Choosing the best glazing supplier for your doors and windows

Selecting a design and style of doors and windows for your home is just one step of the process. With these decisions made, the next step is to find a supplier who you feel comfortable understands your needs, budget and the overall finish you are reaching for. 

Rather than leave things to chance, it really will pay (quite literally) to ensure that the glazing supplier you end up choosing is the right one for your project — trustworthy, reliable and totally onboard with your ideas.

To provide advice and help you choose the right glazing supplier for your project, glazing specialists IDSystems have put together this guide, the next installation in their four part series of blogs. The first two in the series covered ’where to start when choosing glazed doors’ and ‘choosing the right door system’. 

1. Do your research and find out about their experience

One of the first things you should do when choosing a supplier is to find out all your can about the companies you are considering.

"As a long-standing and respectable company with a proud reputation, it is always sad to see the glazing industry get tarnished by companies who go bust owing customers money, only to restart under a different name months later — but unfortunately it seems to happen," say the experts at IDSystems.

With glazed doors and windows playing such a significant part of a modern home project knowing who you can trust and where your money will be safe is almost as important as the products you choose.

"The key piece of advice we would always offer customers is to do your due diligence when talking to any potential supplier (and that applies to every trade, not just glazing) so you know who you are dealing with and what their financial situation (or even better credit score) is.

"Understanding how long a company has been trading will give you a good idea as to their approach to supplying doors and windows and whilst Google reviews are a useful indication of a company’s reputation seeing completed installations will allow you to see the quality of the work for yourself."

2. Make sure you understand U-values and certifications

The world of thermal efficiency and, in particular the building regulations surrounding U-values, can be a confusing one for homeowners, but ensuring you understand what is required when it comes to your new glazing is hugely important — and this is one area where your supplier should be able to help.

"Over the years we’ve seen plenty of suppliers offering vague assurances about their products without going into the specific details that you require to judge them for yourselves," say IDSystems.

"With the changes to Building Regulations in 2022 one of the most high profile areas that this can include is thermal efficiency performance. The standards for thermal efficiency required by Building Regulations Document L have tightened up significantly leaving whole generations of products now obsolete, however some suppliers have opted to bend the rules on what is permissible to keep selling those doors and windows."

If you aren’t sure, or the figures you are being quoted don’t seem to make sense based on the specification of the doors, then ask to see the U-value certification for the product based on your exact specification.

3. Choose a supplier that offers what you want

In terms of the design of your door system it is also worth making sure that the products on offer can do what you need them to do. These are your doors so you should be able to decide how you want the panels to be configured and shouldn’t be restricted by the limitations of one system. 

"A prime example is with sliding doors, not all sliding doors are the same even if they all look similar which means some can’t do 3-panels sliding behind a fixed frame at one end or aren’t able to be installed as a pocket door system — it is your home, don’t compromise," say IDSytems.

4. Look into the manufacturer too

Once you have narrowed down potential suppliers it is worth finding out who manufacturers the system you are looking at. There are companies out there who sell other manufacturers’ products under their own branding which can make it really difficult to do your research on the pros and cons of that particular system.

"Knowing who is physically fabricating the product is also crucial, is it being made in-house by your supplier or is it being bought in from a third party? If it is being bought in, what control does that supplier have over the quality of the workmanship or the lead time?" say IDSystems.

"From our perspective we manufacture almost everything we install ourselves, with the exception of a handful of products we import direct from SUNFLEX in Germany," continue IDSystems' experts. "Doing this means we have complete control over the whole process, from initial design to completed installation, ensuring total peace of mind for our customers."

5. Don't forget to consider installation

Just as knowing who manufacturers the doors is important so is knowing who is going to be fitting them. The typical model in the glazing industry is for a supplier to buy the product from a wholesale fabricator and to then sub-contract the installation to a third party team of fitters.

"The issue with this is that as a customer you have no idea of the skills or experience of the team that will be fitting and whether they have any knowledge of the particular products you have bought," explain IDSystems. "It also means if anything goes wrong you could potentially be left in the middle between the supplier and installer as to whose responsibility it is to fix any issues.

"This is why, for more than 23 years, IDSystems has only ever used our own in-house, experienced and fully employed fitters. As with our fabrication capabilities it is the only way we can ensure the quality of the completed project time after time, year after year."

Want to know more?

In Part 4 of IDSystems' handy guide, they'll be covering everything you need to know about the installation process.

For more information about IDSystems and their multi award-winning range of aluminium framed glazing systems visit www.idsystems.co.uk, call 01603 408804 or email info@idsystems.co.uk