CHICAGO - The Window and Door Manufacturers Association (WDMA) has released the WDMA 2014 Window & Entry Door Pulse Report, a semi-annual summary report covering both U.S. construction activity and topline product shipment activity. The report leverages market data and modeling to provide an update on activity, trends and forecasts without relying on the full surveys of industry participants as does the full WDMA 2014 Market Study released earlier in the year.

The residential construction market forecasts have been updated by Metrostudy and Virginia Tech with the most current data to reflect changes in the state of the economy and housing market following the release of the full 2014 Market Study. Movement of these indicators has been incorporated into a revision of the modeling and time series regression to provide updated window and entry door shipment forecasts aligned with current trends.

The Pulse Report projects a slight slowdown in 2014 residential new construction starts from earlier projections (985,000 vs. 1.1 million), with most of this at the expense of single family unit starts. Residential remodeling, however, shows a slightly larger projected improvement of 4.8% over 2013 levels (up from an earlier predicted improvement of 4.2%).

As a result, the Pulse Report predicts a smaller growth in residential windows, to 48.3 million units (down from 48.5 million units), and similar smaller growth in exterior entry doors, to 14.6 million units (down from 14.8 million units).

Both the WDMA 2014 Window & Entry Door Pulse Report and WDMA Window and Entry Door Industry 2014 U.S. Market Study are available for purchase online in the WDMA Bookstore.