A double anniversary for Solarlux by Reveal

As 2023 draws to an end, we’ve been looking back on a year of milestone anniversaries for the two companies involved in Solarlux by Reveal.

Our team here at Reveal in Leeds have been celebrating our 10th year in business, while over in Germany our partners Solarlux have marked their 40th anniversary.

Although the two companies were founded for very different reasons - and in different countries - they share many of the same values and have outstanding reputations for their attention to detail, immaculate finished product, vast knowledge of glazing technology and engineering, and a desire for continual improvement and innovation.

In 2019, Reveal became an official partner of Solarlux, and Solarlux by Reveal was launched. Together, we are bringing premium glass extensions, glass rooms, super-sized sliding doors and bi-folding doors to homes across Yorkshire.

Here we take a look at the stories behind both companies.

40 years of Solarlux

Solarlux’s founders, Heinz Theo Ebbert and Herbert Holtgreife, invented the world’s first modern bi-folding door system in 1983 after sketching their idea for a design on a beer mat. This beer mat now stands proudly on display at the company's headquarters in north-west Germany.

In the four decades since, Solarlux has become synonymous with quality, innovation and technical perfection. Its premium glass systems are trusted and admired by homeowners and architects across the world, and used in a wide range of commercial and domestic projects.

Its flagship Wintergarden glass extensions offer superb thermal properties and versatility of design, allowing for the creation of unique living spaces for year-round use. Its glass rooms which offer protection from the elements, also push the boundaries of what is possible with a strength that is able to accommodate huge wind loads and a structure that allows for complicated designs.

From the first ever bi-folding door, Solarlux has come a long way and now offers five main bi-fold door products for homes, commercial buildings and internal use. It recently launched the Megaline, its highest bi-folding door ever at a staggering 4.5 metres. The company continues to push the limits of design and engineering across all its products, not just its bi-folds. The award-winning Cero IV sliding door, also unveiled this year, exceeds boundaries with an ultra slim profile of just 15mm.

The company is now managed by Holtgreife’s son, Stefan, and employs more than 1,000 people. From the very start, sustainability has been at the heart of all its processes, with its aluminium production plant powered using hydro-electric energy. Its huge campus featuring a rooftop photovoltaic power system, concrete core activation and geothermal energy for heating and cooling. The site has been landscaped to encourage wildlife and biodiversity, and their own bee colonies even produce Solarlux honey! It only uses FSC® and PEFC-certified woods, and many of its products are capable of incredibly low U values that meet passive house requirements.

10 years of Reveal

For our team here at Reveal, the past decade has seen us learn and achieve so much, as well as experiencing many ups and downs along the way. But we're proud to have established ourselves as one of the leading Yorkshire companies for quality aluminium and alu-clad timber windows and doors.

In ten years, we have developed from doing purely installation work to manufacturing our own products as well. We have become specialists in glass structures and, as Solarlux by Reveal, are now able to fulfil glazing requirements for a wide range of bespoke architectural projects.

Reveal evolved from our director David Weaver’s personal experience of finding windows and bi-folding doors for his own home. An electrical mechanical engineer by trade and with experience in construction and glazing, David was surprised to find himself struggling to understand from a technical point of view the quotes he was given. Many of the companies he contacted were unresponsive and unhelpful. The experience led him to consider how he could do it better.

David launched Reveal Ltd, trading as Reveal Doors and Windows, in August 2013, focusing solely on glazing installation. The move to manufacturing followed two years later. With sales director Sharon Womersley and project co-ordinator Sonia Padgett now on board and a good few installations under our belt, it was increasingly apparent how beneficial it would be in terms of quality and timing to have control of the end product by manufacturing it ourselves.

We found factory space in our team’s home area of LS28 and made a substantial investment in equipment and fitting out. The factory started operating in summer 2015 and continues today. Being a manufacturer as well as a designer and installer gives us a totally different edge to many of our competitors.

Our values and approach

We’re proper Yorkshire folk – open, honest and not afraid of hard graft. All our staff must have the core values of our company such as honesty, integrity, politeness, cleanliness and a great work ethic. We have spent nearly four years creating our own apprentice training course to equip new starters with the skills and knowledge they need to carry out the high quality we strive for.

