There’s more to ali than bifolds

By Sioned Webb, Marketing Director at Aluk.

Searches for aluminium windows on Google have gone up every year since they first started tracking such things way back in 2004 and, last year, I’m delighted to say that they overtook searches for PVCU for the first time.

Among homeowners, aluminium windows have very much become the aspirational choice, and it’s not hard to see why. They offer the contemporary styling which lots of today’s premium buyers are looking for, with slim, uniform sightlines, a flush appearance and a high glass to frame ration to let in plenty of light, without any compromise on performance or security.

We saw the perfect example of that recently in the project which won Aluk’s Installation of the Month competition in April. The Milford Window Company in Godalming had replaced white PVCU windows in a 1930s property with sleek grey aluminium frames in Aluk’s 58BW system and the finished result looked fantastic.

The owners were renovating their home to make it feel more contemporary and to enhance its value and, as is increasingly the case, aluminium windows were an integral part of that.

They approached The Milford Window Company, who recommended our slimline frames in anthracite grey, alongside a BSF70 bifold door opening out into the garden. The finished project is a stunning transformation and shows just how versatile aluminium windows can be. They are certainly not just for apartments or new builds anymore; more and more, they are also being used very successfully to update older properties as well.

Of course, aluminium windows have long been popular with commercial developers, keen to offer buyers the most attractive specifications in their new builds and that will certainly continue, but opportunities for fabricators and installers selling aluminium windows are now much broader than that.

The most recent Palmer Report predicted a 20% rise in the number of aluminium windows being installed between 2017 and 2021, compared with just a 2% rise expected in the number in PVCU.

More significantly perhaps, the report also predicted a 20% rise in the installed value of aluminium windows – indicating that prices will remain robust, in contrast with a 7% fall in the installed value of PVCU, where prices look likely to come under even more intense pressure.

Aluk obviously made its name in the UK thanks to the popularity of our bifold systems, but there is much more to us than that. We apply the same design and manufacturing rigour to our windows as we do to our doors, and our range offers a number of very significant USPs to help fabricators and installers take advantage of the opportunities which are now opening up.

Our range is comprehensive enough to enable fabricators to manufacture windows suitable for the replacement, new build, light commercial or heritage sectors. They can be configured almost any way a fabricator chooses, including casements, flush, TBT and fully reversible windows and, with a square or chamfered bead, they can achieve a contemporary or traditional aesthetic.

What makes the range stand out though is that the vast majority of Aluk windows are integrated with all our other products, using the same outerframe and the same gaskets and cleats, simplifying fabrication and massively reducing the stockholding required.

I would argue that it’s easy for fabricators to add our window range to their existing Aluk door set up and, similarly, it’s easy for installers who are already selling our bifolds and sliders to introduce the option of perfectly matching aluminium windows to those same customers.

Aluk’s team of experts will of course provide all the tailored manufacturing and sales and marketing help that individual customers need, and we will continue to invest in promoting the Aluk brand to help support our entire customer base.