2020 International Builder Show Tips and Video
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The JennAir happy hour at the 2020 International Builder Show / Kitchen and Bath Industry Show
The 2020 International Builder Show (the good kind of IBS acronym) in Las Vegas last week was a great time. Of course, any time in Vegas is a good time if you are doing it right.
Brian and I were looking forward to meeting some people as well as discovering some new must have building techniques, tools and materials.
We were not disappointed.
But before we dive into the latest and greatest discoveries I have to give a bit thank you to my parents.
None of us work alone and it takes a community behind each of us to make our projects happen. My parents drove out from Texas to our home in Mesa, AZ to take care of our girls. All involved had all their fingers, toes AND SANITY at the end of the week. We will call it a huge success!
Tips and expectations for attending the next International Builder Show
This list is as much for me as much (to read again beforehand since we will likely not be attending the next two years in Orlando) as it is for newbie attendees.
At the end of this list there is a collage video of our three days. If you have never attended it will give you a small view into what you will find.
Networking and chance encounters.
You will meet Instagram rockstars at the International Building Show. You will also meet genuine and small production craftsmen.
IBS is your chance to meet people you wouldn’t otherwise (excluding online at places like Instagram).
Within the first 10 minutes we had our first sighting. We were checking out the outside HuberWood booth. I turned around to find Steve Baczek (@stevebaczekarchitect) right behind me along with Jake Bruton (@jake.bruton). If you want to know how to build right, these are great guys to follow on Instagram.
This is why we went to the Huberwood Social Media Awards so we could meet Christine (@buildingsciencefightclub) along with Tim and Kyle of (@awesomeframers).
Our time was always limited, but these are genuine people who are EXTREMELY educated, talented and passionate about their areas of expertise. Way cooler, way smarter than most of use will ever be…they are also very humble. My recommendation: follow them!
IBS is your chance to meet the people inventing the products
While it is always exciting to come across a new product, it is even more exhilarating to engage the actual inventors in conversations.
Let’s be real. People like you and me rarely get past an assistant. Even if you talk to the technical department you are still once removed from the engineering team. Many times we wanted to talk to someone about a product and the inventor was right there!
For instance:
- We spent an entire hour with Ryan from Phyn!
- We spent half an hour talking to Henry from Flo about our experience.
- And another 10 minutes with Ryan, one of the engineers behind Bouy.
Create a list throughout the year.
I create a list on google docs.
Here was mine:
- See if we can try out keyless deadbolts
- Say hi to Janice
- Ask Steven Baczek if he’s ever seen a Massachusetts corners
- Ask Schluter/Huber wood about 1.25″ structural flooring on 24” oc
- Requests from Laura
- Modern AC Products ask about 1″ reducer, latest product and how is business going
- Look at Bouy
Get there the day before and snag a catalogue.
I’m that person who circles vendors, dog ears classes and makes a plan with the information in the magazine as well as the phone app. The phone app is necessary because some of the booths are too small to find on the printed map. So you find the vendor on the phone app and the detailed view gives you a small map, giving you a clue based on the bigger booths around it.
Which is the perfect segway into…
Have a game plan going in.
The three days of the International Builder Show will evaporate before your eyes if you don’t have a plan. Even if you DO have a plan the days will slip past.
Also, remember to pull up your checklist on your phone / notepad / etc.
The Las Vegas Convention Center is HUGE. If you can keep your classes, vendors, meetings to one building a day, that would be ideal.
Follow through on the game plan.
It is very easy to get distracted. Long conversations are also commonplace.
Keep the panic on the last day to a minimum by pacing yourself over the course of the three days. Limit yourself to one “hall” a day, if possible.
*Hall is such a lightweight term for buildings that can easily fit multiple football fields. And multiple floors of football fields.
**I had some crazy success on the keyless entry deadbolt hunt. Every door handle I could spy caused a change in my trajectory. If you recall in the last post, I was determined to find every last keyless entry deadbolt on the showroom floor. While I can’t promise I found every last one since I found four companies across all three halls, I will say I had a lot of
While the show was great, it was overshadowed by this site getting hacked on the third day of the conference.
We hope you did not visit the site then, or were aware of the website URL before the malware redirected you to some !@#$%^& website. There is a special place for hackers.
We spent hours on the phone with our hosting provider Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday before hiring Jim at hackrepair.com to get us back up on Monday. While I was upset about the site going down, I was even more upset at anyone coming from Google or Pinterest innocently wanting to see our heavy hitter tutorials on the water manifold, PEX loop, laminate flooring after baseboard, etc. I could imagine myself wanting to see something from a photo on Pinterest, not having looked at the URL prior to clicking on said photo, and falling for the hackers “human verification” scam.
Cleaning growth out of a sink drain is better than fixing malware taking down your website. Both are necessary. Only one is useful…and you don’t have to sit on the phone until your hand goes numb.
We tried repairing and then taking the website down to keep the damage to a minimum.
This was a very difficult post and video to produce with the website problems having taken up part of the show as well as days after the fact. Both from a lack of time as well as a lingering tiredness and notable down attitudes.
