Profile: BELGIAN

Beauty and the Belgian suite: elegant steel window and door profiles live on

The traditional Belgian suite hot-rolled steel window and door profiles actually originated in Melbourne. They were manufactured by the Melbourne Iron and Steel Mills in South Melbourne. They’re named for the Belgian steel supplier, Laminoirs de Longtain, who subsequently provided the raw material up to 1981.

In 1989, Skyrange revived the Australian steel window and door industry with a new Swiss supplier, Montanstahl. A major revamp in tooling, equipment, and processes, and the recognition from enlightened architects that traditional profiles should be preserved, saved the profiles from an undeserved decline.

In both instances, the integrity, beauty, and sharp sight lines achieved by both the raw and finished products saved the profiles from extinction and revived their popularity among discerning architects and clients.

Belgian suite glazing

The most common format for the Belgian suite is in a single glazed internal 6mm glass with snap-on glazing beads. It can also come in single glazed glass up to 10mm thick in operable items, and 12mm thick in fixed windows, with a snap on bead.

The Belgian suite accepts double-glazing up to18mm thick, externally glazed using structural silicon (without a glazing bead). This provides the best possible combination of double-glazing performance while maintaining the elegant Belgian appearance. When using this method, the ‘glass in frame combined assessment’ highlights better performance when the smaller Belgian profile is used.