Schüco doors, explained without the sales pitch

We started writing this after sitting through too many conversations that went the same way. Someone in Barnet or Cheshunt gets three quotes for a rear extension opening, all of them mention Schüco, all of them use words like premium and market-leading, and none of them explain why one costs four thousand pounds more than the next.

Schüco — written Schuco by most of the trade, and by anyone whose keyboard resists umlauts — is a German systems house. It designs and extrudes the aluminium profiles and sells them to fabricators, who cut, machine, glaze and fit them. That structure explains almost everything about buying these doors: the profile in every quote is identical, so the difference between a good installation and a bad one lives entirely with whoever is holding the tape measure. Most of what we write here is aimed at helping you tell those two apart.

If you want to look at current system options while you read, fabricators publish their ranges openly — 5EC Alu is one of the North London firms that lists profile depths and glazing options rather than making you ask.