Photo: Leopardo Companies Inc., courtesy Tubelite
The Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance (FGIA) released its “FGIA 2024/2025 Study of the U.S. Market for Windows, Doors and Skylights.” The biannual report contains information about residential and nonresidential market trends, and product relationships for residential and nonresidential fenestration products. Forecasts are based on projections of construction activity as of May 2024.
Residential
Total housing starts fell by 9 percent in 2023, with the largest declines in multifamily at 14 percent and manufactured housing at 21 percent, following smaller declines in 2022. Going forward, the overall new housing market is expected to slightly increase in 2024 and 2025 before a minor decline forecasted in 2026.
The demand for prime windows fell by 8.5 percent in 2023, while the demand for windows in new housing increased by 10 percent, with an increase of 4 percent forecasted for 2024 and 2 percent in 2025 before flattening in 2026. Remodeling and replacement window demand fell in 2023 by 8 percent and is forecast to shrink in 2024 by 5 percent, with slow growth of 2 percent in 2025 and 2026.
In the residential market, 2023 new construction demand for entry doors declined by 4 percent. Meanwhile, entry door remodeling and replacement demand, which continues to represent a significantly larger share of total demand, declined at 8 percent. The total market declined by 6 percent versus 2022 and is expected to grow in 2024 through 2026.
In 2023, the market for residential skylights closed the year with a growth rate of 5 percent over 2022 volume. New construction skylight activity was down 8 percent, while remodeling and replacement skylight activity was up 10 percent versus 2022.
Nonresidential
Contract awards reflect activity related to new construction and major additions to existing structures. Actual fenestration shipments for nonresidential building activity typically lags contract awards by up to one year or more. This cycle can shorten or lengthen tremendously depending on the complexity or size of a building and when the specific building product is installed during the construction cycle.
The 2023 contract award total saw a 13 percent decrease from 2022. The manufacturing/warehouse category decreased by 27 percent in 2023, while contract awards in office/hotel/institutional and in store/mercantile both increased by 7 percent. Contract awards are expected to increase by about 6 percent in 2024 and continue growing in 2025.
Storefront windows represent the largest market segment by vision area with 27.2 percent of the overall nonresidential glazing in 2023, followed closely by site-fabricated windows representing 26.9 percent.
The 2023 market for nonresidential entry doors in the U.S. showed significant increase, with 2023 volume up 9 percent over 2022 and up 6 percent since 2021.
The study estimates that the total U.S. market for commercial unit skylights in 2023 represents a 5 percent increase from 2021. Unit sizes commonly average in the range of 22 to 25 square feet but can vary dramatically. Nearly all commercial unit skylights are aluminum framed, and most use some form of plastic glazing. Acrylic is the most common. In 2023, new construction applications represented approximately 33 percent of the total, the same as that of 2021.
