Window and Door Market Trends 2024

Window Material Debate, what’s it about & why?

Some treat trends like fashions; extras you can take or leave that make little difference.

But finding your business on the wrong side of a trend or being among the last to wake up to it can be expensive and damaging.

This report tells the story of three window materials, and the story’s not over.

Aluminium is the specifiers’ material of choice for commercial projects, facades and tall buildings but it lost housing to PVCu in the 1980s and aluminium had just a toehold in retail.

At the end of the 90s, timber was nobody’s choice. Its short life, high maintenance and poor performance made it easy for PVCu.

Few would have bet on its revival.

PVCu was on a winning streak at the end of the 90s, replacing what could be replaced of the housing stock at the rate of 3.5% a year. But what would happen after PVCu had replaced everything that could be replaced – estimated to happen by the mid-2000s?