The timber joinery industry has focused much effort to improve the quality of its products and this has been successful in halting the savage loss of market share to uPVC. In order to make further progress the joinery industry needs to consider how to improve on durability and reduce the maintenance of timber windows, for “long life” and “low maintenance” are the perceived qualities that have made uPVC windows so attractive to consumers.

An important factor in helping timber regain these markets has been an improvement in the quality of coatings and an increase in the use of factory finishing. In the UK over 60% of timber windows produced are now sold with full or part factory finishing and with coatings performance guarantees of up to eight years. This is a significant improvement on the three to five years which have been common for joinery coatings that are site-applied. Furthermore, quality-assured coatings products with similar longevity claims are available for the millions of aged timber windows already in service.

Though these may seem to be modest wins, the degree of pre-painting preparation required before redecoration of these new coatings can be much lower and therefore the gains are very significant in practice.

Improved coating quality has helped in three ways:

  • Improved technology: the new generation of water-borne exterior wood coatings now available are potentially extremely durable. These have a low VOC content which, together with the strong environmental credentials of timber, produces a robust argument in favour of the specification of timber windows rather than uPVC.

  • The increasing recognition by coatings manufacturers of quality assurance. This is often supported by testing in accordance with British Standards such as BS 7956 but, increasingly, through use of the European Standard EN 927 as the preferred route for confirming the fitness-for-purpose of exterior wood coatings.

  • Factory finishing: in essence this means applying more product under controlled conditions. It also allows the introduction of best practice in design and glazing to be implemented as part of an integrated approach to increasing the lifespan of windows.

    In future, clients will demand even better performance from construction products and for those committed to the Egan agenda this means procuring products using ‘Best Value’ criteria. This will force change in supply chain practices and favour use of wood coatings that have been validated using European Standards.