Frank Webb’s Bath & Lighting Center opens in Concord, N.H.
Bedford, Mass. — Frank Webb’s Bath & Lighting Center recently opened at 46 Henniker Street in Concord, N.H. This is the 27th showroom location for this growing chain and the fourth to showcase lighting for the home.
“We’re pleased to continue our expansion,” said Jeff Pope, president of F.W. Webb Company, the parent corporation of Frank Webb’s Bath Centers. “In this economy, homeowners are looking for solid remodeling information to help them make the right choices. We offer a real alternative when planning a bath or kitchen renovation. Unlike big home improvement stores, we provide personal service and love it when customers ask questions.
“Our showroom staff is not on commission, which is a real difference. This removes any hidden agenda and allows our team to really listen to the customer and provide the best product guidance for their project.”
According to Toni Michaud, manager of the new center, while the bathroom is often the smallest room in the home, it typically takes the most effort to plan, build or remodel, especially these days, when the product choices can seem overwhelming. Frank Webb’s Bath Center offers working displays that allow customers to actually experience how water will cascade from a faucet or how a steam shower looks and feels or how a whirlpool tub with air jets differs from one with water jets.
According to F.W. Webb management, Frank Webb’s Bath Centers has carefully considered what customers are looking for and designed this unique retail chain to address those needs. The showroom displays a wide array of quality brands, including toto, American Standard, Grohe, Jacuzzi, Murray Feiss and many others. Customers will find everything from the toilet and tub to the towel bars, as well as vanities, lighting, mirrors and accessories. Homeowners also find kitchen sinks, faucets and whirlpool products at every location.
If a customer doesn’t have an installer, the showroom staff will put them in touch with quality resources in the area of their project. Homeowners will be treated with the same care, whether they are purchasing a replacement toilet or faucet or building a new home with luxury kitchens and baths.
While Frank Webb’s invites local contractors and designers to come learn about new products and to use the showrooms as an extension of their firms, homeowners are welcome to walk in and browse, research and purchase in any of the showrooms. Michaud explained that the company’s new website offers tips on how to start your project and what to bring as far as project measurements to make the most out of your first visit.
“Many times the product options available will be impacted by the space you are working in,” she explained. “When you are trying to replace fixtures, it is important to communicate what is now in place so that we can give you every option available to maximize your space and budget.”
To learn more about Frank Webb’s Bath Center in Concord, call 603/717-3085 or visit www.frankwebb.com.
George T. Sanders hosts 3rd Annual Field Marketing Summit
Wheat Ridge, Colo. — Friday, February 13th was far from superstitious for those attending George T. Sanders’ 3rd annual Field Marketing Summit. Instead it was a day filled with looking into the future and of high hopes amidst all the economic turmoil. Gts employees gathered with local representatives from 12 Affiliated Distributor vendors at the Sheraton Denver Tech Center Hotel in Greenwood Village, Colo., to plan a year full of exciting new sales goals and events.
A-D is a nationally known buying and marketing group that serves independent distributors of plumbing, PVF, HVAC, electrical and general line industrial supplies. George T. Sanders Company has been a member since 2001 and expects to stay an active member in the years to come.
It is important to members of A-D to stay involved through events like the Field Marketing Summit because it allows relationships to be built, strengthened and continued between supplier and distributor. It has also been proven to increase sales for both parties and benefit consumers. It is a win-win situation for all, which is why A-D strongly encourages distributors to host this event every year.
The Field Marketing Summit is similar to the North American Meeting hosted by A-D every year only on a smaller and more local scale. It is beneficial to have everyone gathered in the same place for an entire day to organize the best course of action for each market. Suppliers meet with gts branch managers and salespersons for 20 minutes each to discuss plans for the coming year, which may include but are not limited to; employee training, end-user training, sales incentives, open houses, counter days, joint sales calls and any other variety of events.
George T. Sanders is excited about the opportunities the Field Marketing Summit will provide as 2009 unfolds, especially with their new stores in Casper and Cody, Wyo. Houston Supply in Wyoming, now a Division of George T. Sanders Company, will also be able to participate in events with the A-D suppliers. And with 14 locations, George T. anders can now better serve the markets in both Colorado and Wyoming.
George T. Sanders and Houston Supply have been proudly servicing the needs of the professional plumbing and heating trades for over 50 years. For additional information, contact the main office at 303/426-9660 or visit www.gtsanders.com.
Geothermal technology poised to support economic recovery and long-term energy goals
Washington, D.C. — The federal economic stimulus package is intended to create and save 3.6 million jobs and to jumpstart the economy with economic recovery tax cuts and targeted investments. In addition to putting money back in the pockets of consumers and businesses, the package also includes provisions that will help achieve long-term goals, such as improving energy efficiency in both the public and private sectors.
