Forget traditional, heavy triple glazing says Glass Times editor, Luke Wood – Regency Triple featuring Corning® Enlighten™ Glass is on the way and it is set to re-write the rule book on how the industry can finally take full advantage of high-performance triple glazed units.
The triple-glazing landscape is about to change – dramatically. For years, traditional triple glazing has been encumbered by weight, complexity, and installation challenges.
Now, Regency Triple featuring Corning® Enlighten™ Glass is set to overturn those conventions and redefine how high-performance glazing is manufactured, marketed, and installed.
And it arrives at a pivotal moment for Regency Glass, which is preparing to embark on the most transformative chapter in its history.
Regency Glass relocated to its Leigh headquarters in 2019, just months before the pandemic. Despite an uncertain period for the construction sector, the move marked a major investment in a state-of-the-art manufacturing site, one that has since acted as the springboard for exceptional growth.
Since then, Regency has expanded its engineering, IT, and logistics teams, launched new training initiatives, and invested continuously in advanced machinery. The strategy has been simple but effective: maximise product quality and service capability.
Today, the company supplies a 70/30 retail-to-new-build market, but its ambitions are accelerating rapidly. With Regency Triple on the horizon, the business is now preparing to move into a colossal new 420,000ft² facility in Warrington, a venue that is set to be the largest glass processing plant in the UK.
Demand for triple?
Given the scale of the investment, I ask Regency’s chief sales officer, Steve Massey, the question many in the industry will be considering: Is the demand really there?
Steve’s response is unequivocal.
“Demand has never been higher,” he says. “Homeowners are driving the shift. Energy efficiency remains one of the strongest motivators for upgrading windows and doors, particularly while bills remain elevated. And with a stagnant housing market, ‘improve don’t move’ has never been more relevant.”
Steve’s insight on energy efficiency is supported by the latest Keystone Market Research Report. Across all Keystone surveys in 2025, triple glazing is now identified as the preferred glazing option for 56% of homeowners – far ahead of double glazing at 35%.
The new-build sector is also accelerating adoption. “Many housebuilders now see triple glazing as one of the most cost effective routes to achieving energy efficiency requirements,” Steve notes. “Some developers are already using triple as standard.”
Weight problem – solved
Until now, triple has never reached its full potential for a number of well-established reasons.
For installers, weight has always been the number one issue, for handling and fitting but also with transportation. That’s because triple may have required additional fitting teams at a time when skilled labour is already hard to find, and additional weight can also restrict how much product is loaded onto vans, potentially resulting in fewer jobs per day and smaller margins.
Then there are the additional issues with hardware and also with wider profile that could mean cutting back into plaster lines.
Glazing units into windows and doors can also be problematic, depending on the width of the TGU – so it’s understandable why, up until now, installers may have argued that high performance double glazing is just as good.
For manufacturers, weight is an issue, but processing triple can take up too much production space while drastically reducing IGU production capacity.
Re-writing the rule book
Regency Triple featuring Corning® Enlighten™ Glass eliminates these limitations and introduces a new era of triple-glazing performance.
The headline figures are:
• Only 5% heavier than standard DGUs
• 30% lighter than conventional TGUs
• 28mm unit achieving 0.8 W/m²K
• 36mm unit achieving 0.6 W/m²K
• 40-44 mm unit achieving 0.5/m²K
The Regency Triple is not just another triple-glazed unit; it is a leap forward in insulated-glass unit (IGU) technology, offering real-world benefits across fabrication, installation, and performance, including:
• Ultra-thin profile: Provides the benefits of triple glazing whilst fitting seamlessly into a 28mm cavity, making the Regency Triple an ideal solution for the replacement window market.
• Lightweight design: Features a 30% decrease from conventional triple-glazed units and only a 5% weight increase compared to conventional double-glazed units, making product handling easier for installation teams.
• Enhanced thermal performance: Delivers impressively strong thermal insulation, helping homeowners improve energy efficiency without costly or bulky frame modifications.
• Design flexibility: Offers custom cavity widths available to suit any specification due to the use of a Thermo Plastic Spacer bar, also known as TPS.
• Thermal durability without tempering: Corning® Enlighten™ Glass delivers high thermal durability, offering protection from field thermal breakage.
“Regency Triple removes every major barrier to triple glazing,” says Steve. “It’s lighter, easier to handle, and fits into existing systems. The opportunity for installers to upsell, particularly in home improvement, is enormous.”
The opportunity for installers to upsell to a premium product is clear, but Steve also points out that fitting is made much easier with Regency Triple – specifically when applying glazing beading to units – as the use of Thermo Plastic Spacer bar in manufacture results in much finer tolerances within the TGU.
“When glazing windows and doors, the ease of fixing the glazing beads is a big selling point for installers, especially those who have damaged thicker, traditional triple units in the past, particularly when laminate glass types are used, making them too tight for the frame/bead system.”
New Warrington factory
The response to Regency Triple has been so strong, says Steve, that Regency was forced to cancel plans for its original new factory purely because it wouldn’t have been big enough.
Instead, it has now started fitting out a huge, 420,000ft2 factory in Warrington that once finished, will be the largest glass processing facility in the UK – and by some margin.
“We are currently in the process of moving over all our existing lines from the Leigh factory as well as introducing the new, highly advanced machinery for the manufacturer of Regency Triple,” says Steve. “The investment is considerable, but once completed we will have the capacity to deliver on demand now and well into the future.”
Regency Triple featuring Corning® Enlighten™ Glass is due to start production in Spring 2026. It represents one of the most exciting innovations for the industry in a long time, and especially so for the home improvement market as a valuable upselling opportunity over regular double glazing installations.
For more information on how it could enhance your product portfolio, visit www.regencyglass.co.uk or contact the Regency Glass sales team at [email protected]
