IBS 2011 – Day 2 Roundup

IBS 2011 – Day 2 Highlights

Today was another great day at the International Builder’s Show. I wanted to quickly highlight some great products that caught my eye. We’ll post some more detailed information about some of these in the coming weeks but these were so cool that I wanted to quickly mention them.

Therma-Tru Vented Sidelights

One of the most impressive door products that I’ve seen in quite some time is the all new Therma-Tru Vented Sidelights. Today there are so many options for stunning entrance doors and patio doors with beautiful finishes. These doors become focal points on homes and no one wants to cover them up with screen doors.

So the challenge has always been how do you create a screen door that won’t cover up that beauty. At this years IBS I got a chance to see Therma-Tru’s new vented sidelights which allow you to insert a screen on the sidelights and open them much like a door.

As you can see in the photo the sidelight opens up and allows you to get air in while keeping the front door clear of screens. This new offering includes 3 point safety locking systems and a variety of decorative glass offerings. We’ll write much more on this exciting new offering from Therma-Tru in the coming weeks.

Trex RainEscape – Deck Drainage System

Today while visiting with the folks at Trex I had the pleasure of seeing a very cool product that really caught my eye. Every now and then we build a deck that has some sort of living space below it. This might be an elevated deck for a balcony from a bedroom with a screen porch below or a more formal finished space with a deck above it.

The real challenge for decks like this is dealing with water. Traditionally many of these decks end up with a membrane roof or some variation of that. The new RainEscape Deck Drainage System from Trex solves that problem with a very easy to install system.

In the picture above you can see a sample deck with the RainEscape product installed. It consists of a plastic drainage trough which dumps water into a plastic scupper. The system is prefabricated for standard framing dimensions (i.e. 16″ on center). After installing the system the seams are taped and then decking is installed. A standard gutter can then be installed below to collect the water.

I’ll post more on this great new product in the coming weeks but I wanted to share it briefly here. This was certainly one of the more exciting products that I saw today at the show.

More To Come From IBS 2011

Tomorrow we’ll finish off another full day at the 2011 IBS. There are so many great products to talk about and we’ll be sure to bring many more to you in the coming days!