AHR - What Products Caught You Eye

Steve Thompson (Taco)

Ray, totally agree the RPA event was truly a gathering of legends!

I'm curious and have a question for all Wallies that attended. What products caught your eye and why? Your impressions and opinion are of great interest to us.

Thanks for those that joined us at our Taco event Monday - set a new attendance record!

rick in Alaska

Surprisingly, one of the products that caught my eye was a reversible nut driver head. 1/4 inch magnetic stem with a double ended socket that had 1/4" on one side and 5/16" on the other end. You can clean metal shavings by taking socket off and cleaning end of stem. Very cool.
The Grundfos Solara is a pump I am about to install when I make it back home, and was able to get a lot more details from the Grundfos team there. Nice pump for cisterns.
There was so much there it was hard to remember what I even saw. Seems like quite a bit of what I was interested in were things I already new about.
On a different note, it seems like on Monday as I was going in and out of displays, that no one was paying any attention to me. I Kind of expected with a show like that, and with a lot of the vendors with as many as seven people, I would have thought anyone who got near their display would of had someone asking if they could answer any questions. Most of the guys were just standing around talking to each other, and not paying attention to who was there. It took a bit of doing to get their attention to get questions answered. Seemed odd to for first day. Second day was better, and I got quite a bit of info from vendors.
Rick

hot_rod

rick in Alaska said:

Surprisingly, one of the products that caught my eye was a reversible nut driver head. 1/4 inch magnetic stem with a double ended socket that had 1/4" on one side and 5/16" on the other end. You can clean metal shavings by taking socket off and cleaning end of stem. Very cool.
The Grundfos Solara is a pump I am about to install when I make it back home, and was able to get a lot more details from the Grundfos team there. Nice pump for cisterns.
There was so much there it was hard to remember what I even saw. Seems like quite a bit of what I was interested in were things I already new about.
On a different note, it seems like on Monday as I was going in and out of displays, that no one was paying any attention to me. I Kind of expected with a show like that, and with a lot of the vendors with as many as seven people, I would have thought anyone who got near their display would of had someone asking if they could answer any questions. Most of the guys were just standing around talking to each other, and not paying attention to who was there. It took a bit of doing to get their attention to get questions answered. Seemed odd to for first day. Second day was better, and I got quite a bit of info from vendors.
Rick

I think you mean the new driver from Klein Tool tool? Very clever. I suggested they add a 7/16 nut driver in the handle as others do.

Nothing drives me more crazy the seeing a group of booth people talking to one another and avoiding customers, what a waste of time and money. It is not a rare occurrence.

We should do a video of that some year and send it around

The Veto tool bags and packs are cool, and the owner/ designer has a lot of passion about his product.

I liked the custom heat exchangers at the Energy Transfer booth, including the miniature one that look like a piece of string!

Amazing also how much waste at the end of the show when booths are torn down.

The entire Chinese mini split booth across from us was broken up and hauled to the dump, most of those off shore company booths are scrapped. Some of the expo workers were scavenging all sorts of equipment that was left behind as trash.
Wish I had my truck with me

Congratulation to Taco for the award of the DHW control.

Tinman

@hot rod It would have been nice if they had thought about it for one minute and donated it all to a local trade school or someone else in need. What a waste!

hot_rod

Stephen Minnich said:

@hot rod It would have been nice if they had thought about it for one minute and donated it all to a local trade school or someone else in need. What a waste!

Most of those large off shore company booths were being scrapped. It's probably a fraction of the cost of sending it back across the ocean, same with some of their products. You could build a bunch of tiny homes for the homeless population, heat cool and furnish them with the scrap from that show. It happens at every show.

Maybe the Chicago AHR event next year would donate the left behind goods to Habitat for Humanity or some group. A good project for those ASHRAE engineers

Tinman

I do a lot of work for non-profits in Chicago...Neighborhhod Housing Services, Preservation of Affordable Housing, Elevate Energy and others. I also use to teach (adjunct faculty) at a community college where that kind of stuff would be invaluable. There are all kinds of opportunities here.

@hotrod Tell me if there's anything I can do to help and I will.