56
JUNE 2014 PRO INSTALLER
PRO BUSINESS
www.proinstaller.co.uk
Fensa Marks One Year Of
Continued Growth
Notifications of replacement windows and doors in domestic properties in the first quarter of 2014 are up 8.4%*
on the same period last year, says FENSA. This represents the best January, February and March since 2011.
January installations were up 11.3%,
February up 6.6% and March up 7.6%.
“We have now seen four consecutive quarters o f growth,” comments FENSA Managing
Director, Chris Mayne.
“The same period last year saw a disappointing 5.4% decrease in notifications compared to quarter one in 2012. The industry
appears to be in a much better position
now.”
According to DCLG, 89% of all window
installations are covered by FENSA.
* Calculated from the most up to date window and door installation figures notified to
FENSA in January, February and March 2014
HOMEOWNERS
HAVE DIFFICULTY
IN FINDING
‘TRUSTWORTHY’
TRADESPEOPLE
A survey has found that homeowners are
not doing maintenance and repair work
because they cannot find builders and
other tradespeople whom they can trust.
The findings are according to
the 2014 Homeowner Survey
from the HomeOwners’ Alliance
and TrustMark, the government
endorsed ‘find a tradesman’
scheme. It showed that finding
a trusted builder is such a major
problem across regions of the UK
that it means that the nation’s
housing stock could be ending up
in a state of disrepair.
More than half of homeowners (58%)
said they had difficulty finding a ‘trusted’ builder to assist with home repairs
or improvements. These difficulties
were having a big impact on the work
that homeowners decided to do, and
how they did it.
Among the homeowners who have
difficulty finding trusted builders, 12%
did not do the work at all, while a
quarter (26%) delayed the project. Alternatively, affected homeowners did their
own repairs/ DIY (40%), did essential
works only (27%), or used tradesmen
they were uncertain about (28%).
Key findings from the 2014 Homeowner Survey, conducted by YouGov,
included: 58% of UK homeowners say
they find it difficult to find a tradesman
they trust to help with either home repairs or improvements, with one in five
(21%) saying that it is “very difficult”.
Women are more likely than men to
find it ‘very difficult’ to find a tradesman they trust to help with either
home repairs or improvements. 24% of
female homeowners as against 17% of
male homeowners say they find it very
difficult to find a tradesman they trust.
Regionally, the difficulties of finding a
reliable builder or tradesman is greatest
in London (67%), the East (66%) and
the Midlands (64%), compared with the
national average of 58%, saying they
have difficulty finding a reliable builder
or tradesman to assist with home repairs and improvements.
Liz Male, Chair, TrustMark
– public are handing over
of £1.9 billion a year and
“paying to fix botched jobs by
tradesmen who were just not
qualified to do the work”.
Liz Male, Chair, TrustMark, said of
the findings: “A nation of homeowners
is at the mercy of leaflets through the
door or findanyoldbuilder.com websites
because they don’t have a network of
local tradespeople they can turn to. The
price we pay are homes lacking proper
care and attention, an ever deteriorating
housing stock and the financial burden
of £1.9 billion a year paying to fix
botched jobs by tradesmen who were
just not qualified to do the work.”
‘89% of all window
installations are
covered by FENSA’
GGF Training
Website Updated
GGF Training has
recently updated its
website www.ggftraining.com with the FENSA
Homepage on the site
now linking customers
to the FENSA registration page on www.
fensa.org.uk and
subsequently re-directing customers to
the Minimal Technical
Competency (MTC)
registration page. Once
registered, customers
will then be able to use
GGF Training to become
fully compliant.
With this development of
the GGF Training website,
customers will now be able
to:
• Register and pay for their
required re-sits
• Register onto a newly
launched Continued
Professional Development
(CPD) route of MTC compliance which is available
to any Installer or Surveyor who has achieved
a Fenestration NVQ over
5 years ago. For more
information on this route
please visit: http://www.
ggftraining.com/mtc/
‘much easier’
routes-to-compliance
Jon Vanstone, GGF Training Managing Director
commented “This online
development will make MTC
training and compliance
much easier for customers.
With the 6th June deadline
fast approaching, I’d urge
every company to act fast
and ensure they are operating legally by becoming
MTC compliant.”
For more information
on GGF Training and
MTC please visit http://
ggftraining.com/mtc
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