A 2-year project to develop and manufacture wooden windows to an agreed specification which satisfies the needs of a number of different clients, complies with existing standards and meets further requirements like Secured by Design. The aim of the project is to make supply to the social housing market technically and commercially viable for many small and medium sized joinery businesses across Wales and to make low carbon timber windows the standard solution in social housing.

The project is funded by Welsh Government. Led by Woodknowledge Wales on behalf of a network of joinery businesses and suppliers it draws on input from social housing developers, architects, contractors and trade bodies.

Project duration: 2020-2022

Enabling a low carbon future

Anyone serious about making their housing stock fit for a zero-carbon future will need low carbon building elements like timber windows that deliver on a whole host of performance criteria. Housing associations across Wales are indicating that they are interested in using more wooden windows in the future. The benefits of these being compelling: Improved performance, reduced whole life cost, improved sustainability and higher quality. Over the next few years, 20,000 homes will need to be built in Wales.

At present wooden windows manufactured in Wales often cannot be specified because they are not third party certified to meet the Secured by Design (Gold) standard – a Development Quality Requirement (DQR) requirement for social housing in Wales.

In practice, most windows are built to standards set out in PAS24 and Part Q of the building regulations and do meet the Gold standard requirements but aren’t third party certified for a variety of reasons, including costs that are too high for the majority of small joinery businesses.

We want to overcome this roadblock by developing a set of standard specifications with agreed technical solutions that will be SBD certified (Module 1).

Once the technical specification is agreed, we will develop a solution to broker tenders for windows manufactured to the agreed specification. This will allow small to medium sized joinery businesses to deliver windows for projects that would normally be too large for each of them to manufacture and supply to on their own (Module 2).

The technical solutions and the brokerage system will be tested in a pilot project (Module 3).

We will take on board lessons learned and deal with teething problems before launching a 12-months CPD (Continuing Professional Development) programme and marketing campaign for wooden windows made in Wales (Module 4).

How to get involved

Intrigued about the project and want to learn more or even become part of our story? We’re open for industry support, new ideas, opportunities to pilot our window in a new development, more joiners to manufacture a Welsh wooden window and much more.

Please get in touch: christiane.lellig@woodknowledgewales.co.uk