Doc L is the baseline
With energy costs soaring, offering energy efficiency better than Approved Document L will reap rewards, argues Asa McGillian of Lumi Windows
By the time you read this, Approved Document L of the Building Regulations will be statutory.
The U value requirement for existing properties is reducing to 1.4 Wm2K (from 1.6 Wm2K); and for new dwellings to 1.2 Wm2K (from 1.4 Wm2K).
Asa McGillian, managing director of Lumi Windows, believes that these improvements could have been more ambitious: “Many window systems currently available in the marketplace will have been designed with the revised Approved Document L of the Building Regulations, especially aluminium systems, in mind, including our own.
And many PVC-U systems, even older products, will reach 1.4 Wm2K. I think that as an industry we would have accepted and responded well to a tougher challenge. And that would have been good for our industry,” he asserts.
When it hit the market in 2015, Lumi was designed as a high-end window system in terms of aesthetics and crucially, performance, with a standard U value of 0.8 Wm2K. Other versions produced since, for the home improvement sector and the latest version, Lumi Aluminium, meet the new regulations as standard. Both are further improved if triple glazed units are used.
“To have reduced the U values still further with Approved Document L would not have been a major challenge for us as an industry,” continues Asa. “I would argue that our industry has become a little static, especially with the issues that we have had to deal with during the past couple of years and we need something to move the game on a notch and to create some excitement in the market.
“And actually, that is now with us in the form of the massive energy price hikes that we are all faced with now and which will continue. We should seize this as an opportunity.
“The revised Building Regulations tend to serve as the lowest common denominator for many window and door products produced, a target in effect,” he continues. “Whereas as an industry we should be striving to design and produce products that exceed those minimum requirements, on a commercial basis,” suggests Asa. “We should not be boasting that our windows are compliant with Document L of the Building Regulations; we should be shouting about how much better they are.
“With the massive energy rises that we are all facing, replacement windows and doors – whatever they are manufactured from – should once again be presented and perceived as a credible and cost-effective means of improving the energy efficiency of a home. To do this our objectives should be to make our products as energy efficient as they can possibly be, not simply to comply with Regulations.”
Such passion for performance was encapsulated in the first Lumi window, which continues in production today and with remarkably buoyant sales, says Asa: “I can now admit that Lumi ‘1’ was and continues to be expensive and over-engineered for all but the most demanding high-end installations, but it continues to find great favour in that sector.
“Which is why of course we launched Lumi ‘2’ for replacements and Lumi Aluminium, both of which offer homeowners the edge-to-edge glazing and aesthetics that is our trademark, but which are far more affordable. But my mindset is always to produce windows and doors that perform as well as can be achieved, but of course, commercially,” he adds.
“Whilst the energy price rises are presenting severe hardships, they also present an opportunity for our industry,” insists Asa. “By developing and promoting our products as highly efficient at saving energy, we can take that step up from being a desirable home improvement largely specified for aesthetics, to being one that also offers meaningful savings in energy costs. That is the basis for our product development and promotion at Lumi Windows,” he concluded.
