Joiners both large and small are coming under increasing cost pressure at a time when scope for increasing sales prices appears limited. This year has brought significant increases in the costs of fuel and raw materials such as timber, nails and other steel-based products. Many firms are nervous about attempting to pass on these costs in full when competition for business is still quite tight.

According to feedback from one small- to medium-sized joinery operation, costs are estimated to have risen by around 12% in 2004, and yet it expects to achieve price increases of just 6% at the start of 2005. A spokesperson for another company said: “The price of metal has rocketed, while the price of glass and sheet materials seems to have crept up every time you place an order. It comes to a point where you have to start passing on these increases, but instead customers are always trying to drive prices down.”

In general, the UK mass production joinery sector has experienced a “stable” to “flat” year. Despite the collapse of one of the sector’s most prominent players earlier this year, “we have all been struggling to make money”, said one contact. Another leading producer confirmed that rising costs were forcing his company to look for price increases from the start of next year, including 2-3% on commodity doors and 3-5% on other door lines, and around 5% on timber windows. Higher prices would also be sought on staircases, he added. Despite the relative lack of price increases during the course of 2005, the UK’s large joinery manufacturers still expect customers to offer resistance to attempts to raise prices.

End of uPVC life

Mass production joiners have reported continuing good demand for timber windows. This trend is attributed in part to the fact that central and local government buyers are increasingly specifying timber windows in their housing, while marketing of timber windows as a premium product appears to be hitting the target with leading housebuilders. “The only dark cloud on the horizon is whether the rate of construction is going to continue at the same pace,” TTJ was told. “Evidence suggests it probably will not, although we could still be left with a decent momentum.”

It was also suggested that many uPVC windows are now reaching the end of their life and that many specifiers are opting to replace them with timber-based products.

Demand for timber windows continues to revolve around fully-finished, factory-glazed products. In the door sector, the demands of multi-occupancy apartment blocks and campaigns by a number of fire brigades have boosted awareness of, and orders for, fire doors. As for staircases, there is an increasing focus on part finishing – such as pre-assembled balustrades – as a means of reducing skill requirements on site.

After some difficult months earlier this year for the UK’s architectural joinery sector, recent weeks have been relatively busy, not least because of pressure from some customers to complete work ahead of the festive period. The private residential and commercial fit-out markets appear to be relatively strong; several joiners in the London area suggested that the increase in office projects reflected a higher level of confidence in the business community.

As mentioned above, 2004 has been characterised by rising costs and a pressure on margins that has been exacerbated by the willingness of some operators to “buy the work”. And even where price has not been the key issue, the tight deadlines imposed by customers have often pushed the business beyond the scope of small joinery firms with limited and less flexible resources.

Enquiries for 2005 appear to be flowing in at a reasonable rate but several joiners expressed concern about the lack of work booked in the first couple of months of the new year. Business activity in the period from November to February is traditionally sluggish in a number of areas: an obvious example is shopfitting since retailers do not want Christmas and new year sales disrupted. Furthermore, there is concern that the announcement of a general election in the early part of next year could introduce a greater degree of caution into the market place and thereby dampen order levels.

Demand for FSC

Tender documents received by architectural joiners are increasingly demanding the use of FSC timber and, as was the case with the advent of BS 5750 quality assurance accreditation in the late 1980s, joiners expect the FSC requirement to become “assumed rather than stipulated” in a few years from now. Sustainability is a key issue for a growing number of specifiers who are eager to boost their “green” credentials and to avoid “comeback” from environmental lobby groups.

For the present, however, joiners report that the additional costs involved in sourcing FSC timber are not being passed on to customers in most instances. One told TTJ: “There is not enough FSC timber about, and so more time and money are spent sourcing it. Also, some of these timbers are quite new to us and this has meant some problems, including different shrinkage rates and different soak rates when applying finishes.”

Fashionable species

Temperate hardwoods such as North American ash, hard maple and cherry and home-grown oak, remain in vogue. “There is a trend towards darker timbers where people are looking to achieve a contrast with white oak or maple,” TTJ was told.

Another major issue for joinery firms is a continuing lack of skilled labour. Noting that “wages are not the issue” and that “there is no spare labour out there”, some companies said that job advertisements in newspapers were drawing little or no response. Skilled wood machinists were likened this week to “gold dust” while site foremen were described as a “precious” commodity. Furthermore, one company complained that it had been trying to find a contracts manager for most of this year.

Varying degrees of success were reported in attracting suitable younger people into the industry: one contact suggested that his firm had been “inundated” with enquiries from teenagers keen to join its apprentice scheme, while another suggested that college courses did not always provide students with all of the requisite skills. In-house training is regarded as the ultimate lifeline by many joinery firms, one of which commented: “If we had not trained our workforce over the years and had relied instead on drawing in people from elsewhere, we wouldn’t be in existence now.”

On the news front, the partnership between the British Woodworking Federation‘s Timber Window Accreditation (TWA) scheme and the BSI is gathering momentum. “We are working with the BSI to get members kitemarked and hope to get them all through the assessment by April,” TTJ was told. As from January 1, TWA scheme members will only be allowed to use timber from independently-certified sources.

BWF also reports that sales of doors manufactured under its Certifire scheme increased by more than 12% in the first three-quarters of this year, a fact attributed in part to the increase in multi-occupancy dwellings.

BWF membership

Approximately 20% growth in BWF membership over the past two years has been built largely on the increasing attractiveness of its services package to joinery companies with annual turnovers of less than £1m, according to director Richard Lambert. Small businesses make up around 80% of the UK joinery sector and these are the kind of companies joining the BWF because of the availability of support services such as technical advice tailored to their needs “and in a language they understand”. The BWF’s code of conduct had also been successful in convincing smaller joinery firms to join the federation, he added, because “they see this as a way of demonstrating the quality they feel they have always had”.