2024 was a year of legislation changes, continued scrutiny of fire compliance and the announcement of BS476-22 fire testing standard being removed along with other national standards from building regulation approved documentB1 and 2, effective 2nd of September 2029. However, with new changes brings new opportunities and Selo’s Managing Director, Hans Purdom, and Sales Director, Harry Purdom, look ahead to 2025 to share their predictions for the door industry.
What exciting changes are coming in 2025?
For Selo, the move to Selo House is the major event on the horizon. The move will merge all production and office staff into Selo House to provide a new level of customer service, as well as increasing Modulo Doorsets capacity. The move will see Selo House manufacture 50 thousand doorsets a year.
Harry Purdom, said: “At Selo we are really looking forward to what 2025 brings. We will be bringing the offices and production for the concealed frame doors, pocket doors and timber doors all together, with a goal to have a world class manufacturing facility able to produce 50,000+ doorsets per year, whilst still providing our full Halo Assist programme bring synergies and quality control for the benefit of all customers.”
In April 2025, Selo House will be located in Tongwell, Milton Keynes, and is a three-storey building which will include the factory, offices, on-site gym and kitchen area where the chef will provide a cooked lunch every day.
Our why is to simplify bespoke and complex building methods and we spent over 1,936 minutes fire testing last year to help develop an exciting new product roadmap. This includes Tempus lift shaft launch, our temporary, reusable, fire complaint lift shaft which will be a game changer on-site. We also launched FumaCE, our concealed smoke control corridor damper CE marked to BS EN12101-8:2011 late in 2024 and we expect this to grow in the passive fire protection market.
Alongside our Selo range, we also acquired a timber door manufacture, Modulo Doorsets, last year which means we can now supply customers with the complete door package.
Growing the Modulo Timber Doorset range is a key part of our new product roadmap. We had multiple products fire tested from the timber doorset range in Q4 2024 including a door tested to PAS24.
How do you predict trading conditions for riser doors?
We will continue to invest in fire testing to continue to expand our riser door range and provide customers with a full range of compliant doorsets, making it easier to specify Selo.
We have seen fire compliance come under increased scrutiny, so it is more important than ever to consider the compliance and certifications for all fire doors. Riser doors typically have a greater level of requirements than other fire doorsets, so it is even more important to seek proper guidance. Our team at Selo can help at every stage through our Halo Assist program.
How do you predict trading conditions for timber doors?
Harry Purdom, said: “The Timber doorsets market is an ever-evolving beast, with so many varying requirements in varying industries and applications. There are also so many possible variations with timber doors, it is important to ensure that fire doorsets, everything is tested and certified together – all parts of the doorset work together as a system.”
We are expanding out timber doorset range to meet the increase in demand and also the growth in varying requirements. There has been an increase in planning applications and the government has set an aggressive housing target to hit. There will be a growing demand for timber doors to help meet these targets.
There is also a huge amount of non-compliant doorsets in existing buildings that will need to be replaced. Our fast to procure timber doorset will be able to meet the demand from passive fire protection and retro fit for timber doors.
The change we saw in 2024 has bought about challenges but also some new opportunities. We’re excited for 2025 to be able to provide our customers with a new level of excellence by moving all manufacturing and office staff into one location, as well as expanding our product range to offer the full range of doors from Selo.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss your door solution or achieving fire compliance.