I bounced back by creating the video first, which is why this post is a day late. This video is a sample of our experience at the 2020 International Builder Show in Las Vegas, NV. One evening and three days shoved into 12 minutes. I’m extremely biased when I say it is a lot of fun and those 12 minutes slide right on by.
In case you wanted a preview of the video, or to skip to individual parts at a later time, I’ve detailed all the sections below along with some embedded jumps into the video below:
Navien’s premiere of their non condensing tankless water heater with Blue Man Group was a great kickoff.
Las Vegas Convention Center entrance.
Cement board shears from the James Hardie booth.
Schlage Encode keyless entry deadbolt: the silent motorized deadbolt in the Schlage lineup. The first video I took, I was still trying to hit keys when the lock had already deployed. It was so quiet I didn’t know it!
Simpson Strong-Tie quick drive drill attachment for installing subflooring with screws. Now I want to be a framer (not just learn from @awesomeframers).
Waterproof cement board: BardieBacker cement board with HydroDefense technology
Kolher’s Latitude utility sink: thoughtful design with a shelf and beautiful too.
Cosentino happy hour.
Rigid Viega PressBooster MegaPress XL: mega impressive!
Viega ManaBloc: some noted improvements with the design. Larger diamonds to open and close a homerun and easier to remove a valve for replacement.
Imagine having an adjustable sink. Great for growing kids, handicap access, etc.
Learning during happy hour at the High Performance Building Zone with a Sin City IPA.
JennAir’s is no longer your grandma’s cooktop.
Hotel elevator shenanigans.
It’s dry in Vegas. Proof with STATIC hair.
Owens Corning fiberglass rebar.
@shawnvandyke @profitfirstcontractor
Resideo Buoy whole home water monitor: nice to see this technology booming across plumbing companies. But this is not the look for the front of my house…and I question the plastic, holes
and seals for exterior desert use.
Eaton: electrical is getting smarter and safer. This dongle is a code reader for the newest electrical circuits coming out from Eaton.
Aquor: their house hydrants have two different attachments depending on your needs.
Aqua Reign. Impressive. Very impressive. Imagine hosting an event with one of these.
Dauber Stopper: I know I’ve already covered how it is an excellent way to stop anything from getting in your drain lines. It was great to see them in Las Vegas. The surprise for us on our visit with Modern AC Products was the photo in the center of the display. Look familiar? 😉
Norbord Quakeboard. Tough stuff.
@buildingsciencefightclub. Most excellent building science weather related advice. Follow her.
Huberwood Social Media awards…maybe next year. 🤣
@awesomeframers. They are awesome. For real…you never knew how much you want to know about framing. Follow them.
Yardbird Southern Table and Bar. Yardbird or chicken?
An event at Tao.
No luck needed with these tokens.
An event at Commonwealth.
Freemont Street experience.
Ahhh…the elevator.
Tell me in the comments below if you could walk by slabs of granite without touching even one. 😉
Going up the escalator at South hall. Just to give you an idea for the sheer size of the event.
Hammer contest at HBI.
Alfred keyless entry deadbolts. Very sleek and sexy with some really smart features like the ability to bury a passcode along with power on the keypad and deadbolt mechanism when the battery
dies.
Silldry: quick install and the ability to flex with the house as well as only one piece of injection molded theroplastic olefin (TPO) for the entire sill pan flashing, this is an innovative solution for keeping the holes for your windows from leaking into the rest of the wall.
Friendly people everywhere. Some even are willing to share eyedrops!
Endura’s FusionFrame simplifies and makes for a better door install.
GE Cafe display with a well known chef…the problem is I do HGTV not Food Network. Anyone know?
That leather nailhead refrigerator sure is gorgeous.
Had to look in the yellow refrigerator…there was nothing as exciting as the fully loaded wine fridge right next to it.
More keyless entry deadbolt sound challenge contestants!
Stellar Hearth. Which end is up with this fireplace?
Our girls love the color changing rubber ducks from Johns Manville. Dragons too! Even if our plinko tokens did not go in our desired prize.
Genuwine Cellars. A wine cellar like no other.
3M water resistant sticky notes.
Bumperless Door Saver 3. Almost too small to see…making it very attractive.
Kohler’s complete customization color wheel.
Kohler’s creative use on a neutral jedi or sith blade. Admit it…you saw a lightsaber too! It would be really cool if you could change the color of the lights…red, blue or green, anyone?
Pfister’s 30 second faucet install challenge. While removing the old one might take closer to 30 hours to remove, installing this new one is a breeze.
Jump in Elkay’s swimming pool.
Meeting new friends from familiar places like Norfolk, NE!
You know it’s over when they are rolling up the carpet.
And you still have to at least walk out to the bus, find a rose, walk to through the hotel, race to get the elevator to work, go back out, walk around a revolving door an extra time, and dance on your way back to the hotel.
Did I mention there was a lot of walking?
You wouldn’t know it from watching the video, but we also went to classes. If you get the education package you also get access to the classes online. So if you prioritize walking the floor and meeting people you aren’t missing out.
2020 International Builder Show is in the books. Can’t wait for the next IBS in Las Vegas in three years.
