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The conservatory sector still offers opportunities as many homeowners choose to improve rather than move. Here, Eurocell takes a look at why it is therefore especially important to choose a partner that can offer all round benefits.

“In current market conditions, fabricators are looking for conservatory roof partners that can provide them with clear business advantages. This includes offering a one-stop-shop service to achieve efficient sourcing and colour matching across all components. As fabricators look to maintain productivity, ease of fabrication and installation remain important factors.

Continuity of supply is a key consideration too. Here at Eurocell we are fortunate enough to have the backing of a strong parent company. Amongst other advantages, this means we are not reliant on the whims of financial institutions, which often hamper much needed investment decisions. This creates a greater level of stability and ensures long term continuity of supply as we remain focused on investing for the future. Factors such as these can often influence specifiers, developers and public sector clients.

Being able to source conservatory roofs and profile systems from a single supplier is another clear business advantage for fabricators. In addition to saving time and resources compared to a multi-supply route, it addresses homeowners’ expectations on quality and aesthetics. This is because they are becoming more demanding and now expect a perfect colour match between the conservatory roof and frames, which is usually only possibly through the single source route. This method of sourcing also ensures more consistent quality as the roof and profiles are produced in the same facility.

Eurocell remains one of the few companies that can offer this one-stop-shop for conservatory roofs, window and door profile systems along with roofline and trims. Our cream range is an example of this which, like all our colours, offers a match between the conservatory roof, profile system as well as door panels. We also launched matching cream bay pole trims, main profile, beads, finials and top caps, which was complemented with cream roofline including trims, fascia, soffitts and guttering. In combination, it offers our fabricators a clear point of difference and one that has a high perceived value with customers.

In an ever more competitive environment, businesses are constantly under pressure to increase production efficiency. It should be no surprise then that we have designed our conservatory system to eliminate common problems experienced by both fabricators and installers.

Take just one specific area - tolerance on the rafter bars that carry the glass. The rafters on our conservatory roof are much deeper than on many other systems, which means that the glass does not need to be cut to infinitely precise tolerances. Having a system that has unforgiving tolerances makes the fabrication process extremely difficult. If the glass is even marginally out of size it simply won’t fit, which means an expensive item has to be discarded and the whole glass cutting process has to start all over again. In addition, being able to use the same rafter bar length, whether the customer chooses glass or polycarbonate, means a much simpler fabrication process. All this is a welcome relief for production teams because it means they can avoid using cardboard templates to get the exact glazing sizes. Installation on site is helped by the box section aluminium eaves beam, which provides a glazing pitch between 2.5º and 45º - one of the widest on the market.

Even greater fabrication efficiency is achieved by the modular design of our conservatory system. This ensures minimal set up times and a requirement for less fabrication equipment.

Over the years, we have developed our software system to allow customers to plan a complete conservatory before beginning production. This is the best way to optimise material usage and avoid installation issues further down the line. The software enables customers to go into much more detail - even down to the drilling centres, enabling them to identify any potential problems before committing to production. It allows fabricators to plan a conservatory in minutes, rather than hours and they are confident that it will look good and install correctly when it arrives on site.

During the last few years, we have been focused on several new initiatives. These are aimed at making conservatories an aspirational product once more. When PVC-U conservatories first became widely available they had this status. However, the market has become more competitive, with inevitable pressure on price, which means they have lost some of their exclusivity. Hence our focus on new products and we firmly believe that our latest bi-fold door solution now makes our conservatories highly desirability to a new generation of homeowners.

The market is changing and more fabricators are realising the benefit of choosing a supply partner that can offer long term stability and continuity of supply. Just as importantly, fabricators are choosing supply partners that can offer a one-stop-shop, colour matching between roofs and frames and high levels of productivity. Ultimately, it is only the well resourced companies with strong backing that can offer these types of advantages.”