I hope they're not the last but I believe they're the first organisation since we started this build project that I cannot find a single fault with. You must think the miserable complainer that I usually am surely feels crestfallen to have to give this accolade, but no....i'm elated and want to shout it...from my very own hermetically sealed waterproof rooftop.
The name you need to know is Vision AGI.
I made my own upstands, specced the size to them and a few criteria, they delivered, I fitted, nothing went wrong. That's the short story.
The skylight sizes were arrived at fairly randomly and without reference to any kind of off the shelf standards and the upstand made accordingly, somewhat in advance of my getting quotes. I had however encountered Vision AGI far earlier in my process at a self build event and gained a guide price from them.
Many months later with upstands built, roof membrane on and my 3rd evolution makeshift corrugated plastic covers leaking like a sieve I went to work on finding good skylights at a tight price. The two sizes were 3800 x 1230mm and 1215 x 1210mm. I wanted them to add minimal overall height to my roof and be single panes of glass. They also needed to be on a par with the rest of the house in terms of high thermal performance, and have solar control glass.
In the end i'd gained prices from 8 sources. For the larger one they ranged from £1700 to £3900, though to be fair most were below £2200. The experience of getting these quotes however was rendering price rather secondary to another factor....confidence.
The quotes were varying somewhat on the way the large unit should be constructed. Some could only offer a 2 or 3 pane solution, others a modified lean-to style of pretty low quality. Massively heavy and expensive single pane solutions, and others with just too much height. Most frequent though was a return to the drawing board after questioning quotes and them realising they couldn't actually achieve their initial suggestions. All this time the Vision AGI quote sat on the backburner having become more of a target to beat than a potential provider if i'm honest.
Eventually though I asked them to update their quote for my final measured sizes and looking at their spec again I realised they were achieving everything I wanted and everything anyone else could. When their quote came through it was amongst the lower end so I had to satisfy my paranoid suspicions and get into a nitty gritty phone conversation with their Technical Spec Manager. He was brilliant, having a number of scenarios priced up for me to demonstrate the pros/cons of some of the multi pane proposals i'd had. We also worked through the logistics of fitting and my awkward site characteristics, considering the impact on overall cost to me. He couldn't have been more helpful or responsive...I signed the order.
Then I get nervous because he fades from the picture and the Sales Manager takes over correspondence. It's not just units i'm ordering....I need them to arrive in a certain way, on a certain day, at a certain time (and in certain weather conditions!!)...all of which had been part of the earlier conversational 'can you do this'. Not a worry, the Sales Manager totally gets it, only needs telling once, is a bit of a mind reader, sees my concerns before I mention them and is making pre-emptive strikes to deal with them, I cannot say enough honestly...clear, concise, fully documented, fast...and then she's gone as the Logistics Manager takes over.
Logistically it's going to be an interesting day taking delivery and fitting. The big unit is something like 240kg and the nature of my site means only a crane can do the job and it will need to use a glass lifter...which doesn't like rain. The crane can also only do a vertical lift so the delivery vehicle must be an open top. With numerous deliveries arriving that day to justify the four figure cost of crane, lifter and banksman a two hour arrival window really does need to be adhered to. Again Vision AGI maintain an incredibly high standard of customer service taking on board all my demands and then flexing without complaint when I change the day due to weather and require them to store my items in the meantime. Even a last minute hiccup at their end, which to be fair I induced, was dealt with in such a way that attached enough importance to delivering on their promises that they scrambled resources to keep to the schedule whereas it would have been easy and typical to just be late. Brilliant.
There's nothing to say about fitting because it was ridiculously fast and easy to do. If this blog post has a different tone to usual and comes across as a bit of a promo for Vision AGI then that's what I intended despite holding no shares in the company. There's been far more agony and far less extacy than anticipated forcing this reluctant house out of the ground, but the skylights have been a high point.
Don't drop me nowww....i'm havin' such a good time...
And how it all nearly fell apart that day;
In an attempt to help me out on price the hire company sent a much smaller crane than usual that day, thinking I was only lifting the 240kg glass. It was not beefy enough to lift a ton bag anywhere useful let alone over the house where I needed them. 14 tons of other deliveries, some already en route had to be delayed, diverted and ultimately barrowed manually in to position, rather than dangling from a crane, cutting the bags and spreading in a matter of seconds. The previous 9 crane hires had all been with their smallest one at the time, then they got this new one, smaller still. I guess we all made assumptions.
Given my smaller skylight didn't need the crane and none of my other deliveries could be aided by the crane it's entire cost has to be attributed to fitting the large skylight. So the crane added 52% to the overall cost of the skylight! If i'd gone for a 3 part skylight with each of the glass sections weighing 67kg I would have not needed the crane but interestingly it's price was near 50% more than my single pane....and fitting would have doubtless been rather less straightforward.
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