Cantifix looks to glass of the future

Cantifix is always at the forefront of technological advances relating to better insulated and more intelligent glazing, focusing on energy conservation and greater sustainability of buildings.

Adopting the Kyoto Protocol has already meant sweeping changes to the Building Regulations, often leading to higher costs and design compromises.

The question is: "Where is it going from here and where will it be in five years time?".

Pilkingtons has recently informed us of substantial increases on their standard glass and more modest increases on their high-performance glass.

With an increase of 50 per cent on their cost price, Pilkingtons are telling us all that standard glass is no longer a viable building material.

When a major player like Pilkingtons makes strategic decisions about the direction of the market by, effectively, discontinuing a key component in its range, then we all need to take notice.

Cantifix recognises that glass will have a critical role to play in the Construction Industry of the near future, and understands its involvement in shaping the industry.

Its responsibility is to its customers, and Cantifix meets this responsibility by offering a full range of high performance glass, all of which can been seen and explained in its showroom in North London.

In past years, Cantifix has included Low E glass as standard on all its projects, which meant a U value of 1.83W/m2K on structural glass.

When Part L was introduced in 2000 the U value requirement for glass was 2.3W/m2K and Cantifix introduced argon as standard on all its double glazed units.

This brought the U value down to 1.62 W/m2K for structural units.

The changes to Part L in 2006 required glass to have a U value of 2.0 W/m2K, at which time Cantifix introduced "planitherm" bringing its U values down to 1.2 W/m2K.

Building Regulations are, over the next 5 years, expected to require a minimum U value of 1.7 W/m2k and by this date Cantifix will have reduced their U values to 0.9 W/m2K.

These extremely low U values will almost certainly herald the end of steel frames and most aluminium framing too.

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