‘Simple ideas are often the best’ this has certainly proved the case for The Georgian Bar Company as they have developed their Geofast range of astragal Georgian bars.
In recent years Georgian style windows have been as popular with the planners and the public as they have been as unpopular with fabricators and installers. The reasons are simple – while aesthetically pleasing, they were a nightmare to install and maintain. The only way of achieving the look on a double glazed unit was to stick the bars to the glass: offer the unit to any aperture that was not 100% true and the toe and heel process would misalign the bars without any way of straightening them. Even once installed, since glass and plastic expand and contract at different rates the bonding of the adhesive can weaken causing the bars to fall off the double glazed unit, often as a result of window cleaning.
The Geofast snap on bar system solved these problems and provides the stylish, effective and reliable answer to anyone wishing to achieve an authentic looking Georgian style double glazed window. The patented Geofast system is quick and easy to apply and is designed to cope with the rigours of site installation where necessary, and provides the smartest most authentic Georgian style double glazed window you will ever see. It is fitted internally, externally or both, and can be installed on site using U-shaped bar clips that are placed over all four edges of the sealed unit before it is installed in the usual way. Geo Fast bars are cut and mitred to fit the shorter span of the window; cruciform clips are fitted to the bars and spaced to align with the U-shaped clips on the shorter sides of the window; and the bars are snapped into position on U-shaped clips. Short sections of bar are then simply cut, mitred and clipped into position between the continuous bars (this provides the individual small pane effect.) This method of installation enables the Geofast system to be fitted retrospectively to existing windows and allows it to be re-used in the event of breakage or failure of a sealed unit. All bars are held firmly in position by the clips and cannot fall off.
We talk to Directors Paul Longden and Phil Dewhurst of the Georgian Bar Company to discuss how their system came about.
Paul “ Whilst serving as Sales Director of a large fabricator we perpetually had problems of failing Georgian Bars ,I was sat in my office and simply saw the clip holding a piece of paper on my drawing board and thought…no it can’t be that simple…can it? Once the idea clicked it was .…right let’s get this product up and running as soon as possible. I approached Phil – a former colleague of mine who was running a window extrusion plant in Liverpool and soon after we formed The Georgian Bar Company.”
Phil “before Paul had his ‘Eureka’ moment there was no clear way around the problematic installation of external bars, it was a nightmare – customers wanted them but installers and fabricators saw astragal bars as a real headache. Coincidentally the previous week I was in discussion with a fabricator supplying Astragal windows to Barratt Homes nationwide and the cost of technical service related to these was in excess of £15k per month, so when Paul approached me I immediately got on board with the concept”.
There was still the task of convincing the window industry that the Geofast system was the solution to all of their problems.
Paul “We initially had some resistance as you would with any new product but when Jeld-Wen & Rehau got behind the product (Traditional range), this convinced us that the Geofast concept was sound.”
Phil “we then decided to invest into new tooling for a second range of bars which we have since called ‘Versatility’. We wanted a range of bars that could be used on vertical sliders so we developed a low level bar. By introducing a range that could also be installed with pre-formed end caps we were also opening up a whole new market for whom milling wasn’t viable”
The Traditional range and Versatility range were adopted by many of the systems companies over the following years. There was still a section of the industry that didn’t use Geofast, the smaller fabricators and independents.
Paul “As the market developed we realised that there was room for a third range to satisfy the needs of low volume users. This is when we launched ‘Simplicity’ into the market place. It didn’t need end milling or end caps due its ultra-low profile and was a perfect entry into external bars for many companies”
It would seem that a Georgian bar would be a simple product but now there are three different product ranges which include 5 astragal bars.
Phil “Once something is adopted into the marketplace you then get a situation where applications vary significantly and in order to keep up with customer demand you introduce new bars, colours, foils etc and all of a sudden 10 years down the line you have nearly 500 variants of products in stock!.”
Paul “We are always looking forward to ensure our products meet our customer’s needs. We are currently developing at a larger 38mm bar following discussions with many of our customers – that would take us to our sixth astragal bar”
We congratulate the Georgian Bar Company – 10 years of product development, demonstrations, marketing, exhibitions and hard work. It has resulted in the system being THE market leader and has been approved and used by Rehau, Eurocell, Liniar, Synseal, Kommerling, Selecta, Spectus, Duraflex, Anglian, The Epwin Group and many more. Geofast is so well respected that even systems companies who do not stock it, recommend it such as Veka.
Paul, Phil and the entire team at The Georgian Bar Company thank all of their customers and suppliers for their support over the last 10 years and look forward to the next decade being even more successful
For more information visit www.geofast.co.uk or visit their Facebook and Twitter pages