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THERMOTEK
WINDOWS:
HARNESSING INNOVATION
T
hermoTek Windows are making their presence
known on the Australian window scene. The
dynamic team at ThermoTek has been operating
from their manufacturing facility at Mitcham, Victoria,
for three years. Formerly suppliers of water tanks and
materials to the building and construction industry,
ThermoTek now supplies uPVC double-glazed windows
and doors to Victorian and interstate markets. They are
also well-advanced with their goal to secure national
distribution of their retrofit TwinGlaze system. We spoke
with Manny Temelso, one of ThermoTek’s four directors,
to learn more on the company’s genesis.
“The management team have been working together
over the past 13 years,” Manny says. “We all originally
worked for Ford Performance Vehicles. When the car
industry started to slow down, we began seeking a
product on which we could base a business, one that we
could stamp with our own distinctive identity.
“With our combined technological and operations
expertise, we were the ideal team to solve a problem
in an emerging market – we just needed to decide on
which way to jump,” he continues. “After considering
different options over a few years, a business model was
conceived while seeking to improve the insulation of my
family home, prior to my daughter’s birth.
“We were really feeling the heat - the internal
temperature of the upstairs area of our home was
uncomfortable during hot summer months. I soon
realised that the basic single glazing installed throughout
our home provided very poor or little insulation,” Manny
remembers. “For the next 18 months, I tried to find a
solution to minimise the heat load to the building.”
Manny soon faced an added problem – noise. “Living on
a main road, the traffic became increasingly busy in a
relatively short time, so sound also became a problem,”
he recalls. “I needed to sort both issues out before my
daughter was born.
“My unrelenting search to find a solution was
unsuccessful - the options were limited. Adding
4
Australian Window Association
‘secondary glazing’ to my single-glazed panes –
essentially an extra aluminium window or a plastic acrylic
window fitted over the top of the existing one, was all
that was available,” says Manny. “Although I ended up
installing secondary glazing, I knew there had to be a
better solution.”
Over the next three years, Manny and his three business
partners, Shane Dunbar, Glenn Turnbull and Matt Jones,
joined forces to form the new company Eco Home
Solutions. “We dealt with draft-proofing, insulation and
double glazing, but the latter market soon dominated
our business,” he points out. “However, we were soon
faced with situations where retrofitting in the existing
frame was unviable due to the poor condition of clients’
window frames. This led the company into exploring
fabrication of full-frame replacements.”
Selecting a suitable material from which to make
the frames was a challenge. “We didn’t want to use
aluminium, as it was against our eco-friendly philosophy,”
Manny notes. “We soon found our defining product –
uPVC frames, which provided far superior insulation
properties than those otherwise available in the market.
We started fabricating in 2014, working with a European
leading profile manufacturer that has a strong presence
and investment in Australia.”
The company evolved into exclusively focusing on
window and doors, dropping the draught-proofing
and insulation products. “We drew on our collective
expertise in manufacturing and started licencing our own
retrofit window systems,” says Manny.
With mainstream Australia in its sights, the company
recently undertook a comprehensive rebranding. “The
uPVC arm of the business is ThermoTek. We supply
directly to builders, architects and second and third
homebuyers, and have two factories in Melbourne
(having recently moved from Mitcham to Craigieburn).
Our retrofit product, TwinGlaze, is manufactured under
licence. We have two licencees in Sydney, another in
Canberra and we’re in the process of negotiations in
Tasmania and South Australia,” Manny explains.