According to the British Woodworking Federation’s latest State of Trade Survey, the joinery sector increased its investment in new technology and equipment last year with 59% reporting they’d splashed the cash on product improvement. And 64% of respondents said they were planning to increase investment in both plant and equipment and product improvement.
Investment has been prompted by growing confi dence in an improving market – although there have been some blips on the way, notably at the start of this year.
“We’ve seen pretty consistent demand, although there have been some issues, which you get in a normal economic cycle,” said Roy Wakeman, chairman of the Performance Timber Products Group (PTP), which encompasses Mumford & Wood, Dale and Timber Windows.
One of these issues has been the general hiatus caused by the lead up to the EU referendum, the other, said Mr Wakeman, is stamp duty, which is slowing down property transactions, particularly in the London area.
“Of our three brands, the hardest hit [by stamp duty] has been Mumford & Wood, although having said that, 2015 was its best year for fi ve years.” He added that PTP is currently selling at an annual rate of about £25m-worth of timber windows, with a rough split of £9m for Mumford & Wood, £6m for Dale and £10m for Timber Windows. Alan Shearer, general manager of Howarth Timber (Windows and Doors), agrees that the market has been a little inconsistent of late.
“The market grew last year but not by as much as people were expecting and I don’t think it really knows what it’s doing,” he said. He cited the possible Brexit and the extremely wet weather at the beginning of the year as probable reasons for a dip in new build housing construction, which makes up most of the company’s customer base for windows and doors.
Scotts of Thrapston, which manufactures bespoke joinery, including doors and windows, also noted a quieter start to 2016 following “the biggest single increase in turnover since 2000” in 2015. It too attributed the slowdown to the EU referendum, which, according to chairman David Scott was “an unwelcome distraction for a growing manufacturing business.”
Staircase, doorset and doorkit manufacturer Stairways Group, which focuses on the newbuild sector, has found the market to be buoyant but with pressure on margins. “There is plenty of work around but we’re finding that buyers are taking longer to make a decision and are giving us less time to turn product around on a tighter margin,” said Karen Wood, joint managing director.
She added that this year has been extremely busy and that the company had been performing “outside of capacity”. “Our annual capacity is about 43,000 doorsets and about 25,000 stairs but taking March as an example, we moved out just over 5,000 doorsets and around 900 stairs.” John Watson (High Performance Doorsets), which has recently rebranded, having previously operated as John Watson Joinery, has witnessed a growing market, particularly in the residential sector in London and the south-east.
“Demand for high end residential apartments has been particularly strong,” said Steve Kirtley, sales director. “The expansion of new student accommodation also continues to be buoyant.”
When the company was established in 1973 it was geared to the manufacture of timber windows, doorsets and conservatories for the domestic sector but a move into Secured by Design (SBD) products led to a switch to specialising in making high performance doorsets for the construction sector.
The company manufactures 300 doors per week and said that SBD internal and external doorsets, which can be fully factory paint finished, are its top selling products. However, a large percentage of its turnover is internal fire and acoustic doorsets in a variety of finishes, including veneer, laminate or primed for paint.
“We also supply fire and acoustic-rated timber screens/sidelights and fan lights as well as skirting and window boards,” said Mr Kirtley.
Fashion is as important to sales and product development as performance and energy efficiency is and, within the fenestration market, sash windows have continued to be on trend.
“The market mix for sash windows is about 30%,” said Mr Wakeman. “Mumford & Wood is predominantly sash windows so has a higher mix than that, while Timber Windows would usually be more or less where the market goes. However, Timber Windows has sold more sash windows over the last 18 months, so there is growing trend there.” JELD-WEN said there is continued interest in “firm favourites’ such as casement windows but also acknowledged “a renaissance” in sliding sash windows.
“This is because homeowners are looking for ways to improve kerb appeal or match the existing architectural features of a period property,” said Tony Pell, senior product manager.
“We’ve also seen a growing trend where different window types are being specified for the front and back of a property. For example, installing full sliding sash windows at the front but opting for a lower cost alternative at the back where they are less visible.”
JELD-WEN has also identified growth in popularity of its triple-glazed Stormsure Energy+ high performance casement window while Howarth Timber said that demand for its flush casement windows and it’s stormproof casement windows was now split about 50:50, having been firmly in the stormproof windows favour five or six years ago.
Howarth also noted growth in sales of sliding sashes, adding that demand tends to be project driven.
Aluminium-clad (alu-clad) windows continue to nibble at market share but not all manufacturers currently operate in those sectors where the product is gaining traction.
“The alu-clad window has grown considerably from a low base but that market is dominated by the public sector apartment building market,” said Roy Wakeman, “We can sell them through the online brand [Timber Windows] but we don’t see a lot of demand for that.”
“We tried the alu-clad market but we were a bit halfway house with it, to be honest,” said Alan Shearer. “We are considering going back into alu-clad but are assessing production costs against the market price.” While the jury is still undecided on aluclad, it seems to be coming down firmly on the side of bi-folding doors.
“Bi-folding doors have been a huge success for us,” said Mr Wakeman. “Sales have grown enormously – although we do still sell a lot of sliders and French doorsets.”
JELD-WEN has also seen growth in sales of internal bi-folding doors.
“This can be attributed to the demand for versatile and flexible homes, particularly where space is at a premium,” said Mr Pell. “People have woken up to the fact that if you have a pair of doors with sidelights you can only open up the centre portion and if you have a sliding door you can only open half of it, but with a bi-folding door you get the whole open aspect,” said Howarth’s Alan Shearer.
