Skylight domes are everywhere, but rarely noticed

Sadler-Lichtkuppeln from Traiskirchen relies on self-generated, green electricity in its production of skylight domes.

The third-generation, family-run company with 35 employees has tackled digitisation and digitised its entire production and order processing. In production, each workstation received a terminal on which orders and work steps are noted. This saves paper and resources, avoids many sources of error, and increases flexibility and efficiency. With several thousand skylight domes sold or renovated each year, the Lower Austrian company Sadler-Lichtkuppeln is the market leader. Managing director Manuela Geyer-Sadler reveals the family’s formula for success.

Your company has been growing steadily since 1969. How do you ensure economic survival in times of crisis?
Manuela Geyer-Sadler: By having the courage to keep investing in new ideas, products, buildings and employees. 17 years ago, we were instrumental in the development of safety nets for skylight domes and launched a new product on the market. Last year, the producer of these steel nets was looking for a successor. It was quite clear to our son that by purchasing this company, the product, stainless steel safety nets, would be integrated directly into our company, thus reducing delivery times and distances.

The Sadler company is a classic family business but has always managed to keep its finger on the pulse. What is the internal interaction like on a personal, as well as on a professional level?
Geyer-Sadler: As the term family business implies, we are very connected to our employees. You could say that together we live the Sadler skylight dome family. Our employees know that we always have an open ear for their problems. On a personal level, I am very pleased that the company, which was my father’s lifeblood, is now secured by our son Daniel, the third-generation successor.

For more than 50 years, your company has been manufacturing skylight domes, a product that many people do not even notice in everyday life. Where are your domes used, what are they used for and how many are there?
Geyer-Sadler: It’s true that people don’t always notice our skylight domes. But if you open your eyes more consciously, you can see skylight domes in the staircases of every apartment building. Furthermore, they are being used more and more in the private sector. Garages, vestibules or even bathrooms are often equipped with skylight domes for the purpose of ventilation. The classic applications are, of course, in industrial halls. Skylight domes are not only used for daylighting and for ventilating rooms, but they are also a life-saving product. Preventive fire protection is one of the most important measures that serve to protect life and health, and are necessary for the preservation of structural facilities. Skylight domes can be fixed, ventilated or fitted with a smoke and heat extraction (SHE) system. Since almost 90 percent of all fire victims do not burn to death but are killed by smoke inhalation, the skylight dome has become an indispensable part of any fire protection concept. This is why early detection and targeted containment as well as smoke evacuation on escape routes are essential for a fire-fighting attack by the fire brigade. As we manufacture ourselves in our factory in Lower Austria, we are also equipped for special architect’s requests. Everything is possible. We sell approximately 6,000 skylight domes a year.

How does the production process work?
Geyer-Sadler: Everything is still done by hand. This also enables us to respond 100 percent to our customers’ wishes. A purchased acrylic glass sheet is heated, clamped by means of a wooden frame and blown up to the desired height with compressed air. That all sounds quite simple. You just have to remember that a separate mould is needed for each size of skylight dome. The problem is that there are hundreds of different sizes, and these wooden models up a lot of space therefore. I won’t even mention the costs. After the production of the dome light, the edges are trimmed, cleaned by hand and glued. There are different ways to make a skylight dome. Mostly, the outer shell is produced in the colour opal. This gives a nice bright, diffuse light without glare. At the customer’s request, we also use colourless material. This allows the customer to watch the stars at night. It also makes sense to use heatstop material. This is a special material that reflects 68 percent of the sun’s energy, so that the rooms underneath do not heat up too much. This saves on cooling in the summer or can at least reduce the necessary cooling considerably. Skylight domes are produced from single-shell to five-shell. Furthermore, 100 percent of our standard skylight domes for new buildings are already produced as fall-through-proof domes. For this purpose, a stainless steel net is installed between the shells of the skylight dome. This saves subsequent costs and effort. During renovation, about 60 to 70 percent of skylight domes are currently equipped as fall-through-proof – people on the roof are thus prevented from falling through. What many people do not know is that homeowners are liable for accidents under the Construction Workers Coordination Act.

Are there sensible alternatives to plastic domes?
Geyer-Sadler: Today, the only alternative to skylight domes are glass skylights, which for cost reasons are only used in residential construction.

For some years now, you have been able to record double-digit annual sales growth. Why is there such a demand?
Geyer-Sadler: On the one hand, the building boom of the last few years has certainly contributed to this, but also the ever-increasing benefits in the private sector. Above all, we have specialised in renovation. Due to the effects of weather on roofs, skylight domes have a service life of about 25 to 30 years. After that, it makes sense to replace them with better insulated skylight domes. Furthermore, our company credo is: He who does not honour the shilling is not worth the penny. This means that we also take care of customers with only one to three defective skylight domes.

Do skylight domes help to save energy?
Geyer-Sadler: Definitely. As mentioned, we use a heatstop material in production that reflects the sun’s rays so that rooms do not heat up extremely. In residential construction, the Sadler LIKU-Therm frame is usually installed for cold temperatures, which improves the U-value enormously. This creates valuable energy efficiency for the entire building.

What importance does digitisation have in your company
Geyer-Sadler: Digitisation is very important for us. In order to keep up with the times, our entire production and order processing was digitised in 2022. This saves paper and resources, avoids many sources of error, and increases flexibility and efficiency. Production, however, remains manual labour.

You supply your business with your own electricity?
Geyer-Sadler: Yes, because in addition to digitisation, the sustainability of the company is also important to us. In 2019, we already invested in a photovoltaic system on the company roofs. The energy generated is used directly for our production below, and the rest is fed into the public supply network as surplus. The ratio of own consumption versus feed-in is 50:50. With the electricity from our headquarters, we save about 50 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. The 338 modules covering 558 sqm on our production and warehouse roofs achieve a maximum output of 95 kWp. This is about 100,000 kWh per year. In 2023, we will expand this system on the roof of another hall and thus double our output. You can therefore say that Sadler produces ‘green skylight domes’.

What challenges do you face with supply chain problems and rising raw material prices?
Geyer-Sadler: As in all industries in Austria, this hits us very hard, because it naturally increases the costing risk, which we cannot pass on to our customers in full. The problem of getting material at all is also very big – we are currently waiting up to four months for acrylic glass. Fortunately, most of our capital is in our wellstocked warehouse.

Do you feel the increasing lack of skilled workers and how do you counteract this?
Geyer-Sadler: This problem hits us hard. We are very proud of our very large number of long-term employees. But still, we need staff that we can’t find. We partly counteract this with temporary staff, who are trained and familiarised by us so that we can integrate these employees into our company and take them on.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to relocate production sites abroad?
Geyer-Sadler: No, that was and is not an issue for us. We are a purely Austrian family business and proud of it!

What major challenges do you see ahead and how will your company be able to hold its own?
Geyer-Sadler: On the whole, we are positive. The challenges from the Covid pandemic and also from the Ukraine war will certainly continue to be present. Since we have specialised in renovation, we will be able to withstand this challenge. Nevertheless, it is important that new construction does not come to a standstill either. We were nominated in the 2006 Innovation Awards, we celebrated our 50th anniversary in 2019, and I hope we can have another such great celebration in 2029 with all our customers, suppliers and friends. At the end of 2022, we took first place in ‘Austria’s Leading Companies’ in Lower Austria for nationwide operating companies with a turnover of up to ten million euros. These are beautiful awards that bind our company together, as we have achieved these successes together. We are proud of our long-standing employees, because it is precisely they who make a family business, and with this valuable capital we will be able to hold our own even in difficult times.