Is this a new growth market?

Ian Woolley, sales director at Hitech Blinds, discusses the company’s new rooflight with integral blinds.

There has been a definitive shift in UK architecture towards contemporary minimalist designs and clean sightlines. That has driven the development of the growing market for rooflight installations, as flat-roof extensions take an increasing share of the home improvement market.

Also, home extensions are becoming bigger, particularly single storey extensions, as owners look to maximise space. This also leads to growth in flat roof extensions because of limits set on roof pitch by the original building’s window line.

The net effect is that architects and homeowners are specifying more and more flat roofs, and while lantern roofs are established rooflights are being specified in growing volumes.

Therefore, we have developed our TRL90 Rooflight. Manufactured in a high performance and slim sightline, thermally broken aluminium system, this easy-to-install system follows a tried and tested format.

Where it is different, however, is that the HiTech TRL90 features a fully motorised integral blind – supplied by HiTech Blinds – and does so, as standard.

We believe it offers massive opportunities to installers as demand for rooflights grow.

Suitable for new build installation or retro-fit across residential and commercial markets, the HiTech TRL90 Rooflight is manufactured in an ultra-slim aluminium profile, with mitre cut and mechanically cleated corners.

Available in eight sizes ranging from 800mm x 800mm up to 1,200mm x 2,200mm, standard colours are black, grey and white with any RAL colour available on special order.

Installation isn’t any different to a standard aluminium system. The TRL90 Rooflight is simply fixed to a suitable upstand and plaster boarded on the inside. It’s powered by connection to mains electricity through a transformer in the wall-mounted switch.

It also comes with a remote, allowing the end-user to fully retract or close the blind at the push of a button. This meets a demand for privacy where the roof is overlooked, as well as shading from direct sunlight.

The HiTech TRL90 also features an internal ceramic paint surround, which is applied by HiTech Blinds in-house to the inside the IGU. This means that when fully opened, the blind retracts in its entirety behind the internal screen.

Also available for supply with a standard IGU only, and without integrated blinds, selected stock sizes are supplied on a next day basis, with non-stock items available for delivery in as little as five days. The system is fully guaranteed for five years.

All IGUs are manufactured to deliver the highest levels of performance with a laminated softcoat inner pane, warm-edge spacer and 6mm tough outer-pane. Units are argon filled as standard achieving U-values as low as 1.0W/m2K. Where supplied with integral blinds, the system runs off a mains supply at the wall control.

The TRL90 Rooflight can be supplied as a retrofit product, and is also suitable for light commercial applications, delivering access to new build, retrofit and commercial markets.

Available in 16mm and 20mm options, our core integral blind product is suitable for use with slim 24mm units, in addition to 28mm standard units. With 20mm available in nine standard colours plus a dual colour option, with white inside and anthracite grey outside. We also offers any RAL colour on special order.

Rather than employing the motorised operation of the new rooflight, itours core range relies on manual operation using a magnet and guide rail system – lowering, raising and tilting the blinds using a single operation.

This also uses a sophisticated gearing system, which means that the blinds are raised or lowered twice the distance of movement of the magnets.

Hermetically sealed inside the IGU, the system also generates minimal resistance in operation. This reduces strain on the gearing guaranteeing through-life performance. This is housed in a slim 30mm and fully symmetrical profile, leaving only a minimal area visible once the window has been glazed.

Rooflights are a growing sector and we can give our customers a unique point of differentiation within it, by offering them an integral blind. There simply isn’t another product out there the same.

www.hitechblinds.co.uk