Among those provisions, the plan calls for a disbursement of $6.9 billion to state and local governments for energy efficiency upgrades and the reduction of carbon emissions, which amounts to an average of $100 million to each state. By investing a portion of this $100 million in rebates or low interest loans to homeowners who replace their old fossil fuel or electric furnaces with geothermal heat pumps, the country would make progress toward the goals of the stimulus package. States that have invested in similar programs were able to create hundreds of “green collar” jobs while significantly increasing energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.
An additional state $2,000 rebate on the purchase of a geothermal heat pump — or the availability of low interest loans — could generate 200 heat pump sales every month in a typical state, or 2,400 geothermal heat pump unit sales at the end of the first year. Further, every 18 heat pump installations can create one new job. This means that, by the end of the first year, 133 new green collar jobs can be created (2,400 units divided by 18 installations per job). At $2,000 per unit, the total cost of a job creation/energy efficiency rebate program would be $4.8 million over the course of a year.
Every geothermal heat pump requires 24 hours of manufacturing labor and 32 hours of installation labor. Small businesses involved in the installation include heating and air-conditioning contractors, electricians, plumbers, excavators and drilling machine operators. These businesses have the capacity and technical skills to begin installing green geothermal technology in more homes immediately.
Reduced carbon footprint. In addition to creating jobs, a rebate program and the ensuing installation of geothermal heat pumps would cut an average four metric tons of carbon emissions per year per unit, due to the high energy-efficiency of geothermal heat pump technology. This means that, for the average unit life of 24.4 years, 97.6 metric tons of emissions could be eliminated over the lifetime of each unit and 234,240 tons over the lifetime of every 2,400 units sold through a state rebate program.
A recent paper published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimated that aggressive deployment of geothermal heat pumps could achieve 35% to 40% of a recommended carbon reduction path for the U.S. building sector.
If every state takes at least 5% of the funding available through the energy efficiency portion of the stimulus package and invests it in a geothermal heat pump incentive, there couldn’t be a more cost effective, greener way to put people back to work, save fossil fuel, reduce carbon emissions and save homeowners thousands of dollars per year for the next 24 years. It’s the stimulus that keeps on stimulating.
The stimulus package funding is critical to a U.S. heating and air-conditioning industry that has been hit hard by the recession. The collapse of the residential new construction market and the lack of consumer financing have slammed the industry over the past two years, and heating system sales were down to levels not seen since 1970.
Geothermal heat pumps are built by manufacturers in the U.S. at domestic plants in nine states, and geothermal systems are operating and saving energy in all 50 states and are being exported around the globe.
To learn more, call the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium at 888/255-4436 or visit www.GeoExchange.org.
PACE Supply opens three new branches
Santa Rosa, Calif. — Pace Supply Corporation, a Santa Rosa-based wholesale plumbing distributor announced the opening of three new branch locations. The 32,000-square-foot Santa Clara location opened in March. The 39,000-square-foot Oakland location and the 42,000-square-foot San Francisco location will open in April.
At a time when many companies in the construction sector are cutting jobs, pace is hiring workers, adding about 90 employees, including warehouse workers, truck drivers and sales staff, bringing its head count to 365.
Pace is looking to diversify by entering new markets in the Bay Area’s urban core. It’s a new direction for the company, which, until now, focused on Northern California’s suburban and rural construction markets. With the expansion, pace will be selling equipment for high-rise office buildings and other large commercial projects.
Along with the expansion of its commercial division, pace has brought on board a team of people whose expertise is commercial hydronics — a business that has close ties to the mechanical contractors in the Bay Area.
PERC identifies drainline transport as first joint project
Chicago — The newly named Plumbing Efficiency Research Coalition (perc), formed through a Memorandum of Understanding, has identified drainline transport as its first research project. The Coalition is comprised of five industry organizations seeking to conduct much-needed research in a number of areas.
Representing the Coalition on the initial conference call to establish the first project were: Mary Ann Dickinson, Alliance for Water Efficiency; Pete De Marco, International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials; Jay Peters, International Code Council; Ike Casey, Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association and Barbara Higgens, Plumbing Manufacturers Institute.
Iapmo’s Pete DeMarco will serve as project coordinator for this inaugural research study and will also chair the technical committee assigned to the project. Each of the five member associations of perc has named a representative to this committee. The first order of business is to define the parameters of the project.
With the enactment of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, all water closets (toilets) manufactured in or imported into the U.S. were required to flush no more than a maximum average of 1.6 U.S. gallons, effective January 1, 1994, for residential models and January 1, 1997, for all models. At that time, concern for drainline transport efficacy was voiced by many in the plumbing trade and those in various professional associations. In response to significant consumer complaints about poor flush performance, early reporting and research on 1.6 gallon per flush water closet models focused primarily on the flush efficacy of the various models on the market. Intermittent and anecdotal complaints of drainline transport problems were not thoroughly researched and were largely attributed to older or faulty sanitary drainlines. Since then, water closet manufacturers have made great strides in improving flushing performance.