“It does tend to be more expensive and can be an off-plan option – we do a lot of quotes that come back with a request to change [the specification] to a bi-folding door,’ he added. Stairways Group doesn’t manufacture bi-folding doors but said it has seen growing demand for its pocket doorsets, which are a first fix item.
Product development continues across the joinery sector, partly in line with new legislation but mostly due to the manufacturers’ desire to ensure they have the best offering, keep the customers satisfied and maintain competitive edge.
Mumford & Wood recently launched its Classic range of timber windows and doors, designed specifically for replacement projects in period buildings. The range sits alongside the company’s well-established Conservation range, which provides a full suite of high performance double-glazed windows and doors for new build properties.
The Classic range features a slim panel glazing system that reduces sight lines and is more in keeping with period aesthetics. Mumford & Wood has also been working on the advice of Charles Brooking, founder of the Brooking National Collection of Architectural Detail on heritage detail relevant to specific architectural periods and regional variation.
Howarth is refreshing its range of flush fit casement windows, incorporating a newlydesigned flush drained and vented bead system, which should please the planners, according to Mr Shearer. However, most of the company’s product development is in its sliding sash windows.
“Planners tend not to like the spring balance type sash where you can see the tracks and runner system, so we’re bringing out a window where the spring balances are concealed behind timber,” said Mr Shearer. “It has all the benefits of a modern spring balance but with a more traditional look.”
Howarth is also launching a Lifetime Homes compliant sliding sash, which has a patent pending locking mechanism that enables the less mobile to open the window more easily.
Both these new sash windows will be available to the market in the late summer. On the door side, JELD-WEN has recently added the Darwin hardwood patio doorset to its range of external bi-folding doors. “We predict this will be a popular choice as the range offers customers the solution of solid patio doorset with a coloured finish to complement other exterior joinery,” said Mr Pell.
JELD-WEN is also launching the INSULUX exterior doorset this summer. This range provides the benefits of a real wood finish with the added thermal performance of a composite door, as well as a five-lever locking system and Secured by Design compliance as standard.
The Stairways Group has 100,000ft2 of manufacturing space over three production facilities – stairs are produced at a 40,000ft2 factory in Walsall, while the doorsets and doorkits are produced in factories in Welshpool and Southam, near Leamington Spa. One of these door production sites is the subject of major investment by the company, which is working on an enhanced range of performance doorsets, aimed at the higher end residential market.
“The product has been researched, developed and trialled and the machinery – a door press and edgebanding technology has all been purchased but we haven’t quite launched it yet,” said Ms Wood.
On the staircase side of the business, Ms Wood added that product development was more likely to focus on improving production efficiencies, durability and finishes and installation on site, rather than any radical new design concepts.
“We’ll look at improving how the staircase fits and doing more in the factory and less on site because there is a massive skills shortage, which is only going to get worse,” she said. Investment has also continued at PTP Group, with nearly £2m spent at Mumford & Wood recently. Purchases include a Weinig Opticut DimterLine cross-cut, a Weinig Powermat 1200, a Homag Profiline and a Stegherr scribing and notching machine. The new equipment has reduced manual handling and the number of operations required, which has had an impact on factory floor space.
“We can make more with less space,” said Mr Wakeman, adding that the investment had allowed Mumford & Wood to consolidate from two factories, eight miles apart, to one single production facility.
Investments at Dale, whose route to market is through the merchant distribution chain, is in point of sale and merchandising, while at Timber Windows, which is based on an online product configurator and a network of authorised installers, the emphasis has been on investing in IT.
The Timber Windows business has been growing at about 30% per year, said Mr Wakeman, adding that the installer network is expanding and should top 40 this year. “It’s expensive because we have to equip the installers with showrooms, but they’ve proven that, properly set up and backed by us, they can develop really healthy sales.” Software is also at the heart of Scotts of Thrapston’s current round of investment in its bespoke joinery portfolio.
“New software is being introduced to improve the front end processes in terms of estimating, drawing, design and so on,” said David Scott. “And, as volumes grow, we continue to invest in production machinery to cope and ensure we increase our capacity and efficiencies as a business for the future.”
Around £2m-worth of new machinery was installed at Howarth’s New Holland facility in 2014. Since then the company has invested a further £2m in a new 55,000ft2 finishing shop, which became operational in January. John Watson has recently invested in new plant and equipment, with the latest additions being an SCM Morbidelli CNC, a Weinig optimising cross-cut and a vacuum coater.
“The additional plant has helped us increase our production output to meet the increased demand,” said Mr Kirtley. “We have also invested in new specialist software, which is used from estimating through to contract management, production tracking and invoicing.”
Other investment, he continued, is in line with the company’s rebranding, which reflects the change in the core offering and the move from operating in the domestic to the commercial market.
“We have developed new marketing collateral across the board, including a product brochure, which highlights our full range of doorsets and glazed screens,” said Mr Kirtley. “Our website is also much more aligned to where we are at as a business and it is easier for our customers to navigate and access the information they need.”
Meanwhile, timber supplier Timbmet said it had noticed a high priority among its joinery sector customers of the need to control costs without compromising performance. This, combined with an industry-wide ageing workforce, lack of skilled staff and reliance on machinery, means joinery customers are looking for innovative product solutions. As a result, it has seen greater numbers of joinery customers switching to engineered timber products, as they create less waste and need less handling, and require fewer processes to create the end product.
“We’re also seeing an increase in demand for bespoke products and made-to-measure engineered components vs traditional sawn timbers,” it said.
Timbmet sees the joinery sector as a key area of growth for its engineered timber (TEC) products, which feature a multi-layer construction to ensure stability and stress performance, as well as aesthetic appeal due to no knots, splits or staining. It supplies TEC window and door parts in a choice of several popular species.
