Dare you venture beyond the grey? That is the challenge being thrown out by Gilberts Blackpool, in a bid to brighten British buildingscapes, particularly where large banks of louvres are involved.
The company- Britain’s leading independent manufacturer of internal and external ventilation components- has invested almost £0.5m in state-of-the-art powder coating line that quadruples its colouration capacity, and can apply to any BS or RAL colour.
“Look across any urban or built-up aspect, and almost all you see is grey,” observes Ian Rogers, Gilberts Sales Director. “Grey clouds, grey concrete, grey aluminium windows, louvres. We have all the colours of the rainbow to choose from. It would brighten everyone’s day if they looked around and saw more colour.
“We invested in our coating plant to meet our current requirement: Now, almost every piece we produce is powder coated. But at least 90% of what we coat for external use is some shade of grey. The ‘cost’ of powder coating is already there, it’s no (or very little extra) to make it blue, yellow, red, green etc instead. There is no reason why louvre banks, for example, cannot become a focal point feature of a building, perhaps reflecting the occupant’s corporate identity, rather than an unobtrusive necessity that blends into the greyscape.”
Gilberts’ entire range of architectural and external standard, high performance and acoustic louvres for façades, windows, plant screening and roof penthouses can all be appropriately powder coated in weather-resistant polyester paint, PVF finished or anodised.
Adds Ian Rogers, “Gilberts has a reputation for delivering premium quality solutions, with the flexibility and capability to accommodate bespoke requirements as and when our clients need. We love to rise to the challenge: who will be inspired, pick up the gauntlet and specify an impressive bank of louvres in a colour other than grey?”