Guy Hubble, joint managing director at RegaLead, talks about the newest addition to the decorative door products range, helping to transform composite doors into industrial-style or Art-Deco ‘masterpieces’.

In March, Tommy Trinder reported that of the last 4,500 aluminium doors that had been quoted through its Framepoint software, 19% had steel-look profiles.

That’s a truly staggering figure and shows how the industry is starting to benefit from the heritage interior trend that has dominated the glossy consumer mags and our social media feeds over the past few years.

In our glazing world, steel-look external window and doorsets are helping to create the New-York loft style vibes, whilst internal glazed partitions that separate living spaces without losing natural light, the blacked framed, glazed styles we associate with the roaring 1920s and 30s, are making a serious impact on our home design choices a century on.

Whilst there are plenty of external heritage windows and glazed doors to choose from, at RegaLead we could see that there was a real gap in the market for composite doors that reflected this same industrial heritage styling.

Composite doors make up the majority of door sales across the UK and we know that installers find it easy to sell and fit them. Giving them more ways they can differentiate themselves from the competition, puts them in a better position to win more business, especially in this age of ‘replacing the replacements’.

Urban frame technology

As the go-to supplier for all things composite door glazing, we are always looking at how we can develop our product range to offer more designs and styles so that homeowners can have a truly personalised entrance to their property – and that’s where the idea for our new HighLine Urban glazing frames originated from.

By mimicking classic design features and utilising our already successful Urban glazing cassette technology, we could deliver the new HighLine Urban frame range. Urban is a three-part de-glazeable cassette system, that’s thermally broken, fully weather tested to BS:EN 6375 and PAS24 compliant.

With the addition of aluminium astragal bars, we can transform simple composite doors into industrial-style or Art-Deco masterpieces. The aluminium astragal bars are permanently attached to the glass using a patented sprung steel clip system to enable easy bar positioning and counteract the effects of thermal expansion and contraction, to ensure that the bars stay put for the lifetime of the door.

HighLine is available as a fully assembled kit, including glass, frame and cut-size astragal bars for speedy glazing or in component form for creating our designs in the factory.

Distinct heritage styling

There are four distinct styles currently in the HighLine frame range. SixLite offers an offset style utilising six glass sections, whilst SixGrid has more traditional, square gridlite styling. TriLite features three glass panes, with a slim mid-section and Fivelite creates the heritage grid styling in the long glazed panel synonymous with modern composite doors.

Each style is available with a range of glass options – our favourites for a true heritage finish are satin, fluted and Kensington etch – and we have chosen the most classic of colours for the initial launch of HighLine Urban glazing frames: RAL 9005 black, RAL 7016 anthracite and standard white.

Though the frames offer perfect styling for front doors, they are also ideal for back doors and French doors, for seamless heritage styling through a property. It’s a perfect way to offer even more choices for homeowners for truly personalised entrances.

If the Tommy Trinder report show us anything, it’s that if you’re not offering steel-look products, you’re going to miss out. Heritage products may take design influence from the past, but it’s going to be a big part of our future.