Spanish door maker Luvipol is a dichotomy: a large manufacturer producing 2,500 doors a day, but which prides itself on applying the care and attention of a craftsman to its work.
Today Luvipol may be Spain’s seventh largest door manufacturer by volume and the leading exporter, but it says it has lost none of the craft skills that have defined the company since its beginnings nearly 40 years ago.
Founded as a family workshop in the 1960s by Vincente and Luis Puig Oliver in Crevillente in Alicante, the company – still family owned – has a turnover of €35m and boasts one of the strongest R&D departments in the industry.
In addition, that small carpentry workshop has expanded into a vertically integrated company that incorporates sawmilling and door production, through to finishing and installation. This vertical integration, said export director Pablo Puig, means the company has expert knowledge of timber, and that shows in the quality and detail of its doors.
“Wood is part of our culture,” said Mr Puig.
Luvipol uses around 15,000m3 of timber a year – softwood from Sweden, sapele, and oak and walnut from the US – and all goes through its dedicated sawmill. Here it is processed, before being dried down to 7-14% in one of the company’s four kiln chambers.
Environmental certification
Luvipol wears its environmental credentials on its sleeve: it was a founding member of the WWF Spanish buyers’ group and around 50% of its timber, including all its softwood, is FSC certified. And it gives priority to FSC hardwood suppliers, said Mr Puig.
From the sawmill on the outskirts of Crevillente, the timber goes to Luvipol’s main factory – a new, 60,000m2 facility. The original factory had been expanded and tweaked as the business grew and Mr Puig said the €9m investment in the new facility and machinery will improve efficiency.
“The old building had its limitations,” he said, adding that its evolution meant the production line had to take “some strange turns”.
But while the line may have been quirky, the machinery again illustrates Luvipol’s careful approach, with 60-70% designed specifically by the company.
“If we weren’t in the door business I think we’d be making machines,” said Mr Puig.
Luvipol began exporting in the 1970s, with the first doors arriving at Boulton & Paul, Magnet and B&Q in 1975. Today, the export market – Europe, the US, Russia, Japan and the UK – accounts for 40% of business, with the remainder going to Spain’s thriving housing and hospitality markets. Of Luvipol’s export markets, Russia and the UK are particularly strong for potential growth, with sales to the latter increasing by more than 20% over the past three years.
It is the changing culture of the UK that makes it an ideal outlet for Luvipol’s products.
“The UK market is changing from where doors were seen as a building product to an architectural product in a house,” said Mr Puig.
Reflecting this more specialist market, the UK contract business is growing. Among these contracts was an order to supply 800 doors to the prestigious De Vere timeshare complex on the shores of Loch Lomond. The specification required a greenish stain to give the white oak a rustic look.
Luvipol products can be found in other luxury venues and five-star hotels around the world and, in addition to doors, the company can provide the whole joinery package.
Luvipol range
There is a range of styles, or series, in the Luvipol stable – Master, Luvistyle, Empire, Exterior, Classic, One Oak, Prelac, Islas are solid; Luvidecor, Luvistyle, Prelac and Trend are all semi-solid.
“The semi-solid door concept is very simple,” said Mr Puig, “but to build it to make it affordable is very difficult.”
Key to all the Luvistyle series is the fact that the timber is bonded onto the core so the doors feature routed panels rather than glued beading. The sandwich construction of the Luvistyle series is exclusive to Luvipol and is one of the products that required the company to build the machinery so it could build the door.
At the top of the range, the Masters series is built of stiles and cross rails in laminated timber joined using high frequency gluing. The pieces are tenoned together and the door is finished in a 0.8mm double veneer running both ways. At every stage, the construction is designed to prevent movement of the components.
Two recent launches are the Trend and Islas series – the former, a contemporary design with smooth, clean lines; the latter a distinctive design built on a laminated wood structure.
Luvipol can produce doors for a particular market and for the UK it has produced the Empire series built on a chipboard core with a quality finish.
While the door does not have the laminated wood core of the premium Masters series, Luvipol insists the quality of the materials is maintained. “The key is to develop different technology to make it more affordable rather than compromise on the quality,” said Mr Puig. “Other manufacturers might cut corners, perhaps by changing the quality of the veneers.”
In the UK the doors are sold through distributors which cover most of the country, although the company is currently looking for a distributor in the Midlands.
All the doors in Luvipol’s catalogue can also be supplied as fire doors.
Finishing line
Sixty per cent of production is prefinished at Luvipol’s dedicated lacquering factory in the heart of Crevillente. The line was moved to a new site three years ago, trebling daily output to 1,500 doors.
Here, craftsmanship is mixed with modern technology again as the doors are sanded by hand before going through the Heesemann sanding line.
“The people sanding the doors are still really joiners,” said Mr Puig.
The doors are sanded again after the first lacquer then, after the second coat, they’re placed in a drying room for eight hours.
Luvipol says UV lacquers tend to crack on hardwood, so it opts for polyurethane, which is more flexible and has a higher finish quality. It also suits the variety of doors going through the production line. However, the line can take water-based finishes and the company is preparing to use them.
Application of the lacquer and stains is computer-controlled to ensure constant quality so, in Mr Puig’s words, “You can’t tell a Monday door from a Wednesday door.”
It is this combination of a craftsman’s care and modern technology, he said, that enables Luvipol to make quality doors cost-effectively. And it is such an effective process that other manufacturers have tried to imitate it.