Recently, the need to find additional efficiencies on water-consuming plumbing fixtures has resulted in the creation of voluntary specifications that eliminate another 20% from the flush discharge volume of water closets, bringing consumption down to a maximum average of 1.28 gpf. These toilets are known as high efficiency toilets. Some water closet manufacturers are now voluntarily offering models that flush at 1.0 gpf. This activity has rightfully raised the debate of drainline carry efficacy anew. Many plumbing experts are concerned that we are at or approaching a “tipping point,” where a significant number of sanitary waste systems will be affected by drainline transport problems, especially in larger commercial systems that have long horizontal runs to the sewer. Drainline transport problems have recently been reported in Europe and Australia, further raising concerns.
Looking forward, newer technologies, such as non-water consuming and high efficiency urinals, lower flow rate faucets and increasingly efficient water consuming appliances will further reduce the amount of water discharged into sanitary waste systems. Greywater reuse systems — systems that collect discharged water from lavatory basins, clothes washers, bathtubs and shower fixtures for reuse, usually for irrigation purposes - is another emerging technology that significantly reduces wastewater in residential sanitary drainage systems. Yet, to date, an extensive research project of sufficient scope to be able to determine whether significant problems could arise regarding drainline transport has yet to be conducted.
The Plumbing Efficiency Research Coalition was founded to develop research projects that will support the development of water efficiency and sustainable plumbing products, systems and practices. Projects will be financed through government grants, foundations and private financing.
Lawson Managed Services helps simplify ERP ownership for Lawson Software customers
St. Paul, Minn. — Lawson Software provided an update on customer adoption of Lawson Managed Services, which includes Lawson Application Management and Lawson Managed Hosting. These services are designed to help companies and organizations minimize or eliminate the infrastructure or administrative costs of owning enterprise applications.
As organizations across industries today are seeking efficient, flexible and more cost effective means of deploying their enterprise software systems, Lawson said that more than 85 of its customers worldwide are now using Lawson Managed Services for their enterprise resource planning (erp) applications. These customers represent companies and organizations across many of the specific markets Lawson serves, including healthcare, public sector, food, fashion, manufacturing, distribution and equipment service management.
Lawson Application Management is designed for customers who want to control their information but don’t want to manage their software. It’s a tailored suite of services that includes application modification maintenance, performance tuning, patch management and support desk capabilities, all provided by Lawson Professional Services.
Lawson Managed Hosting provides companies and organizations the choice of hosting their applications with Lawson and the ability to access them for a single monthly fee. It includes application maintenance and critical incident support and is for customers who want a simplified ownership experience within a traditional licensing model and with lower long-term cost of ownership, and it gives customers a less expensive option than hosting their business applications themselves. This frees information technology resources for other initiatives and reduces the staff required to manage the system. In addition, Lawson Managed Hosting helps give customers service-level and pricing predictability, measurable return on investment and reliability with contractually committed service levels.
Lawson Managed Services provides service level agreement-based managed services that best align with the customer’s cost structure and in-house expertise. With Lawson Application Management, organizations and companies can adjust the program to their needs and requirements as they evolve over time.
Lawson Professional Services provides a full range of services to help customers prepare, implement and educate employees on Lawson applications. Lawson employs consultants who have thorough software and industry-specific knowledge to provide customers information on business and software best practices. Lawson also provides comprehensive implementation, learning and software management services.
For details, visit www.lawson.com.
Master Distributors offers current sensors from Tamura Corporation
Santa Monica, Calif. — Master Distributors, a leading distributor of electro-mechanical, interconnect and passive components, offers Tamura Corporation’s line of closed loop hall effect current sensors, including the newest addition to the line: the S23P Series. An ideal solution for the global industrial and power electronics marketplace, the S23P series delivers fast response, galvanic isolation and zero insertion loss.
“We’re excited to offer the industry’s leading closed loop current sensors,” said Master Distributors president Ike Nizam. “These products provide our customers with a cost-effective method for attaining wide power bandwidth and superior accuracy.”
PCB mount current sensors, the Tamura S23P series features an integrated primary conductor designed to the industry-standard package and pin-out. The S23P is rated for operation in the industrial temperature range (-40°C to +85°C) with industry-standard performance. The series includes the S23P50/100D15 (K = 1:2000) and the S23P50/100D15M1 (K = 1:1000), both of which operate from ±12VDC to ±15VDC PS. Samples for evaluation are available upon request.
For additional information, visit www.masterdistributors.com.