Rooms with a view
Glass Times editor, Luke Wood, catches up with CRL’s managing director, Simon Boocock, who explains more about the company’s new Glass Rooms offer.
2021 was our best year ever,” says Simon Boocock, managing director at CRL. “That was due to Covid, to homeowners spending less on going out and going abroad and focusing their attention instead on improving their properties.
“And, despite a cooling in demand since the end of the pandemic, we’re still going strong in 2022,” he adds. “We remain positive for the future, despite predictions of a downturn towards the end of the year and a big part of that is due to new product development such as our Glass Rooms offer.
“Glass Rooms provides a fantastic opportunity for homeowners to extend their living space into the garden but without the cost or planning hurdles that can be associated with a conservatory or orangery. It effectively allows you to enjoy a Mediterranean lifestyle, despite the challenges of a British climate!”
Based around a clever modular design, CRL’s Glass Rooms veranda is made from high quality, lightweight aluminium and is constructed using innovative connectors. These, together with pre-drilled holes, help to ensure a quick and easy installation but also enable a high degree of design flexibility.
This means that it can be configured to suit almost any space from a standard rectangle that you might expect for most patios, as well as more complicated ‘L’ shaped designs. The design of the system, combined with the inherent strength of aluminium, allows for some very impressive sizes as well, with a maximum projection length of 6m and the potential to support spacing up to 7m without the requirement for a third support.
And even at that size, Glass Rooms is able to retain a sleek, ‘high end’ aesthetic. That’s helped by neat design details such as a drainage system that channels rainwater through a concealed gutter into a drainpipe that’s integrated into the post.
End users can specify lighting as well as fixed glass panels or sliding glass doors, along with electronically operated roof and vertical blinds, which all help to further enhance Glass Rooms’ ‘all year round’ appeal.
The sleek aluminium profile naturally lends itself to darker, grey colours but a full RAL palette is available which means homeowners can match to existing window or door profile if required.
“Glass Rooms has a broad market appeal,” explains Simon. “It’s perfect for high end domestic properties, where you would perhaps expect to see products such as our glass balustrade system already in place, but it also offers a very attractive solution to homeowners who just want to extend their living space without the high cost of a full-blown conservatory or orangery.
“It also presents options in the commercial sector,” he continues, “such as pubs and restaurants that want to make the most of outside areas. The electronically operated roof and vertical blinds means that you can quickly and efficiently provide shade from the sun and on cooler days you can simply turn on the optional infrared heating element.”
Launched at the FIT Show earlier this year, Simon reveals that Glass Rooms has received extremely positive feedback so far.
“We had a really good response to Glass Rooms at the 2022 FIT Show,” he says. “Since then, we’ve been busy working with customers, assisting with showroom installations and developing a digital price estimation tool that’s designed to produce professional, personalised quotes to help capitalise on strong consumer demand.
“It’s a really exciting product, we’ve had lots of enquiries from end users for stand-alone projects, but Glass Rooms opens up so much potential for installers to add value and increase their profit margins, especially if they’re quoting for bi-folds or patio doors.
“We’re anticipating strong sales and we’re also looking forward to Q1 of 2023, when we will be expanding our Outdoor Living Collection with the addition of a free-standing pergola style version of Glass Rooms,” concludes Simon. “There will be two versions, one with a glass roof and integrated roof blinds and one with aluminium ‘blades’ that can be opened, closed or adjusted to manage the sunlight.
“We look forward to be able to demonstrate these at the 2023 FIT Show!”
