CompanyResearch & DevelopmentThe lab

Every product starts with a question.

What does a gale do to a garage door? Where does the heat go on a frosty night?

Will a door still close after twenty years? What keeps steel sound by the sea, and how long can a façade hold back a fire? With our manufacturing partners, we design, engineer and test our systems to recognised European standards to answer them.

Five benches below. Run the tests yourself.

Enter the lab How we develop

A curtain-wall junction cut through: bronze cover caps, a multi-chamber aluminium mullion, a black thermal break and a triple-glazed unit. — Specimen 00Curtain-wall node, in sectionConcept visualisation1 Cover cap · 2 Triple-glazed unit · 3 Thermal break · 4 Multi-chamber mullion

Bench 01Weather

What does a storm do to a door or a window?

Wind pushes. Rain drives. Air finds every gap. In a weather chamber, a full-size door or window is sealed into a wall of steel and the pressure is raised, step by step, through the classes of its standard. Raise it yourself.

A large window clamped into a steel test chamber while a spray bar sends a sheet of water down the glass; a technician watches from the side. — Weather chamberSpray and pressure on a window specimenConcept visualisation

Test pressure450 Pa

Wind equivalent: Beaufort 10 · Storm
Class reached: Class 2

Classes · EN 12424

Garage door · resistance to wind load

The door is loaded with pressure on its face and must resist it without failing, then keep working. The class is the highest test pressure it holds.

Classified to EN 12424 · tested to EN 12444 · product standard EN 13241

What it means for you. A house on a hilltop or the coast needs higher classes than a sheltered terrace in town. Tell us where the building is and how exposed it feels on a wild day: it shapes the specification.

Wind speeds are approximate: the dynamic pressure of a gust, q = ½ρv², with air at 1.25 kg/m³. Real design wind loads depend on height, terrain and exposure and are calculated to EN 1991-1-4. Deflection is drawn for illustration. Class thresholds are those defined in the standards; a product’s declared classes are on its documentation.

Bench 02Heat

Where does the heat go?

Heat always moves from warm to cold. A U-value measures how fast it escapes through one square metre of a window, door or wall for every degree of difference. Lower is warmer. Choose a window and a winter’s night.

Frame and glass, in sectionConcept visualisation

Choose a window

U-value, W/m²K0.8

Outside air−5 °C

Heat lost now: 36 W
Over 24 hours: 0.9 kWh
Inside glass surface: 17.4 °C
Condensation: Unlikely

Compare like with like
Uw, Ug, Up.
Uw is the whole window: frame, glass and the spacer at the glass edge. Ug is the glass alone. Up is a door panel alone. They are not directly comparable, so always compare the same kind of value.
The cold you can feel
Why old glass mists.
The worse the U-value, the colder the inside pane. Below the dew point of the room’s air, moisture condenses on it. Triple glazing keeps the inner surface close to room temperature, so the draught you feel by the window fades too.
Calculated, then measured
Where the numbers come from.
Window values are calculated to EN ISO 10077 and glass values to EN 673, or measured on a complete window or door in a hot box to EN ISO 12567-1. Declared values use a reference size, so a much larger or smaller unit performs differently.

Illustrative. One window of 1.23 × 1.48 m (the reference size used for declared window values), 20 °C inside, steady conditions and standard surface resistances (EN ISO 6946). Preset values are typical published figures: single glazing about 5.7 and uncoated double glazing about 2.8 W/m²K (centre of glass, EN 673); around 1.2 for a typical replacement window, 0.8 for a very good one and 0.6 approaching passive-house level. Dew point for room air at 20 °C and 50 % relative humidity. For simplicity the bench applies each figure to the whole window; a real Uw also includes the frame and spacer. Real losses also depend on the fitting and the wind.

Bench 03Endurance

Will it still close in twenty years?

A cycle is one opening and one closing. On an endurance rig, a door or window is opened and closed thousands of times, then checked: does it still lock, seal and move as it should?

A sectional garage door in a freestanding steel frame, halfway through opening, in a dark test hall; an engineer watches. — Endurance frameA sectional door, mid-cycleConcept visualisation

Cycles on the rig

What are you opening?

Times a day8

Years20

Cycles in a life like yours

58,400

What it means for you. A back door used by a family with a dog lives a harder life than a front door. If a garage door is your everyday entrance, say so: springs and drives are rated for a number of cycles, and the right choice depends on how you live.

EN 12400 classifies windows at 5 000, 10 000 or 20 000 cycles (classes 1 to 3) and pedestrian doors from 5 000 to 1 000 000 cycles (classes 1 to 8), tested to EN 1191. Garage doors fall under EN 13241, with mechanical safety in EN 12604. Classes are thresholds in the standards, not ratings of a particular product; a product’s declared class, where it has one, is in its documentation. The rig speed is illustrative.

Bench 04Finish

What keeps steel from rusting?

Layers. Each one does a different job, and together they keep water and oxygen away from the metal. This is the five-layer system our steel fence and gate elements use. Pull it apart.

