Industry News

    Recession hits the UK! The good, the bad and...

    So the UK is officially in a technical recession. I don’t know about anyone else, but it feels like we’ve been in a recession for a long time now given the cost of living crisis, geopolitical tensions, supply chain issues and the hangover we have from the pandemic.   In fairness, the UK economy has been somewhat resilient in the face of all this, yet in February this year it’s been confirmed that GDP has turned red for two consecutive quarters, officially plunging the UK into a technical recession.  ...
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    Where is everyone?

    The government is holding firm to its pledge to deliver 1 million new homes during their parliament.  Michael Gove commented that “speed and scale matter”. The  School Rebuilding Programme has targets for rebuilding and renovating 500 schools over a 10-year period yet a recent damning National Audit Office (<a...
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    Sobering NAO report on condition of school...

    Back towards the end of June, the National Audit Office released their Condition of school buildings...
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    A Newcomer’s Perspective on the Architectural...

    I’ve been on a mission to find out how many doors there are in the UK. It’s not easy to come to any sort of accurate number. So I turned to AI for the answer, and not the Architectural Ironmongery (AI) kind.  I asked ChatGPT to devise a methodology in estimating the number of doors there are in the UK, and whilst I won’t bore you with the details of that methodology, here are the numbers it came back with. There are 392.5 million doors in the UK. Approximately...
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    The 6th anniversary of Grenfell marks a year of...

    As we all take a moment to remember the tragedy that unfolded on the 14th of June, 6years ago, our thoughts are with those who lost their homes and the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives.  The 6th anniversary of Grenfell falls on a year where we’re beginning to see a welcomed shift in fire safety regulation. Whilst I’m sure we all agree there is still a lot more to be done, regulation and guidance is beginning to move in the right direction as we look to try and prevent events like...
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    Does Keeping Your Doors Closed Save On Heating...

    Gary, our Managing Director, has been looking into how we can ensure our buildings are as energy efficient as they can be. A smart meter or smart thermostat indicates the cost of heating and hot water but we’re aiming to lower the average cost of our energy and heating bills in addition to monitoring spend across our facilities. The Rising Cost of Heating We all know the cost of heating has been spiralling out of control, we’re being given advice to save energy by...
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    Why am I still seeing ‘CE’ on architectural...

    Door Controls Direct’s Mike Trowbridge explains why some architectural ironmongery products still display a ‘Conformité Européenne’ (CE) mark, despite Britain having left the European Union more than 6 months ago… As we all know, Britain officially left the European Union at midnight on 31 January 2020. Until then, architectural ironmongery products (as well as all kinds of other goods) were required to display a ‘CE’ mark - CE standing for ‘Conformité Européenne’. Now I wasn’t...
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