Insights

Window cost per opening is a weak number on its own. What a house actually spends is driven by the window-to-floor ratio, the operation mix, the performance class and how many openings are non-standard.

A block frame window is installed into the rough opening during construction and finished into the wall. It is the cheapest and most weather-tight installation route, and the one that cannot be retrofitted later.

Sidelights are the cheapest way to add presence and daylight to an entrance, and one of the easiest ways to compromise a door's structural performance. The cost sits in five places.

Custom windows are not a premium version of a stock window. They are a fabrication project priced from drawings, and the cost is driven by five items that a stock catalogue never has to carry.

Sixteen teams from sixteen door and window brands, single elimination, four rounds. On 26 November 2021 our team took the first Hans Cup in Sanshui, Foshan.

The PTAC sleeve and the window opening are two holes in the same wall, cut by two trades, flashing to two details. Integrating them into one assembly removes the most common leak path in hotel renovation.

At the Shanghai international building and construction trade fair we showed five systems that carry most of our export volume. A short record of what was on the stand and why those five.

Aluminum does not rot, but it does corrode, and the parts that fail first are the ones nobody inspects: drainage slots, gaskets, rollers and sealant. A seasonal checklist that takes an hour a year.

Cooling load is decided before the air conditioner is switched on: by what the glazing admits, where the shade falls, and whether the heat that enters can leave at night. Six interventions, in order of return.