A former Ministry of Defence housing estate has been transformed from boarded up shells to desirable private housing with the aid of Eclipse PVCu doors and windows from Window Warehouse, the Portsmouth-based Halo fabricator and installer.
The Rowner Estate in Portsmouth, built by the Ministry for naval personnel and their families during the 1960s, is now owned by Annington Homes. When the homes were deemed surplus to requirements by the MoD and handed back to Annington, they decided to refurbish the 85 homes and sell them on the open market.
“We chose the Eclipse range not only because it met our energy and security standards but was also aesthetically attractive, with slim sightlines and the option of a grey foil finish, which we specified for the doors and windows at the front,” said Angela Walsh of Annington Homes.
Window Warehouse, the fabricator and installer, redesigned the windows to the three and four bedroom houses and two bedroom maisonettes so they were wider and fitted them with specialist fire escape hinges.
Halo – the UK’s leading manufacturer of energy efficient doors, windows and fenestration packages and a company of the VEKA UK Group – offers a wide range of coloured foil options that can be applied to virtually any fenestration design in the range and, in this case, supplied Finesse “sand effect” grey foils which have a slightly textured finish, with great tactile appeal and which reflects light and shade in a very attractive way.
This was one of the foils available to order on an ‘Xpress’ level of service for fast track turnaround so Window Warehouse was able to call off the materials as they were needed. Other options – including nine within the Xpress collection – range from an attractive suite of woodgrain effect finishes to strong contemporary and traditional colours such as blue, red and green.
Manufactured with three or four fully enclosed chambers for strength and thermal performance, Eclipse’s 70mm profile matches most timber sections found in UK homes, and installations can be completed with minimal ‘making good’ after the removal of timber frames, or old PVCu or aluminium windows.
Eclipse doors and windows meet the highest standards of security including PAS 23 and 24 and Secured by Design, the crime prevention initiative developed in the UK by ACPO CPI (Association Chief Police Officers, Crime Prevention Initiatives). Designed for energy efficiency, Eclipse products comply with Part L of the Building Regulations when fitted by FENSA registered installers or approved by Building Control. It is possible to produce A rated WER windows using the Eclipse profile with just double glazing if constructed using Halo’s unique thermal profile insert.
A chamfered edge system, Eclipse has a high level of interchangeability with Eclipse esthétique – its sculpted sister profile – so that a huge range of styles, performance benefits and sales options can be sourced from a single systems supplier.
There is also a wide choice of finishes across the Eclipse range, including white, rosewood, oak and rosewood-on-white and oak-on-white which, combined with the ancillary profiles and beads, means that doors and windows can be personalised to suit individual tastes.
The decision to refurbish and sell the homes was clearly the right one – so successful was the scheme that they all sold within weeks of handover.
