New joinery
New aluminium windows and doors, measured, ordered through an APL manufacturer and installed by the same person who repairs joinery for a living. One trade from the first measurement to the last flashing.
Supply and install
Plenty of joinery in this part of Auckland is original to the house, which around the Hibiscus Coast usually means single-glazed aluminium from the seventies or eighties, or timber that has been painted over so many times the sashes no longer sit properly. There comes a point where new hardware is money spent on a frame that has run out of life. When a house gets to that point we measure, order the joinery through an APL manufacturer and fit it ourselves — no separate joinery company, no builder brought in to make good afterwards, and no gap where one blames the other. Because the same person does the repairs, the assessment is honest in both directions: if a repair will buy you another decade, that's what you'll be told.
APL Window Solutions has been designing and supplying window and door systems in New Zealand since 1971, and their systems sit behind the Altherm, First and Vantage brands you'll have seen on new builds.
We order through a local APL manufacturer, so the joinery is made to your openings by a fabricator working to a tested system, rather than assembled from whatever profile is cheapest that month.
Swapping single glazing for double is the single biggest comfort change most older houses on the Coast will notice, particularly on the south and west elevations where condensation runs down the glass all winter.
Thermally broken frames take it further by stopping the cold bridging through the aluminium itself. We'll talk through where it's worth the money and where standard frames are enough.
New joinery comes in a full range of powder-coated finishes, and there's no requirement to match what's there — plenty of jobs are an opportunity to lose a colour nobody liked in the first place.
Opening configurations get looked at properly too. Awnings, sliders, bi-folds and fixed panes all have a sensible place, and the existing layout is rarely the best one.
New joinery doesn't have to go back into the same hole. Widening an opening, dropping a window to floor level or replacing a garage door with a window are all carpentry jobs on top of joinery jobs.
Graham served a four-year carpentry and joinery apprenticeship and has done exactly this kind of work — including removing a large fixed unit and replacing it with a bi-fold, then building the old unit into a garage wall.
Most joinery failures that turn into expensive framing repairs start at the install, not the window. Flashing tape, sill trays and head flashings are where the water either gets shed or gets in.
Openings get checked and dressed before anything is fitted. If the framing behind the old unit has gone soft, it gets dealt with then — while it's open — rather than sealed back up out of sight.
There's no minimum. A single failed double glazed unit, one rotten window replaced in an otherwise sound wall, or a full run of joinery across a renovation are all normal work.
Staging is fine as well. Plenty of people do the worst elevation first and the rest a year later, and the second visit matches the first because it comes from the same system.
How it works
Replacement joinery is a bigger job than a repair, so it starts with a visit rather than a photo. Lead times depend on the manufacturer's workload and what you've specified, and you'll be told what that looks like before anything is ordered rather than after.
We look at what's there, check the framing, and talk through glazing, frames, colours and configurations against what the house actually needs.
A written estimate covering supply, removal, installation and making good. Once it's agreed the joinery goes on order with the manufacturer.
Old units out, openings checked and dressed, new joinery fitted, flashed and sealed, and the old joinery taken away.
Repair or replace
A repair is usually cheaper and often the better call, which is why most of our work is repairs. But there's no sense patching something that won't last, and these are the signs that a house has reached that point rather than a hardware problem that can be solved for a fraction of the cost.
Book a site visit and get a written estimate covering supply, removal, installation and making good — with an honest view on whether replacement is the right call at all.
Get in touch todayFAQs
APL Window Solutions supplies the window and door systems used by the Altherm, First and Vantage brands. We order your joinery through an APL manufacturer, so the units are fabricated to a tested New Zealand system and to your measurements, and we handle the measuring and installation ourselves.
No. Single units are common, and staging a house over two or three visits is normal. Because it comes from the same system each time, later work matches what went in first.
In most cases on the Coast, yes — particularly if you have condensation running down the glass in winter. Where it's less clear-cut is on sheltered elevations or rooms you barely use, and we'll say so rather than glaze the whole house by default.
Yes. Widening an opening, dropping a window to floor level or swapping a window for a door are carpentry jobs as much as joinery jobs, and Graham is a qualified carpenter as well. Structural changes may need consent, which we'll flag at the estimate.
It comes away with us unless you want to keep it. Occasionally an old unit is worth reusing elsewhere on the property — a garage or a shed — and that's worth mentioning before the job starts.
New joinery is normally aluminium. Timber work is mostly repair and restoration — replacing rotten jambs, sections of frame and sills — which is often the right answer on an older house where you want to keep the original look.