We totally believe in continuous improvement. As members of the Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF), we ensure we remain knowledgeable about the latest industry standards and innovations. In May this year, we hosted the GGF at our Leeds premises. Senior technical officer Kevin Jones gave a presentation to invited architects about the latest changes to the building regulations and what it means for glazing specification.

May 2023: Solarlux by Reveal's director David Weaver, left, with Kevin Jones and Ann-Marie Waugh of the GGF

We brief every job to all our team involved in its survey, manufacture and installation. This means everybody is aware of what they are going to be doing and at what point, what protective clothing they need and if any additional materials and equipment are required such as cranes or glass robots. We don’t turn up unprepared.

We also review each day on site and regularly do a 'lessons learned' of what went well and what didn't go as well as planned – looking at what happened and why it happened. Because of our team’s background in construction and engineering we are able to understand the project as a whole and how all the elements, including our own, fit together. David and our team manager Josh are dyslexic, so they look at things in 3D and process information differently. This gives us an additional insight.

We don't expect our customers to completely understand what their project contains and the work involved, so we invest time in ensuring they know what the end result will look like. We work closely with the other contractors on site and we usually get appointed to work at an early stage with the architect on larger projects. Our order is generally with the customer so we can advise when we don’t agree with something that affects the job being right now and in the long term.

Our aim is to be the best possible and our established customers understand the benefits we bring to their projects and how we can make things easier for them. Some of the architects and builders we work with have been with us from the very start. They have stuck with us because they’ve seen how we work and what we stand for.

We try to understand the challenges that everyone involved in a project - the customer, the architect, the builder - is going through. We’re well aware that after we’ve left, the customers are going to have their windows, doors or glass structure for several decades. They’ll be looking at them every day, using them all the time. That’s why every job has to be done right. We believe we are the only company in the industry to offer complimentary 12-month aftercare on every job we do.

From just fitting some windows and doors ten years ago, we now do the technical design, survey, manufacture and installation including structural elements. Our focus on design, detail, planning and outstanding customer service, combined with the construction and technical expertise of our team, has earned us a really good reputation. We’re proud to be one of a handful of aluminium and alu-clad timber windows and doors companies in Yorkshire who have maintained and grown their business over the last decade. 

Solarlux by Reveal: Our partnership

We launched Solarlux by Reveal in 2019 and in 2021 underlined our commitment with the unveiling of a Solarlux Wintergarden glass extension display in Leeds.

Jamie Peacock MBE, former England Rugby League captain and renowned Leeds Rhinos player, opens our Wintergarden display in Leeds with Chris Riddle from Solarlux UK and Sharon Womersley from Reveal.

Solarlux premium glass systems are the only products we install that are not manufactured by ourselves. Being able to combine Reveal and Solarlux means we are unique in being able to fulfil all the glazing requirements of most projects.  We can do everything from bespoke curtain walling, windows and fixed glazing right up to fully glazed extensions, glass rooms, supersized sliding doors and premium bi-folding doors.

As Solarlux by Reveal, we’ve developed a specialism in glass structures as well as oversized aluminium doors. We’ve installed Solarlux Cero sliding doors nearly 14 metres wide, large Glass Rooms and complicated Wintergarden glass extensions. We’ve achieved a UK first with the installation of a three-pane Cero II bi-folding door in a Wintergarden. Working with the Solarlux design team and engineers in Germany, we’ve overcome some tricky issues and learned loads along the way. Our structural engineers have become more involved, which is a sign of the level of work we’re doing.

Our development as a specialist glazing company looks set to continue in the years to come. We’ve already experienced a steady rise in demand for bespoke glass structures such as Solarlux Wintergardens and Glass Rooms. As well as the exceptional quality, engineering and design of Solarlux’s glass systems, we and our customers also love the company’s commitment to sustainability and innovation. With the UK construction industry moving towards more eco conscious buildings and passive design, the outstanding environmental properties of Solarlux glazing will gain more and more attention.

Solarlux is already ahead of the game. The company was the original inventor of the bi-folding door and since its beginnings has been developing glazing solutions with market-leading U values that are trusted by architects and homeowners across the world. We are excited to see where our partnership takes us.