SWC chooses Decalu for Part L aluminium offer
Scarborough-based SWC Trade Frames has chosen the Decalu88 Aluminium bi-fold and the Decalu163 lift-and-slide door as the foundation for its new Part L ready offer.
Set up in 1989 and covering Northumbria, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Scarborough-based SWC, manufactures more than 1,500 PVC-U and aluminium windows and doors a week.
“We couldn’t meet all Part L requirements through our previous system, so energy-efficiency and compliance with Part L was a major driver for us,” explained Mark Catchpole, sales director SWC.
“Particularly because the Decalu88 bi-fold achieves a U-value of as low as 1.2W/m2k, giving it reach into new build without having to go up to a triple-glazed unit, which no installer wants to do.
“We were also really keen on the knock-in glazing bead which we could see would deliver immediate benefits to our customers.”
June’s changes to Part L bring in a notional U-value for the newbuild sector of a minimum of 1.2W/m2k for windows and the same for doors with more than a 60% glazed area.
For the home improvement market, the minimum requirement for replacement windows is now 1.4W/m2k or WER Band B, and replacement doors with more than a 60% glazed area have to be able to achieve 1.4W/m2k or DER Band C.
U-Values on the Decalu88Bifold are as low as 0.68W/m2k triple-glazed or 1.2W/m2k double-glazed.
The Decalu 88 also delivers a series of installation efficiencies. This includes the use of pre-inserted co-extruded gasket and knock-in glazing bead, cutting glazing time to less than four-minutes per leaf, but also eliminating shrinkage.
The Decalu163 lift-and-slide door also delivers advanced levels of energy performance with U-values as low as 0.8W/m2k. It has been designed to accommodate individual sash weights of up to 400kg and individual sash sizes of up to 3,900mm by 3,500mm.
This means that it can be comfortably manufactured to an opening of up to 4,000mm tall by 3,500mm long on a single-track option, or 4,000mm by 7,000mm, in a twin track configuration.
The Decalu bi-fold and lift-and-slide are both supplied in a marine grade finish as standard.
