No fudge on Part L compliance at Aluk

By Peter Willard, product manager, Aluk

At Aluk, we have based our response to the tougher U-Values required within the new Part L on the quality of our engineering and on enhancing our products.

From the outset, our aim was to ensure that our fabrication and installation partners would have absolute reassurance that they can comply on both windows and doors using double rather than triple glazing.

We haven’t sought to fudge compliance on Part L as some in the aluminium sector appear to have done – either by advising customers to fit triple glazing into existing products or suggesting that they can rely on specifiers to offset higher window and door U-Values against better performing elements in their SAP Calculations.

Instead, as a technical and product development team, we spent an intense six months at the start of the year redeveloping no fewer than eight of our product ranges so that our customers had access to a full suite of products which met the new requirements in time for the June deadline.

We think that’s a responsible position to adopt. Aluk is a global business determined to be proactive in its carbon reduction efforts and, for us in the UK, an important part of that is being able to lead the way on the journey towards Future Homes in 2025,

While we are in no doubt that this will be a massive benefit to our customers in the years ahead, we are also very aware that any moves we do make can’t be at the expense of our own or our customers’ competitiveness in the short term.

That is why the highly insulated (HI) products Aluk has introduced to achieve lower U-Value targets look the same as our existing ones so no new tooling is required; they require only very minor adjustments to fabrication and are priced very much in line with our current range (which will continue to be available for projects which already have planning permission or Building Control approval).

For the 58BW window system, for example, we now offer a complete suite of 58BW HI profiles which take the U-Value performance from 1.5 or 1.6 (depending on whether it is the standard 58BW or the steel replacement 58BW ST) to 1.4 Wm²K.

We’ve achieved that improvement in thermal efficiency via a combination of changing the material and insulation value of the thermal break and including foams and gaskets into the system which break up the profile cavities and thus reduce the loss of heat from inside to out.

For fabricators, most of the machine preps are the same as for the rest of the 58BW range, so all they have to do is add one new glazing foam and one new gasket into the outer frame.

We like to think we’ve considered everything to make their switch to our HI products as simple and as smooth as possible. For instance, we added all the new profile references and the new foam and thermal breaks into LogiKal ahead of the launch so that customers could process and price using the new versions.

We also showed demos and samples of the new products to customers in advance at a series of forums held around the UK, and the feedback we had was really positive. Many particularly liked the fact that they can generate their own U-Value reports directly from within LogiKal based on the calculations and simulations we have already carried out.

We now even have a free Building Regulations workshop available at the Aluk Academy for any customers who want extra support with the changes, and we’ve created a handy guide for them to pass on to their installers.

Our comprehensive guide to Part L and the other related Building Regulations is on our dedicated customer portal digital platform, so customers have a one-stop-shop for any regulatory information they might need.