A homeowner in Hamworthy rang last week wanting three windows and a back door replaced before winter, mostly to stop the draught round the old frames rather than for looks. Fair enough — and timely too, because new procurement guidance has just landed that puts window and retrofit trades squarely in the spotlight. The Greener Homes and Good Local Jobs Procurement Guidance, produced by Ashden with Efficiency North, the National Retrofit Hub and UK Green Building Council, is aimed at housing associations and councils, but its findings affect anyone booking retrofit work.
The headline figure is stark: an estimated 140,000 construction vacancies were reported in 2025, with shortages hitting retrofit coordinators, assessors, insulation specialists and heat pump installers hardest. Around a third of the workforce is expected to retire by 2035. Glazing sits right inside that retrofit chain, and a shortage of trained fitters further up the supply line tends to filter down to longer lead times on the ground, even for a family firm like ours that keeps its own installers on the books.
What actually makes a window installation worth having isn’t just the glass — it’s the detail behind it. We fit Rehau profiles with warm-edge spacer bars and low-E glass, which between them do the real work on U-values, and every sealed unit gets trickle vents fitted correctly for Part L compliance, not bolted on as an afterthought. Multi-point locking and a properly bedded cill matter just as much on a bungalow in Broadstone as they do on a Victorian bay window on Parkstone’s Ashley Road.
We’re one of the few outfits left that makes its own sealed units on site rather than buying them in, which is also how we manage bespoke shapes — arched heads, bay returns, the sort of thing a standard supplier won’t touch. It’s the same workshop that does our decorative and balustrade glass, so a job in Corfe Mullen or Wimborne gets the same attention whether it’s a straightforward casement or a full conservatory glazing package.
If your windows are draughty, single-glazed, or just tired-looking after twenty-odd years, it’s worth getting a proper quote before winter rather than after the first cold snap. DTU Trade Windows has been fitting windows, doors and conservatories across Poole and Dorset for over thirty years — have a look at the range on dtutradewindows.com or give us a ring.
