Firmanglass

F A Firman (Harold Wood) Ltd started life as a replacement and emergency glazing company in early seventies, progressing steadily in moving into its first home in Harold Wood, Romford in 1975. This gave the company basic storage and cutting facilities for replacement glazing industry. In 1981 it moved to larger premises six miles away and into its Straight Road home, at this time invested in a laminated glass cutting table and edging and drilling equipment. Then the adjacent factory became available and Firman increased its services by adding a glass bending plant and a decoration department for acid etching, embossing and sand blasting. As a result of Firman's expansion, shop fitters and builders found it to be a useful, reliable and fairly diverse company to purchase a large range glass to fulfil their needs in London, the Home Counties.

In 1991 Firman purchased the very first CNC polishing machine for shaped and profiled edge processed glass, this opened many new doors and even lead to Firman processing glass for Pilkington Aerospace and Asahi Glass, two of the largest corporations in the world. Following this and with the growth of the use of toughened glass, Firman chose to invest in its first EFCO glass toughening plant, capable of toughening a maximum size of 1,500 x 3,000.

This investment also increased Firmans needs for better and more processing equipment. Firman moved into its current home at Bates Road, strangely enough only a few factories away from where it all began.
This furthered Firman abilities to cope with the most demanding of requirements and allowed them to be involved in many innovative and prestigious projects, such as The Royal Opera House. The technical challenges in making the units for the The Royal Opera House, Firman made further investment in, and changes to the factory.

We have the in-house facilities to manufacture very large double glazed units up to six metres in length with LISEC washing machine. We apply Dow Corning 993 structural silicone and have the technology to manufacture structural floor panels with stepped under sides, shapes and Argon filled units. We also keep ex-stock 8.8mm 10.8mm and 12.8mm low emissivity laminated to manufacture oversized sealed units achieving building regulations.

In May of this 2005 we became stockists of a new range of fire rated glasses, multi-layered fire resisting glasses, offering integrity and insulation for 30 and 60 minutes, dependant upon the project requirements. Copies of our specification pages for the range are available to download. Pyroguard and Fireswissfoam can be cut into rectangles or shapes quickly and accurately from stock.

The most recent addition to Firman plant, is our new COOLTEMPER toughening furnace that at the time, is not only one of the largest in the UK but also Europe.

We have consistently have invested in new technologies and have a several CNC controlled glass processing machines, as well as water jet cutting and double edging machinery.