Gasket shrinkage ‘crisis’ alert

ExtrudaSeal has warned that return visits for failed aluminium bifold, inline sliding and window gaskets are costing installers £thousands a year in avoidable call-backs.

According to the specialist extruder, the use of lower quality TPE extrusions in some aluminium systems is leading to a gasket shrinkage ‘crisis’.

This is eroding installer margins at a time when their overheads are going up, Paul James, sales director at Extrudaseal, said.

“As an installer your single biggest overhead is labour,” he said. “Wage price inflation means that every call back is costing you more and more in lost productivity and cost.

“The crazy thing is that installers could avoid the call backs and save money by buying from Extrudaseal direct.”

This is because, as a gasket specialist, Extrudaseal has developed a manufacturing process and material composition that almost eliminates shrinkage in gasket entirely, the company said.

“As a starting point, we use a higher quality material composition, which is more forgiving to begin with. We also extrude it with a chord which, in common with other systems, is designed to prevent the gasket from being over-stretched during installation.

“It means as long as you thumb it in properly, we can almost eliminate any risk of shrinkage. That means no call backs and no erosion of margin.”

Fabricators and installers save on average 30%-40% on the cost of gasket compared to buying it in from their systems company, the company said.

“We aren’t value-engineering by using lower quality product,” Paul said. “We’re in fact doing the opposite engineering in value but reducing cost by cutting out the middle man.”