Clearview National April 2017 - Issue 185 | Page 78

PROUD SPONSOR OF DOORS & WINDOWS
DOORS&WINDOWS
Surprised and delighted…
Mark Schlotel, Marketing Director at Victorian Sliders, reports
on the company’s first showing at Ecobuild exhibition.
» » SO ECOBUILD,
presented at ExCeL in London’s
Docklands (7-9th March), the
“number one event for forward-
looking professionals in the built
environment”, is over for another
year.
Now under new management
and undeniably reducing in size
each year in terms of numbers
of companies exhibiting, this
show still provides an appropriate
focus to meet a broad variety
of UK construction specifiers
who are all wanting to keep fully
abreast with the latest building
product technologies in terms
of recyclability and energy-
efficiency.
In the spirit of “let’s try
something different”, we invested
in an appealing 10 x 4 metre
island stand at Ecobuild, branded
Victorian Sliders and packed
with 10 ECOSlide PVCu vertical
sliding sash windows to show
off our range of woodgrain foil
finishes. We were surprised and
delighted with the response we
received.
Over the 3 days, we “zapped” a
satisfying quantity of visitors who
stepped onto our eye-catching
stand, which was designed in a
classical and symmetrical fashion
to allow plenty of “walk-on”
points in and around the sash
window exhibits. Specifiers
ranged from window industry
installation professionals based
in the London area, developer
entrepreneurs working in both
new build and retrofit arenas,
private sector architects complete
with drawings of buildings
requiring sash windows,
national design & build housing
developers and surveyor teams
and significant buyers working for
public sector organisations such
as housing associations and city
councils.
Yes, we met some slightly
cranky homeowners who seemed
obsessed with conservation issues
and ultra-traditional building
methods and materials, but that
is to be expected and thankfully
those worthy individuals were
few and far between. What we
did experience on numerous
occasions was the question: “Are
these windows made of timber?”
or even “Are these windows
made of aluminium?” This
feedback is very encouraging. The
majority of visitors meeting our
ECOSlide PVCu vertical sliding
sash windows for the first time
were clearly knocked out by their
quality, ease of use and visual
appeal.
We are sure that the positive
response and wide variety of
new commercial contacts from
locations across the UK secured
at Ecobuild will recoup our
exhibition investment many times
ov er.
Most Ecobuild specification
visitors were unaware of our
brand, so it was a pleasure for
78 » A PR 2017 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
us to explain our industry role
as “strictly trade only” extruder-
fabricators and outline our simple
philosophy at Victorian Sliders,
which is to deliver unbeatable
value and service.
Benefiting from our business
focus on PVCu sash windows
and our manufacturing
economies of scale, ECOSlide
vertical sliding sash units are
supplied to Professional Window
Installers at “£199 any size, up
to 1300mm wide and 2400mm
high” for an A-Rated WER solid
White PVCu window, featuring
toughened glass on both top
and bottom sashes, sash horns,
travel restrictors, quick release
tilt restrictors, White hardware,
thermal inserts to both frame and
sash and a signature extruded
“anti-jemmy” security bar on the
cill.
One fact that we are
undeniably proud of at Victorian
Sliders, is that we have now kept
our selling prices to customers
unchanged without inflation for 6
years in succession.
Orders worth over £1,000 are
delivered free to UK locations
on a 5-day lead time. Window
design options such as Astragal or
Georgian glazing bars, woodgrain
foiled or sprayed colour finishes,
trickle ventilators and shaped or
bay window assemblies are priced
on top of the £199 base cost and
provide additional £££s value to
installed projects.
Every aspect of product
manufacturing is carried out
in-house at our Victorian Sliders
company headquarters in South
Wales, including engineering and
design of PVCu window profiles,
raw materials specification and
extrusion, specialist profile
bending, woodgrain foil or
colour spray surface finishing of
the window frame components,
toughened sealed double glass
unit making and final assembly
of complete CE Marked sash
windows ready for despatch.
Building works are currently well
underway to more than double
the existing manufacturing plant
from 110,000 to 240,000 square
feet by April 2017.