New Business (Stretch Ceilings)

Decorus

Hi lads,
Just thinking to establish a subsidiary company in Ireland of a foreign company producing and installing stretch ceilings. Think we can offer pretty good prices and high quality.

Just wonder if such a thing as “stretch ceiling” known in Ireland or most of the people and enterprises prefer conservative white plasterboard ceilings?
I will appreciate any opinions and possible co-operation.

Thanks!

knighted_1

Decorus wrote: »

Hi lads,
Just thinking to establish a subsidiary company in Ireland of a foreign company producing and installing stretch ceilings. Think we can offer pretty good prices and high quality.

Just wonder if such a thing as “stretch ceiling” known in Ireland or most of the people and enterprises prefer conservative white plasterboard ceilings?
I will appreciate any opinions and possible co-operation.

Thanks!

shopfitters over here use them ,seen them being done in that garage on n4 near foxhunter -advantages is that they can be easily changed when shop is being revamped every couple of years but cant see them being used in domestic situations

Decorus

Yeah, that’s true, can be easily changed.
About business premises I think this might work alright here, coz it does look pretty cool. I believe it is only a matter of price for them.
But don’t really understand what is stopping people here from getting them fitted into the houses? In the continental Europe it is very modern and popular.
But anyway i think the main target group would be business premises.

DubTony

How much do these things cost compared to plasterboard?

Decorus

I am not too sure about price yet, but I think it will be in a range between 15 euro to 25 per sq. m. Also depend on material used and design.
There are some factors that can bring price down or little bit up. The ideal for us would be to produce ceilings here, in Ireland, but not to import material from abroad. But to do this we need to reach some amount of orders on a regular bases first.
I believe that stretch ceilings have a lot of advantages over plasterboards. Such as warranty up to 10 years, easy to maintain and clean, no need to re-paint after while etc.

antoinolachtnai

These are around in the lux premises. Thornton's on St Stephen's Green has a nice one. We looked at it for an office building we were working on, for a showroom/multimedia centre. Price was the issue. If you could really install for 15 euro/meter, you'd certainly sell some.

They seem to have interesting acoustic qualities, and deaden sound quite well.

Why would you manufacture here? Why not import the materials and then assemble the frames here?

If you are doing market research, you need to talk to the specifiers and see what they say.

Decorus

Thanks for the reply!
Do you remember what price your company was offered?
About manufacturing, maybe you are right, but all depend on the amount of orders. This is the way company is doing well abroad, but labour is a lot cheaper there also.
How this market researching working?

knighted_1

Decorus wrote: »

But don’t really understand what is stopping people here from getting them fitted into the houses? In the continental Europe it is very modern and popular.

these are not really suitable for domestic installs because of the temperature fluctuations in a house -heating on and heating off -as they are made of light stretched plastic they will sag on high heat .offices are more temp controlled than houses and a lot of main land europe have airconditioning

Decorus

I don't believe this to be a valid reason.
We offer a 10 year warranty with the product.
Stretch ceilings are made of strong top quality material and can hold heat or cold no problem.
The only reason I can think of is most people are still quite conservative and dont know enough about any other ceilings.

antoinolachtnai

In domestic, I'd say fire is an issue too. One of the purposes of a plasterboard ceiling is as a firebreak.

I don't know what price we were offered on this.

A quick google suggests that there are at least two suppliers for this in the country already.

Decorus

I think there is not enough info about any other alternative ceilings in the country. I think in Europe people are afraid of fire too, but it doesn’t stop them from putting stretch ceilings up.
By the way they don’t let to spread fire more anyway.
Yeah, I did see other companies on the market.
In my opinion there is not enough advertisement of the ceilings itself and companies in general. We are going to invest money in it if we decide to let it go. But before, of course, we need to be sure that there is a chance for success.

antoinolachtnai

I would be surprised if you could get a fire-rated stretch ceiling. I could be wrong though. Noise might also be an issue. You might need plasterboard behind it anyway, in which case it's an extra cost, not an alternative.

I guess you need to talk to architects.

Decorus

No, there is no need to put plasterboard before the stretch ceiling.
Our company has experience in the inner market in Belarus and does work pretty well there. The target now is to try and spread it over abroad and to create subsidiary company here for the Irish market.
If interesting, here is a link to the web site. It is in English but not for Irish market yet. We are going to create separate web site for this purpose.
http://aksinterier.com/index.php?lang=gb

Decorus

Hi,
Just wonder what is better to do: set up subsidiary company in Ireland or a limited one?
Is here any good thread about starting up process?
Thanks