You Wanna Know What Gets on Our Nerves?

Our team at Guild Home Improvements are a cheerful lot, despite the handwork they put in and lengths they go to ensuring every client customer of ours is satisfied. But they’re only human and - honestly - when they’ve got to the end of a ram-packed week of traffic, frustrations and elbow-grease - they’re allowed to have a little vent, right?

Here’s a selection of the best (or maybe worst) complaints that have rattled around our offices;

01 - Why does it ALWAYS go RED when I’m there?!

When we’ve got a job to get to, we’re on the clock and working to the expectation of the customer. They may have entrusted the house to us and we need to relieve a neighbourhood from doorstep duty waiting for us, or they may have taken the day off to be there to see the work done.

Either way - we’re rushing to get there in a timely manner - So WHY does EVERY traffic light in COUNTRY seem intent on stopping a glazer getting to where he needs to go!?

It must be a curse that many fitters, builders and such suffer but it’s ALWAYS on a busy day that - without fail - we run into red light after red light! Turning up the radio to drown out how annoyed you are only works so well, you know - and the last thing we want is to bring stress to the customer …

but …

02 - Who the HECK Parks THERE?!

Urgh! You know what it’s like.

You finally get to where you’ve been battling to get to through all the traffic and … those damn red lights and what greets you?

No parking spaces where it’d be JUST FINE AND DANDY convenient to park our van to do the work. So we have to drive around the block. The adjoining street. The whole suburban development of the Southeast of Surrey! Jeez - we only want to fit some windows what - WHO PARKS A PEOPLE CARRIER ACROSS TWO SPACES?!

Well, at least once we get in and start the job we’ll get a warm welcome and a warmer cup of brew …

03 - Cold Tea & Coffee!

If you’ve ever got caught up in something *and you happen to be a living, breathing English person of 2 and up* you know it’s easy to forget the little things that mean a lot when your distracted.

Us glazers - like any trades person - love to congratulate ourselves on a particularly finicky task or an awkward lift of an *paid for - yikes* pane of glazed glass with a celebratory swig of the home owners brew.

But it’s been an hour and forty-five minute since they’ve poured your cup, and we end up swigging a big mouthful of disappointing tea-squeeze that upsets the palate and INSULTS the mug it rests in!

*sigh* We can always ask for another, we know, but we don’t like to intrude on the hospitality of our hosts, you know?

For a Relatable, Reliable team of Specialists in Bi Folding Doors, London Residents should call GHI Windows!

04 - Summer Heat - No Air Con

It’s been a pretty hot summer this year - 31-degrees (which is el scorchio when talking about a Spanish Plume) - and we - along with everyone - has to keep going and that’s all good with us, because we love what we do -

But that’s faith hard-pressed when the air conditioning in the van is broke - or non-existent.

Panting like a dog in a sodden work shirt ‘before’ you can even get to do anything at a customers house is a bit embarrassing. Carrying extra shirts, trousers, boxers, shower gel and your favourite toiletries isn’t exactly welcomed either.

You ever used them tiny electric hand fans? Don’t. They suck. They couldn’t cool an ice cube.

05 - Encountering Shoddy Work

The BIGGEST FRUSTRATION EVER! Well, not really - because we can fix it - but when you get to a job and find out that another glazer or fitter has been there before you and taken a … ‘loose’ interpretation of fitting quality and decided that it’d do.

It won’t do, Bob. Never. And change your name.

Whether its glass not effectively sealed into frame, whether its got damage from ‘when’ it was put in or simply looks completely wrong to anyone walking by, THAT’S when we get irritated. It gives us boys a bad reputation … besides the one we got by all those cold calls as an industry standard all those years ago … and sucking at the job as an average … moving on!

We don’t like to brag, but we do actually care about the work we put in. We love that we get testimonials and references from valued customers who are pleased with our work. We don’t want the quick buck today - we want the long dollar, so to speak. But we can’t spend them here anyhow so why do we want those …

Alright, those are our big frustrations we have encountered as your humble, gracious, glorious and fantastic source of all things glass-ular and bi folding - fancy a chat about glass? We love glass. We also love doing work for people who love glass - or don’t! We don’t fuss …

Err … anyway, give us a call on 0800 731 4582 or use our contact form on our website to enquire about what services we provide and hopefully we can come and fit your windows, doors and regale you with tales of our deeds! Please do - we do enjoy a chat here at GHI. For more detail you can visit at: http://ghiwindows.co.uk   

Does Double Glazing ‘Mean’ anything, anymore?

Double Glazing Isn’t Trendy Now

Have you ever thought over the word of ‘double glazing’ as being a bit ‘done over’? It was certainly a phrase you could describe our industry in the 1980s and 1990s. We also picked up a heck of a smear on our collective reputation that could only be matched today by certain MPs - it was difficult to buck that.

Fortunately we’ve progressed a lot since then. The way we do things and present ourselves to our market has total changed from two-or-more decades before.

So maybe it’s time we all finally got over the ‘Double Glazing bug’ and actually present everything we do - rather than just a single buzz-word product.

Yet We're So Much More

For the majority of the generation that experienced the 80s and 90s proper, double glazing was the overwhelming face of our trade. The idea of triple glazing was fantasy to many. Having bi folding doors in London even more so. Solid roofing was left to the builders. PVCu as an substitute for the traditional timber frames was not even invented yet. Composite doors were over a decade way. So the reason why we latched onto identifying as the ‘double glazing industry’ was, quite simply, that it was the only thing we had to sell.

Now we’re post millennium in 2016. PVCu has come and gone as a trend and is nowhere near as prominent. Now it’s composite doors that rule over all things door related. It’s aluminium framing - now with trendy finishes and colours - has made a strong return. Triple glazing is slowly being taken up in parts of the UK. Now solid roofs have turned the conservatory on its head - we are, in fact, so much more than just double glazing.

GHI Windows have been waiting for the day it could say with ease that it was a fenestration specialist, when it comes to representing our industry. Fenestration allows or that scope of being able to provide more than one product.

New Products, New Image

For the average property owner, our industry only provides new and replacement doors and windows - but we’ve got a whole lot more to offer than just those.

For ourselves among many others in our industry, we position ourselves as a complete ‘home improvement’ company. Many have taken this as a golden opportunity to re-brand and monopolise on the expanding range of higher-quality fenestration services and that’s awesome.

But this isn’t an industry-wide trend as it should be. If we completely discarded ‘double glazing’ for ‘fenestration’ we may see that - over time - the public perception of our trade might change for the better - reinforced by the wider range of products we can now offer.

Overall though, ‘double glazing’ is no longer the buzzword we need describe ourselves with. It’s a hold-over from the last two decades and is out-of-date. Most of all it reminds people of our past approach - difficult times when we did ourselves no favours with the public.

It’s time we started fresh and threw these hang-ups away to make ourselves a new image and present ourselves with a modern outlook of innovation - a forward thinking ‘fenestration’ industry.

For a glazers that keeps ahead of the curve - providing som

e of the highest quality double glazing & bi folding doors London wide - contact GHI Windows on 0800 731 4582 Today!