Clearview National July 2017 - Issue 188 | Page 90

FIT SHOW 2017
PREVAILING IN THE FACE OF PRESSURE IN
THE MOST PROFESSIONAL COMPETITION YET
» » The first FIT Show to take place at the
National Exhibition Centre will remain in the
minds of many of its participants but few will
remember the event with such fondness as
David Keates & Jonathon Mountford of DK
Windows after they were declared the overall
winners of this year’s gruelling Master Fitter
Challenge. The results were announced live
just hours after the competition closed at the
FIT Show Gala Dinner, by celebrity host Nick
Knowles.
Six teams competed to install windows,
residential and bi-folding doors and a lantern
roof in just two days and before the critical
eyes of hundreds of their peers and a tough
team of assessors, again provided by GQA.
And in the face of such pressures, David and
Jonathon prevailed in what was declared
the most professional MFC competition
yet to win a cheque for £5,000 and, more
importantly, the top prize in this increasingly
prestigious competition. The judges also
thought the duo were the best at installing bi-
folding doors and were also declared winners
of that section of the competition.
The runners-up were David Shaw &
Nathan Daw of Shaw Home Improvements
who took home a prize of £3,000, also
winning the Lantern Roof section of the
event, with the final cash prize of £2,000
being scooped by Dale Harrison & Colin
Stubbs of West Yorkshire Windows, who also
won the Window Fitting section. Mark West &
Mark Hardy of Sherborne Windows won the
Residential Door fitting section.
Products installed by the teams were fitted
to specially designed and built competition
rigs that were designed to replicate real-life
technical installation conditions, although the
pressures of being observed by visitors are
probably less than encountered from beady-
eyed homeowners.
Products for the competition were
supplied by FIT Show exhibitors, including
AluK (bi-folding doors); Epwin (windows);
Apeer (residential composite doors); and
Atlas (lantern roofs). In an interesting twist,
Edgetech’s new installation tape Trufit was
introduced as an additional test. Once
again FE NSA provided their support for the
event, having maintained their involvement
continuously for all four competitions.
OUTDOOR LIVING AND
HYBRID WARMROOF SHINE
» » With a large number of qualified leads from
the FIT Show, Prefix Systems yet again came
home from the industry’s dedicated trade
show with considerable interest for their new
products, which included developments for
the outdoor living market, new residential
glazing systems and the formal launch of
their hybrid WARMroof.
The introduction of their outdoor living
range in 2016 has been a major plus for the
company, with sales of their revered Verandah
strong throughout 2016 and into 2017, again
with considerable interest on their stand. This
was also supplemented with enquiries for their
new KOMMERLING Pergola, as they have
secured exclusivity through the trade channels
and will be formally launching the product in
the coming weeks.
The WARMroof has been a defining
product for Prefix, as the most adaptive and
configurable solid, tiled roof in the sector
and the FIT Show proved to be the perfect
platform in which to formally launched the
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hybrid variant, which was previewed at last
year’s event and has undergone extensive
‘in the field’ testing over the last 12 months.
The roof shown incorporated two large,
fixed, triple glazed panels that were finished
off to the underside with luxurious OPUS
hardwood cladding, while the other side
of the dual pitch roof offered two Velux
rooflights, again framed out with hardwood
cladding.
The OPUS aluminium & timber composite
full height glazing also formed part of the
showcased hybrid WARMroof, along with
sumptuous bi-folding doors from the same
suite. Other glazing systems included the
Alitherm 47 heritage window and the VS600
vertical sliding window from Smart Systems,
which formed part of an traditional Orangery,
harnessing the proven iX250 Orangery deck.
This was glazed with two ultraSKY lanterns
with two different finishes internally, one in
contemporary aluminium, the other in the
OPUS luxurious hardwood.
The trend towards aluminium was also
further highlighted with the launch of
URBANroom, a contemporary twist on the
traditional conservatory, using a dedicated
deep section gutter shroud, ultraSKY
lantern roof, internal pelmet and full height
glazing panels, all in sky blue from the Smart
Systems Sensations range.
www.prefixsystems.co.uk