of doors sold with unfilled apertures,” he said.
Manufacturers hope they can pass increased raw material and energy costs to the customer and, while a parallel survey of merchants suggests this may be happening, there is some evidence in this survey that not everyone is succeeding.
Public sector construction
The survey also asked how cuts in public sector construction might affect demand. “There was a strong general view that not enough information was available at the moment to get a clear view, and individual estimates vary widely – from 5% to 70%! The average predictions seem to hover around 40% in individual sectors such as schools, hospitals or social housing and overall. But this disguises the impact on the quarter of those surveyed who have moved heavily into this sector. They have been largely insulated from the recession but may find it catches up with them. Nevertheless, I’ve also heard the view that public sector contracts are set far enough in advance to guarantee the work and a couple of years’ breathing space in which to find alternative markets.”
This quarter’s report is based on interviewing 45 joinery companies in July 2010, sampled by company size (in volume and number of employees) and region.
The sample is made up of joinery com-panies carrying out further work on manufactured timber fire-rated doors without affecting the performance, eg fitting vision panels or making frames to suit. It includes companies certificated for these processes by the BWF-CERTIFIRE Fire Door & Doorset Scheme, companies certificated by other certification schemes, and companies whose alterations to fire doors are not covered by any scheme. The sample does not include prime fire door manufacturers.
Just over 61,200 timber fire-rated doors were sold in April to June 2010 by com-panies interviewed. This compares with around 41,100 between January and March 2010 – and 16,900 in April to June 2009, the lowest figure recorded in these surveys. As the sample of companies is different each quarter, the volumes will vary depending on the mix of firms. However, the number of firms in each size band is comparable.
Increased sales
Forty-one of the 45 companies interviewed (91%) reported selling timber fire-rated frames. Sales have increased for the second successive quarter, with over 37,200 sold in April to June 2010 by the companies interviewed. Sales ranged from 2-13,000 frames.
Of those selling timber fire-rated frames, 86% were manufactured in-house and the remaining 14% were bought in from an external supplier.
Merchants were asked how they thought government spending cuts may affect demand for timber fire doors from schools, hospitals and social housing. At the time of this research little detail about budget cuts had been released.
On balance, 69% of firms expect demand to fall in the next 12 months. Companies consider all three sectors to be equally at risk.
Firms anticipating lower sales predicted an average decrease of 39.1%. Individual opinions were spread between 5-70%. Predictions were similar for schools, hospitals and social housing, as shown in the table below. Conversely, a minority of businesses foresee continued growth from these sectors but none felt confident enough to estimate what the increase might be.
Eighty-two per cent of joinery companies sold fire doors to at least one of these sectors, with 75% selling to schools, 57% to hospitals and 41% to social housing. Individual firms’ reliance on them varied considerably. A quarter of merchants sell between 75-100% of their fire doors to these markets, compared with 10% or less for other companies.
