Official platform covering the UK fenestration sector. Original opinion, analysis and debate, covering our sector, unlike any other way!
West Yorkshire
Joined August 2009
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Calling all fenestration installers! Take a moment to take part in the DGB 2026 Installer poll to help build a better picture of the year so far, the challenges you have faced, the positives of this year, and your expectations for the rest of 2026 and beyond: doubleglazingblogger.com/202…
Fenestration Fact of the Day 🪟
A medieval glazing contract allowed just three years to create York Minster’s Great East Window.
Commissioned in 1405 and completed in 1408, the window was made by a team led by master glazier and glass painter John Thornton of Coventry. Its scenes tell the biblical story from Creation to the Apocalypse, and it remains Britain’s largest expanse of medieval stained glass. York Minster Stained Glass Navigator
Thornton’s contract made him personally responsible for the design and much of the principal painted detail. However, analysis of the painting styles reveals several glass painters at work—a workshop effort needed to deliver the ambitious commission within its stipulated three years. yorkglazierstrust.org
The original contract has been lost, but 17th-century copies preserve information about the commission. Together with the surviving glass, these records reveal both the craftsmanship and the organisation behind a major glazing project more than 600 years ago. York Minster
#FenestrationHistory #StainedGlass
Source: yorkglazierstrust.org/about-…
Source: yorkminster.org/discover/beh…
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NEW: Saint-Gobain Q3 Sales Rise As UK Construction Weakness Persists: doubleglazingblogger.com/202…
Fenestration Fact of the Day 🪟
The familiar small, flat door key owes much to a 19th-century American inventor.
In 1861, Linus Yale Jr patented a cylinder pin-tumbler lock operated by a compact, flat key with a serrated edge. His work developed an earlier design by his father, Linus Yale Sr, and a further patent in 1865 covered a refined version. These were stages in the mechanism’s development, rather than a single moment of invention. Yale
Inside the lock, the correct key lifts spring-loaded pins into positions that allow the cylinder’s plug to turn. The differing heights cut into the key’s edge provide the combination needed to operate the mechanism—a principle still familiar in door hardware today. Yale
Manufacturing followed: in 1868, Yale and Henry Robinson Towne founded the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company in Stamford, Connecticut, to produce cylinder locks. The business later became the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company. Lemelson
#FenestrationHistory #DoorHardware
Source: yaledws.co.uk/uk/en/about-us…
Source: lemelson.mit.edu/resources/l…
This is a biggie 😔 RIP Patrick
Legendary actor Sir Patrick Stewart, famous for roles in Star Trek and X-Men, dies aged 86 bbc.in/4igot2s
BONUS Fenestration Fact of the Day 🪟
Orange trees helped shape the development of Britain’s glazed garden buildings.
By the 1670s, permanent orangeries used south-facing windows to bring daylight to tender plants sheltered through winter. Orange trees grew in movable tubs, allowing gardeners to take them outside for summer—and leaving the buildings available for entertaining. National Trust
The surviving orangery at Ham House in Surrey was probably built between 1672 and 1674, although the National Trust’s heritage record notes that it could be older. Its long brick structure and solid tiled roof illustrate how these early buildings relied principally on windows for light. National Trust Heritage Records
Orangeries generally had little or no roof glazing until the early 19th century. The desire to grow pineapples and grapes helped drive the development of pitched glazed roofs that admitted more light, contributing to the evolution of the familiar greenhouse. National Trust
#FenestrationHistory #Orangeries
Source: nationaltrust.org.uk/discove…
Source: heritagerecords.nationaltrus…
Fenestration Fact of the Day 🪟
Designed around 1910, Germany’s Fagus shoe-last factory helped shape modern curtain walling. Its vast glazed walls and slender supporting structure foreshadowed the architecture of the Bauhaus.
#FenestrationHistory
Source: whc.unesco.org/en/list/1368?…
Not good...
This utterly bleak line from the Resolution Foundation on living standards in their overnight Budget analysis.
"Between now (2026-27) and the end of the Parliament (2028-29), typical incomes are forecast to fall in total by £1,050 (3 per cent)."
In other words: On average we'll be getting poorer in the run-up to the next election.
OBR with a pretty daming assessment of the budget. Key point for the fenestration sector is that disposable income for households is going to be further depressed for a number of years.
Disposable income, and consumer confidence are two metrics that matter to our sector. I would suggest that we have another few years of grinding away to survive.
#Budget2026
Yet more tax, yet more barriers to building homes. Labour will never, ever learn.
To be involved in the 'Your First Home' scheme, house builders will have to pay a 1% tax on the first 100 homes, a 3% tax on the next 150 homes & then a 4% tax on more homes.
#ukhousing #ukconstruction #AutumnBudget2026 #Budget2026
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A thread worth a moment of your time 👇
A key thing to look out for in the Budget is that the OBR in March 2026 forecast an exponential rise in house building & it would reach 1.3 million in the 5-year parliament, which was clearly complete nonsense even then & even more so now, so...
#ukhousing #Budget #Budget2026
Chaotic game, but an entertaining one. Ref loved his yellow cards, some baffling, awful decisions. Should have been 4/5-0, but very happy with that. Good time find the goals just before the Huddersfield game on Saturday.
Love taking my son to games at the moment. Special times for me as his dad, getting to watch them win most times we go. Love it!
Fenestration Fact of the Day 🪟
REHAU began in Bavaria in 1948 with three employees and one extruder, making products including shoe welting and garden hoses. It extruded its first PVC window profile in 1958—ten years after its founding.
#FenestrationHistory
Source: rehau.com/uk-en/company-care…
NEW: Nineteen Group Acquires FIT Show: doubleglazingblogger.com/202…
Fenestration Fact of the Day 🪟
Georgian fanlights combined decorative glass with ingenious metalwork.
In 1774, Francis Underwood, a glazier and plumber from Ampthill in Bedfordshire, registered a patent for a construction method using moulded lead-and-tin alloy ribs and ornamental details soldered to metal glazing bars.
These techniques helped makers achieve the delicate, elaborate patterns seen above Georgian entrance doors. By the late 18th century, specialist companies were producing fanlights as a trade in their own right. georgiangroup.org.uk
#FenestrationHistory #HeritageWindows
Source: georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-cont…
Edition 298 of the weekly DGBulletin is hitting inboxes right now! Or catch it first here: mailchi.mp/c801f75e92cc/dgbu…
