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Lakes Bathrooms adds AllClear to bath screens

Edited by the Buildingtalk editorial team Oct 24, 2008

Bathroom enclosure and screen specialist Lakes Bathrooms is now adding its invisible protective coating AllClear to bath screens in the Classic Collection.

The stay-clean coating repels water, dirt, soap scum and limescale on bathroom surfaces and was introduced in April 2008 as standard on its shower products without any price increase.

According to Lakes Bathrooms this high performance coating will be applied during manufacture to all glass used in the Lakes Collection shower enclosures and doors.

The repellent properties of the coating should ensure that these products require less cleaning than standard bathrooms surfaces.

The company asserts that this leads to savings in cleaning time and associated cost.

Environmental advantages are also claimed to result from AllClear as it is recommended that cleaning surfaces treated with the coating need only to be wiped with a cloth.

This, Lakes Bathrooms claims, should remove or greatly reduce the need for chemical cleaning products.

By avoiding build up of limescale and soap scum the growth of mould and harmful bacteria should also be reduced, leading to improved hygiene in the bathroom.

Unusually, the AllClear coating is being applied to both sides of the glass in Lakes' product range.

The manufacturer believes that this is essential and suggests it may be the only company in the market to treat both sides of glass as standard practice.

One of the directors at Lakes Bathrooms, Robin Craddock, explained why this new coating is being offered without an incremental charge; "AllClear should retail at an additional charge of between GBP150 and GBP200, depending on the size of the product it's applied to".

"Many of our competitors charge hundreds of pounds extra for this type of feature but we believe that the benefits to the customer are so significant that we want to ensure it is offered to all".

"The best way to make this possible is to include it without extra charge, which also gives the trade an extra point of value with which to sell".

Making sense of the potential lost margin for Lakes Bathrooms, financial controller Rob Ashmeade explained that the growing demand experienced since the introduction of AllClear meant that the company could absorb the additional cost".

""Even in this tough market we have enjoyed record sales," he said".

""This is the very time to add value to win market share and this strategy is working for us".

According to Lakes Bathrooms, AllClear is now available across its Lakes range of bright silver framed or semi-frameless enclosures, doors and screens.

The company plans to roll out the coating across its white framed products in the coming months.

This move by Lakes Bathrooms has been welcomed by the bathroom and building trade.

Dave Shaw, director of Bathtime (Northwest) commented, "From a consumer perspective, a stay-clean protective coating is an extremely attractive feature but not one they are keen to pay a heavy additional price for".

"Being able to offer this technology as standard will certainly give us a competitive edge when we're talking to our customers about bathrooms products".

"I fully expect to see sales to increase as a result.".