Coverings 2009

ChrWright

Staying reasonably close (downtown at The James).

Lunch perhaps? I know there are two or three restaurants in McCormick Place between the convention halls and the hotel. Perhaps we could meet up there.

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Christopher Wright, CR: President @ WrightWorks, LLC/President @ Central Indiana NARI, Named to the 2010 REMODELING Big50
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Indianapolis Kitchen Remodeling Contractor - You Can Get There From Here

angus242

Last call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So only myself, Chris and olzo are going?

Anyone else?

If interested in meeting up, PM me. I'm definitely going Tues-Thurs. Friday is optional as there's only 1 workshop I'd be interested in then.

Angus

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Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

angus242

Day #1
Excellent! Did 4 workshops but most interesting was the one about Shower Forensics and Moisture Management. WATERPROOF!!!!!!

Also got to see a sneak peak at some new Schluter products.

Saw lots of new style mosaics (not typical 1" squares) and many colorbody porcelain that looks like other materials; fabric, metal, concrete, metal, etc.

Looking forward to more tomorrow.

__________________
Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

Rockwood

Did you all make it through the south hall? I saw a mastic that remains wet so the tile can be easily removed or changed. The tile sizer was a neat clamping device for cutting small pieces and there was a new arcus blade cutting curves in tiles. The recycled glass tiles is being promoted for the Leed certified building material. I'm going back on Friday to see what I missed.

angus242

Yes, the Arcus blade is awesome. If you don't know what it is, check it out:
http://www.arcusblade.com/
I believe the wood blade has been discussed around here (tools?) before but the tile blade is just as cool.
I didn't see much in the way of tools that impressed me much. I did talk with the Felker guys quite q bit. Apparently, they are discontinuing all small saw from the FTS-150 and under, INCLUDING the TM-75. Plans for replacements are either top secret or not yet planned. Either way, once current stock is sold, the smallest Felker you'll be able to by is the Tile Master.
Porcelain tiles are getting big....I mean HUGE. I saw 3' x 6'. Thinset manufacturers are also releasing med. bed mortar to set the bigass tiles with. As a matter of fact Mapei was giving away 10, yes 10 bags of their new medium bed poly mortar.
Lots of membranes and waterproofing systems.
As I said, Schluter's intruducing a new product later this year. Talked with John Bridge about it for about 30 mins. I think it's a great concept but I think there'll be a lot of skeptics. I admit, I'm one of em. And I'm sure it will be expensive compared to the competition.
2009 TCNA handbook is out and they gave it away free.
One tidbit I thought was postive was how proactive the NTCA is getting with trying to create industry STANDARDS. They are really going to bat for us. Designers want 18"x36" ceramic wall tile with 1/16" grout lines. NTCA is telling them to F-OFF!
This was my first Coverings but I was told that attendence was way down as were exhibitors. I guess the Chicago show is always a bit light on exhibitors because of the costs. One vendor told me because of the union contracts, they are not able to set up their own booths. This particular vendor had 8 halogen lights to install above his display. He was charged $8000 to have a union electrican do it! Welcome to Chicago!

On a side note, Italian women can be very hot!!!!!

__________________
Angus
L+M+O+P=C
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise"

ChrWright

I wasn't really blown away by anything in particular. I enjoyed meeting Angus and Olzo, and having time away with my wife more than anything else.

There were indeed a great many varieties of tile and stone on display. But it was clear these folks were there to make contacts with distributors and showrooms. It's not that they were rude by any means, but they definitely didn't put a lot of effort into promoting their products to the end user.

I'm sure this is likely the nature of the show--but for such a long one(4 days) I would have thought they would have promoted better to those who specify. Angus caught a whole lot more of the conferences than I did, so I can't really speak to how good those were.

A few materials which stick out in my mind:

A couple of companies from Italy were showing a porcelain sheet, which looked to be around 1/8" thick and available up to 3'x9'. I can't imagine how they ship it oversees and keep it from chipping/busting. They were showing it as a layover material for existing tile floors and as a large accent material.

I've never been a fan of porcelain or ceramic tiles that are trying to be something else--limestone, slate, etc. However, the technology to imprint these designs into porcelain is improving. There were a number of companies showing porcelains that looked pretty damn close to real stone. Florida Tile had one of the largest booths at the show and their entire area was tiled in a large format porcelain that looks identical to real slate--from afar anyway. It had all of the randomness of color and pattern and I didn't see two tiles that looked identical. Although you could tell there was some relief and texture to it (to mimic real stone) when you got up close the facade quickly fell away. It almost feels like a textured laminate countertop. I can't imagine the cost being less than real slate--so the only real benefit I can see is the guaging and maintenance factor. Which for me isn't worth it. A properly installed and sealed slate floor beats it hands down--in my book anyway.

One exception I thought looked cool was a porcelain called TOUCH by STONEPEAK that looked and was textured like leather--and had a relief cut around the border to look like stitching.

http://www.stonepeakceramics.com/pro...OUCH&linea=INK

As Angus also mentioned, everyone and their brother was showing glass mosaics and given the "green" thrust to everything these days they were all pushing the recycled element. Most were fair to average in looks. Several are now combining glass with stone in their mosaic mats as Oceanside started doing several years ago. Several had a multi size, round format that was just plain hideous. The larger pieces of this particular blend were domed and in the darker colors the material looked like a sheet of bug eyes.

The biggest "gee wizz" for me was in the granite/slab machine area. There were half a dozen or so machines that were so big I wondered how the hell they got them in there--CNC cutting, polishing and carving machines that could turn a slab of stone into just about any size and shape you can imagine.

There were also a few companies there with laser and computer assisted templating systems for counters. My granite company has one of these computer layout systems ($20,000) and it's a pretty cool concept. They set the thing on the island (a blue box about 12"x16" with a touchscreen and keypad) and take a metal stylus pen (on a retractable cable) and trace out the outer points of the cabinets. The computer then creates a layout of the cabinetry that they can plug into their saws back at the shop. For a large shop I'm sure the cost is well worth it in time and error reduction.

On the installation side, there were some major players missing. Laticrete had no booth and neither did Custom. I didn't really look at Mapei very closely as I don't use their products. There were a couple of heated floor systems but several big names were missing.

Schluter's booth was across from Wedi and the contrast couldn't have been more stark between the quality of their systems--at least from my point of view. I only wish I could have hung around the Wedi booth for a while to listen in on the comments from an old school tile setter or two.

For a builder or installer, this is a good show to go to every few years just to survey what's out there. I doubt I'll go next year but I'm glad to have seen it.

__________________

Christopher Wright, CR: President @ WrightWorks, LLC/President @ Central Indiana NARI, Named to the 2010 REMODELING Big50
www.WrightWorks.net - Facebook - Twitter - Carmel Remodeling
Indianapolis Kitchen Remodeling Contractor - You Can Get There From Here