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Gaulhofer windows and doors : Thomas Froelich


ToughButterCup

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I write to let everyone know that the Manager of Ecowin, Thomas Froelich sadly passed away on Saturday.   Ecowin supplies Gaulhofer windows and doors

 

Thomas came to visit us a few times on his frequent trips up and down the M6.

He lived up to his name : Froelich translates to Happy in English. He was always cheerful. And I was always glad to chatter to him in German - we could share seriously politically incorrect jokes and compare notes about how in Austria and Germany things were done ' richtig ' (correctly) whereas in other countries (he talked about installs of Gaulhofer windows and doors in  other countries), that was not the case.

 

The sales team up in Dalgety Bay (the other side of the Forth opposite Edinburgh) are devastated. Despite that, Craig found the time to ring me and talk our install through this morning. 

 

I'm sure we all would want to express our condolences to Lorraine his wife and his children. 

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Just spoke to Craig, can’t believe it.

 

Thomas was invaluable on our build and always fun to work with - a real character and a gentleman.

 

We saw each other just a few months ago when he brought some prospective clients to our build - happy that we got to catch up one last time.

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I met Thomas on the way out of ecobuild the year before we started our build. I was tired and annoyed by how useless a lot of suppliers had been. He was literally the last person I spoke to on the way out, and he was an absolute pleasure.

 

From memory, he was a passivhaus certification trainer and spent a good ten minutes looking at our plans and making useful suggestions to help us achieve passivhaus numbers.

 

In the end, the only reason I didn't go with him for our windows was that he mentioned a couple of windows the architect had drawn were too big for them to produce. Much further down the line, we learned that Thomas had spotted this issue at a glance, whereas the UK sales guy for the company we went with completely missed it, and it was only flagged at the factory while working drawings were being produced.

 

I'm so sorry to hear of his passing. From memory, he wasn't that old.

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This is devastating news.

 

I have out been out all day  and have just seen a missed call from ECOWIN. It must have been Craig ringing me with this terrible news. I will call him tomorrow to send Yvonne and my l  our condolences to Lorraine, their family and the ECOWIN team.

 

We have Gaulhofer windows and spent some time with Thomas in Glasgow, when we were visiting various projects with Gaulhofer windows when finalising our window selection and order details. He was always pleasant and extremely helpful. He was very professional dealing with a couple of problems on our order, particularly when the problem was the result of the  vagaries of the Gaulhofer manufacturing process computer system and ECOWIN were left with the responsibility.

 

He was and he was also involved in the early formation of PAUL  Scotland, MVHR company, and gave me an introduction that proved very useful.

3 hours ago, jack said:

From memory, he was a passivhaus certification trainer and spent a good ten minutes looking at our plans and making useful suggestions to help us achieve passivhaus numbers.

 

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Thanks for all your comments, condolences and well wishes. I will pass them onto the team and family.

 

It’s been a tough day contacting friends, colleagues, friends within the trades as well as customers past, present and future and it’s not complete yet due to the bank holiday ?

 

@HerbJ it was myself that tried to call to update you and happy to have a chat tomorrow.

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We also heard the news from Craig today (thank you @craig). Thomas was with us on site at the end of May, his usual jovial self, finalising some of our window and door details. Knowledgable man, about windows and much more. Very sad.

Our thoughts are with his family and the team at Ecowin.

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6 hours ago, jack said:

I met Thomas on the way out of ecobuild the year before we started our build. I was tired and annoyed by how useless a lot of suppliers had been. He was literally the last person I spoke to on the way out, and he was an absolute pleasure

we did the same in Edinburgh self build, he came down to see us and discuss the project. A sad day indeed, a genuinely nice guy who will be sadly missed. As with others, our thoughts with family and colleagues.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Today we said our farewells to Thomas, it was a very nice service and we had friends/colleagues/customers from all over the UK and EU attend.

 

The window business is a very small world and representatives from Internorm, Solarlux, Zyle Fenster (Lithuania), EcoAluClad (Ireland) and more attended. Although some are competitors, we are also friends and was nice to see. It was also a rather interesting day with installers, suppliers and manufacturers sitting talking for a good 6 hours after the service on different things. Thought provoking for suppliers and manufacturers on technical aspects/improvements on products for easier deliveries/installation/service etc. It doesn’t happen often and we all went away with ideas. Just unfortunate it was on such a sad occasion.

 

I did the airport runs yesterday and a group went out for a meal last night and Lorraine (Toms wife) attended and had a fantastic evening out.

 

The family appreciates all the kind words as do we at Ecowin. It’s been a tough couple of weeks but projects and work continue.

 

We are pretty much back to business as normal next week and we are making a priority on pending installations and service work. We would like to thank all customers for their patience and understanding over the past couple of weeks.

Edited by craig
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