Deceuninck Aluminium customer Glasshouse fitted three sets of Decalu88 bifolds in one day, on a single project.
Glasshouse managing director Shaun Armstrong said the installation, which included two sets of three-pane doors, plus a dual pane, was made possible thanks to Decalu’s co-extruded gasket, a feature that has been designed to reduce glazing times to ‘a matter of minutes’.
“Switching to Decalu has made a massive difference,” Shaun said. “In the past, we may have just about managed to fit two, three-pane doors in a day, but on this particular job we were able to install an additional two-pane door as well.
“That’s purely down to the ease of fitment with Decalu – the co-extruded gasket saved us so much time. We were able to complete the installation in one go and fitting that extra dual panel door meant we could put an additional £2.5K on the invoice for that day.”
Cardiff-based Glasshouse, which supplies premium fenestration products to high-end residential projects across south Wales, switched to manufacturing and installing Deceuninck Aluminium’s Decalu bifolds at the start of 2021.
“It’s easier to install, but it’s also faster to fabricate,” Shaun said. “It’s a modular system, which means there are fewer components, and because the gasket is co-extruded, we don’t have to manually insert it during manufacture.
“Decalu outperforms our previous aluminium bifold system in so many ways. That includes the U-values it is capable of, but also the size at which it can be manufactured. Homeowners and architects want as much glass as they can get, so the fact that we can confidently supply doors as tall as 3m without any problems is a key factor for us.”
The Decalu88 bifold, which can accommodate individual sash weights of up to 200kg, passed PAS24 testing on a 3m high door – at its first attempt – in July 2021.
Decalu incorporates thermal inserts made from recycled PET bottles and can achieve U-values as low as 0.68W/m2k, which meets the proposed, stricter energy efficiency requirements for Part L.
“Demand for home improvements and premium products such as bifolds has increased significantly during the pandemic,” Shaun said. “We have increased our turnover by 50% from where we were pre-Covid. The strength of the Decalu88 system, combined with the quality of finish and the ease at which it can be manufactured and installed, is played a big part in that success.”
