Paarhammer Windows and Doors: A business born from necessity

As high profile clients at Nishi Apartments in Canberra and Saffire Freycinet Resort can attest, the higher the quality of your windows and doors the less you spend on energy.

Moving from Austria in 1990 to a freezing flat in Bacchus Marsh, about 60 kilometres north west of Melbourne, exposed Edith and Tony Paarhammer to Australia’s relatively low standards for thermal and draft performance of windows and doors. And trying to source high-performing windows and doors for their own home was the beginning of their business designed to remedy that issue.

“People just said to close the curtains to keep the heat in, and in summer to close the curtains to keep the heat out,” Edith says. “But if you can’t see through them, why have windows?’’

Tony – a master woodworker – made the energy efficient windows for their house and a sample window that Tony and Edith displayed at trade shows, alongside their cabinetry and joinery.

Eventually, enquiries about windows outstripped those for joinery and Paarhammer moved exclusively into windows and doors 15 years ago. In 2010 they built a new purpose-built factory at Ballan, Victoria, from where they now deliver Australia-wide.

Paarhammer Windows and Doors produces a range of double and triple glazed, argon filled, highly thermally efficient tilt-and-turn windows; sliding, French, bi-fold and entrance doors; as well as fixed pane windows and clerestories. They can even mimic the look of double-hung sash windows.

All Paarhammer windows and doors use patented German hardware and are mostly made in Victorian Ash, Scandinavian Fir or Pacific Jarrah (Manilkara bidentata) depending on their applications. Wood-Alu windows use warm energy efficient timber indoors and an external facing of anodised aluminium for low maintenance.

“Our job is to find solutions for architects – to help them achieve the dream for their clients,” says Edith, “so we produce custom shapes and very large sizes for our clients on a regular basis.”

The company’s history is full of outstanding architecture, but Nishi Apartments in Canberra and Saffire Freycinet Resort stand out for combining exceptional performance with excellent architecture in commercial applications. The Paarhammer case studies on the website also show an impressive array of award winning residential applications, such as Tall Order.

Adding fire resistance to thermal efficiency, Paarhammer’s Pacific Jarrah fire resistant windows, for use in BAL-40 and BAL-FZ bushfire zones, come with compliance certificates to Australian Standards for Building in Bush-fire Prone Areas AS 3959-2009, AS 1530.8.1 and AS 1530.8.2. They can also be combined with Schott Pyran S® glass to be fully accredited to Australian Standard AS1530.4-2005 for -/60/- party wall applications.

And sustainability doesn’t just stop with the product. The factory uses rainwater gathered from its roof, active light management and is heated by burning briquettes made from the sawdust and offcuts produced in the factory. The factory’s performance earned Paarhammer the title of Manufacturer of the Year – Small Business in the 2017 Manufacturing Hall of Fame awards held by the Victorian State Government – just one of 12 awards the company has won since 2005.