Separate the layers60 %

Five layers, from the outside in

Exposure

Where you live matters.

Salt, damp and pollution decide how hard a finish has to work. EN ISO 12944-2 sorts outdoor air into corrosivity categories. Choose the one closest to home.

C3 · Medium

Powder-coated test panels, each scratched with a cross through to the metal, standing in a misted corrosion cabinet. — Salt-spray cabinetScribed panels, a standard way to compare finishes (ISO 9227)Concept visualisation

And aluminium? Aluminium protects itself with a thin oxide film that re-forms when scratched. Anodising thickens that film; powder coating adds colour on a pretreated surface. That is why aluminium fences, windows and façades should not need repainting: a regular wash keeps them looking right.

The five layers are those described for steel fence and gate elements on our Fences page: steel, iron phosphating, hot-dip galvanising (zinc, to EN ISO 1461), chrome-free passivation and powder coating. Category descriptions summarise EN ISO 12944-2; care notes are general guidance, and the care instructions supplied with your product take precedence.

Bench 05Fire

How long does it hold back a fire?

In a fire-resistance test, a complete assembly closes the mouth of a furnace that follows the standard fire curve. The clock runs until it fails. Our fire-rated façades hold flame and temperature for 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, tested as a whole system.

A glazed façade assembly closing a test furnace, with flames behind the glass and an engineer watching from the cool side. — Furnace testA glazed assembly on the standard curveConcept visualisation

Time in the furnace30 min

Furnace: 842 °C
If it holds, it earns: EI 30

E · Integrity
No way through.
No flames or hot gases pass to the protected side: no lasting flaming there, no gaps that open up, no cotton pad set alight.
I · Insulation
The far side stays cool.
The face away from the fire must not rise more than 140 °C above its starting temperature on average, or 180 °C at any single point. EI 30 means both held for thirty minutes.
A different question
Reaction to fire.
How much a material adds to a fire is classified separately, under EN 13501-1. In England, Regulation 7(2) of the Building Regulations requires materials of class A1 or A2-s1,d0 in the external walls of relevant buildings with a storey 18 metres or more above ground level.

The curve is the standard temperature/time curve of EN 1363-1 (ISO 834): T = 345 log₁₀(8t + 1) + 20, with t in minutes. Fire resistance is classified to EN 13501-2. Ratings apply to the tested configuration and are confirmed for each project. Marks on the chart show classification periods from EN 13501-2, not ratings of our products.

After the labThe paperwork

Read the label.

Every test ends as a line on a document. Products covered by a harmonised European standard come with a Declaration of Performance and a conformity mark: CE, or in Great Britain CE or UKCA. Tap a line to translate it.

Declaration of performance

Example

Window, example

Product standard EN 14351-1 · values for illustration only, not a product declaration

Want the real documents? Ask for the documents of any product you are considering, or for a copy of those supplied with your order.

Considering a product Already ordered

Extrusion lineConcept visualisation

Made, then proven

Engineered in Europe.

Façade profiles are extruded, finished and assembled in European works by our manufacturing partners. The tests above are how a drawing earns its place in a building.

DevelopmentThe loop

From question to installed.

Development is a loop, not a line. What we learn on site goes back to the start.

01
Insight
It starts with how people live and build: a wider opening, a quieter bedroom, a taller tower, a garden by the sea. We listen to homeowners, architects, installers and our manufacturing partners.
02
Concept
We choose the system and the materials, then draw the details that decide everything: the joint, the seal, the fixing, the drainage path.
03
Prototype
Where a product or a project calls for it, a full-size sample is built from production parts, so what is tested is what will be installed.
04
Test
Air, water, wind, heat, cycles, finish and fire, each to the recognised European standard for that product, where one applies.
05
Certify, where applicable
Where a harmonised standard applies, the declared performance rests on those tests, is set out in a Declaration of Performance and the product carries the CE mark.
06
Install
A perfect window, badly fitted, is not a perfect window. Where we fit our products, installation is treated as part of the system, so the last metre is engineered too.
07
Field feedback
What installers notice on site and what owners tell our support team goes back to the start. The next question begins here.

Your turn

Bring us a hard question.

An exposed site. A very wide opening. A strict energy target. A garden by the sea. Tell us what the building has to withstand, and we will work through it with you.

Architects, developers, businesses

Specify a project.

Performance targets, exposure, fire lines, documents. Talk to our projects team directly.
Start a conversation
Homeowners

Ask about your home.

Coastal, hilltop, noisy road, cold rooms. Describe the house and we will suggest a direction.
Contact us
Already own one

Tell us how it performs.

Something not sealing, closing or locking as it should? That report is field feedback too.

Repair my product Product support

Designed, engineered and tested as one system.

Discuss a project

Notes and standards

Classes, test pressures, cycle counts and temperature criteria on this page are those defined in the European standards named, summarised for a general reader. Calculated values in the benches are illustrative and are not product data. The declared performance of a specific product is set out in its documentation and confirmed in your quotation. Images are concept visualisations.

Research & Development

Research & Development

Every product starts with a question.