32 | Sector Focus: Joinery
◄ Another joinery supplier reported the same experience.
“Our small to medium sized house and extension builder customers report they’re busy as ever,” they said.
High end door and window producer Gowercroft, meanwhile, reports strong trading over the last year, with high enquiry levels and commercial projects particularly buoyant. “There was a noticeable drop in sales to the domestic market last autumn, which seemed to have been caused by a general uncertainty regarding the economy, although that appears to have eased now,” said managing director Andrew Madge.
He agrees that, while starts in the large- scale developer new build sector may have weakened, the higher end new build and self- build markets Gowercroft serves have been more resilient.
“But generally the driver for our business is the RMI side,” he said. “And as our projects tend to be top end, customers have not been as affected by the cost of living crisis.” Back to West Port and Mr Newey’s fishing
analogy, 18 months ago he undertook an analysis of the private domestic window market against the backdrop of anticipated declines in the wider economy and consequently, after the pandemic home improvement surge, in consumer confidence. “We predicted domestic business would
suffer,” he said. “So we focused production more on areas with a greater certainty; social housing, public sector and commercial projects. We’re still doing some private residential windows but it’s really diminishing now, while we’re seeing strong sales into education and commercial – for instance, we’re working on a massive new retail centre with timber sliding sashes throughout.” The other strategic change has been to fundamentally alter the balance of window versus fire door production. “Four years ago 10-20% of production was in fire doors. Now we’re at 65-70%,” said Mr Newey. “At the same time, we’re still maintaining windows volumes. This is additional business.” Part of the thinking was that the fire door market was characterised by long-term contracts, notably with local authorities. “This guaranteed workflow helps you develop your vision for the business and make decisions about investment and production. It also helps drive efficiency.”
As expected, this move has also left West Top: Richard Burbidge Oak Re-Newel
Centre: The process of renewing old newel posts PHOTO: RICHARD BURBIDGE
Above: Gowercroft Winston sliding sash window in bathroom in Victorian listed
mews property by Prewett Bizley architects PHOTO: ANDREW MEREDITH
TTJ | May/June 2023 |
www.ttjonline.com
Port well-placed to service surging demand for fire doors following the Grenfell disaster, the subsequent inquiry and the Fire and Building Safety Acts that resulted. “Now full details of regulatory changes are known and the construction and property sectors are starting to understand what’s expected of them, demand is increasing even faster,” said Mr Newey.
Of course, joinery businesses have, like all manufacturers, had to contend with soaring energy costs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but companies have adopted strategies to minimise passing on increases to customers.
When Archwood came to rebroke its energy supply contract in 2022, it was quoted a six-fold price increase. “But we didn’t fix at that price. Instead we went into a consortium of businesses which enables us to buy energy flexibly and evens out increases,” said Mr Burbidge. “Cost rises we have passed on were largely related to timber prices and shipping costs and these have now softened and we haven’t imposed any further increases since January. For the longer term, we’ve also undertaken major investment in solar panels.” West Port acknowledged it had to pass on a proportion of ‘mammoth’ energy price increases, but has introduced a vigorous ‘war on waste’ to cut its electricity bill. Mr Madge took another perspective on the effect of energy inflation. “With the general move towards sustainability it’s made our [energy efficient] products more attractive to customers,” he said. “This is particularly true of our Heritage range, which meets planning requirements for listed properties and conservation area homes, while significantly improving thermal performance.”
Companies also had strategies to minimise the impact of timber price volatility and shortages. “We’ve been in a relatively good position as we buy from source, taking full truck loads on a very frequent basis and long term agreements, so when timber inflation kicked off suppliers couldn’t immediately impose an increase,” said Mr Newey. “We eventually did have to pass rises on, but there was actually little customer resistance – they recognised it was the market situation.” West Port’s war on waste also helped, with optimising processing technology ensuring that no more than 3-4cm is left over from any length of timber entering the factory.
Archwood also buys on long-term contracts, which helped insulate it from increases to an extent and smoothed them. “When timber prices then reduced generally, some customers expected ours to come down as much as commodity wood prices, but we pointed out they never went as high,” said Josh Burbidge, who also believes there may be more price negotiation ahead. “Hardwood may be stable, but the mood music is for further softwood price hardening.”
As for prospects for the rest of 2023, Archwood expects to hit its budget target of 3% turnover growth to its September year end.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85
