GLASS&SEALEDUNITS
‘Three decades
of excellence
and innovation’
This year, one of the market’s leading
warm-edge spacer products turns thirty.
Charlotte Mercer, Edgetech’s Head
of Marketing, looks back over Super
Spacer’s three decades of excellence and
innovation – and forward to
its birthday celebrations
at the FIT Show.
» » WHAT WERE YOU DOING
in 1989? Indiana Jones was in
the cinemas, Madonna was in
the charts – and in the slightly
less day-glo world of fenestration,
Super Spacer® was released to
market.
Super Spacer wasn’t the first
warm-edge spacer. They’ve been
around for generations – as far
back as 1865, in fact, American
inventor Thomas D Stetson was
patenting double-glazed windows
that used wood or rope to
separate glass panes.
But Super Spacer was the first
foam warm-edge spacer – and it
was only with its launch that the
warm-edge concept in general
really took off.
Rather than metal, Super
Spacer was made with heat-
insulating foam, over 950 times
less conductive than aluminium,
and significantly more productive
for manufacturers.
Thirty years later, Super
Spacer is still the leading foam
warm-edge spacer on the market.
Companies around the world
use it to complete ambitious
architectural projects.
It’s recently been used in
Dubai’s striking Museum of the
Future, and in renovations to the
Eiffel
Tower
– and,
increasingly,
to automate window
production, and manufacture
products that offer outstanding
performance.
That’s because Super Spacer
units can be manufactured in
under twenty seconds. Even
using our most basic, entry-level
manual application tools, we’ve
seen some people make a unit
with it in under 15 seconds.
Upgrade to a fully-automated
Super Spacer line, and the
efficiency gains drastically
increase. A nine-person line
applying traditional rigid spacers
can produce around 1,200 units
every shift.
96 » M AY 2019 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
A high-speed automated
Super Spacer line, by contrast,
can produce 23.5% more units,
and requires just three employees
to operate. In total, that equals
savings of approximately
£180,000 every year.
But that’s just the beginning of
the potential benefits of switching
to Super Spacer. Competitor
products don’t just take longer to
apply, they’re a lot more labour-
intensive too.
Your average rigid spacer has to
be cut into bar length form, made
into a frame, have PIB applied
and be filled with desiccant beads
before it can be used.
With Super Spacer, the
between-seven-and-nine processes
that go into making an IGU the
traditional way are cut to just
three.
In an era of increasing skills
shortages Super Spacer is more
relevant than ever, even three
decades after its introduction.
That’s an astounding
achievement. How many other
products can you think of that
are still helping their customers
achieve optimal efficiency and
performance thirty years after
their launch?
That’s why, at this year’s FIT
Show, we’ll be celebrating Super
Spacer’s incredible career with
a thirtieth birthday party at our
stand on Tuesday evening. We
hope to see you on stand C24
within the Visit Glass area to help
us celebrate.
www.edgetechig.co.uk