For a window fitter, glazing packers aren’t usually the biggest expense for a job.
Glazing packers are pretty cheap, used all the time and often bought in bulk, so it’s little surprise that many fitters can see two boxes of glazing packers and presume they do the same thing and go with the lowest price.
However, this isn’t always the case. For a professional window-fitting company, the price of the glazing packers isn’t necessarily the key cost.
As we know in the industry, a glazing packer is a small, inexpensive part of an expensive installation. If the packer is not of high quality, it can reduce the overall quality of the installation, slow it down or even delay a job, making a few pounds saved on a job – irrelevant.
For a smaller company, one job correction can cost significantly more than the savings made purchasing a sub-standard product for cheaper.
What Makes a Good Glazing Packer?
Can you rely on every box of glazing packers to be good enough quality for a window installation?
Well, a good quality glazing packer should provide:
- Consistent thickness
- Accurate dimensions
- Sufficient strength so the window is supported
- Resistance to deterioration
- Compatibility with glazing sealants
- Consistent colour coding for quick identification
- A suitable surface area to distribute the window load correctly
Granted – none of those features sound particularly exciting!
But when you’re fitting several windows in a day, consistency matters. You want to reach into the box of glazing packers, identify the thickness you need and know exactly what you’re working with.
Why Does Glazing Packer Quality Matter?
Quality matters when it comes to glazing packers due to:
- Differences in thickness
- Unsuitable materials or products that deteriorate over time
These are not problems you want to discover once the job has been completed.
High-quality glazing packers help maintain the correct weight distribution of the window unit, keep the glass correctly aligned and prevent direct contact between the glass and frame.
For a professional installer, however, there’s another benefit that’s just as important:
You know what you’re fitting.
When you can rely on the same product time and time again, you not only ensure consistently reliable installations but also save time in product selection.
The Real Cost Isn’t the Packer – It’s Going Back To Fix A Job.
For a small window fitting company, revisiting a problem is expensive.
Imagine you’ve completed an installation and subsequently need to send two fitters back to investigate a problem.
Even a relatively straightforward return visit might involve:
- An hour or two of labour
- Two members of staff
- Fuel and van costs
- Time spent arranging the return visit
- Time speaking with the customer
- Disruption to another scheduled job
These costs can easily run into three figures once labour and lost time are in the mix.
More importantly, that fitting team isn’t earning money either!
Saving £5, £10 or £20 across consumables doesn’t look particularly impressive if something contributes to a return visit costing the business £150 or £200.
That’s why the cheapest product to purchase isn’t always the cheapest product to use.
Consistent Thickness Matters
For professional installers, a 3mm packer needs to be a 3mm packer.
If dimensions vary noticeably between products or batches, you’re introducing unnecessary inconsistency into a job that relies on accurate positioning.
That’s particularly relevant when you’re dealing with larger and heavier glazed units where small adjustments make a noticeable difference.
High-quality packers are manufactured to very close tolerances so installers can work confidently with known dimensions rather than compensating for variations.
The Material Matters Too
Not all types of plastic are suitable for supporting glazing.
A glazing packer needs to continue performing after the fitter has packed the tools away and left the property.
Materials shouldn’t deteriorate, react adversely with sealants or lose their ability to provide the support required.
This is one reason prime-grade glazing packers are worth using rather than treating the packer as an insignificant part of the installation.
It’s worth remembering that windows might remain in place for decades.
Colour Coding Saves Time
For someone fitting windows professionally, identifying packer thickness by colour becomes second nature.
You shouldn’t need to stop and measure every packer!
Consistent colour coding means the fitter can immediately select the required thickness, which makes working from a mixed box considerably quicker.
Again, the time difference on one window is tiny, but multiply those little interruptions across several fitters, several windows and hundreds of installations a year and seemingly insignificant inefficiencies start to add up.
Cheap Packers Can Be a False Economy for Smaller Window Companies
Large installation companies purchasing enormous quantities of consumables may understandably concentrate heavily on fractions of a penny in unit cost.
For a small window company, the calculation can be different.
If you have two or three fitting teams, the highest costs in the business aren’t likely to be glazing packers – they’re staff, vans and time.
Saving £30 on consumables isn’t much of a saving if your fitters lose an hour dealing with poor-quality materials or you have to send somebody back to a completed job.
For smaller installation businesses, reliability can be worth considerably more than the difference in purchase price.
Are Expensive Glazing Packers Always Better?
No.
A higher price doesn’t automatically make a glazing packer better.
What matters is how it’s manufactured and whether the supplier can tell you what you’re actually buying.
Look for products manufactured to consistent tolerances from appropriate materials, with clearly defined dimensions and consistent colour coding.
Is It Worth Paying More for Quality Glazing Packers?
For a professional window installer, generally the difference in cost between cheap and high-quality glazing packers is small when compared with the overall value of an installation.
The more useful calculation is therefore not simply:
How much does this box cost?
It’s: How much does this product cost me to use?
A high-quality glazing packer that makes window installation straightforward and performs consistently can represent better value even when its initial purchase price is slightly higher.
Saving pennies on something you use to complete a job worth hundreds or thousands of pounds doesn’t make much sense if the saving introduces unnecessary risk or wastes your fitters’ time.
Fix Direct Glazing Packers
Fix Direct glazing packers are designed specifically for professional window installation and are manufactured using prime-grade materials to close tolerances.
They are designed to maintain correct weight distribution and glass alignment, while the material will not deteriorate and is unaffected by sealants.
Our glazing packers are:
- 100mm long
- Available in 1mm to 6mm thicknesses
- Available in multiple widths
- ISO colour-coded for quick thickness identification
- Manufactured from prime-grade materials
- Moulded to close tolerances
- Resistant to deterioration
- Unaffected by sealants
They’re available in mixed boxes containing a selection of thicknesses, or boxes of a single size for installation companies that know exactly what they use regularly.