Issue Date:3/11/2002
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Issue Date:3/11/2002
Hardwood Floors E-News
From Hardwood Floors magazine and NWFA
Monday, March 11, 2002
Issue 180
Next issue published March 25
Deadline for items March 21
Send news to [email protected]
NWFA Advanced School Held Feb. 28-March 2 in St. Louis
Thirty-six students learned advanced installation techniques such as custom borders, parquet, medallions and mixed media at the NWFA Advanced School held earlier this month. The sponsoring distributor was Lockwood Flooring (St. Louis, Mo.). Volunteer instructors led by NWFA's Steve Seabaugh included Wayne Lee, Alto U.S.; Brent Sorbet, Basic Coatings; John Blesing and Evandro Carvalho, Blesing's Flooring; Mike Farrell, BonaKemi USA; Leonard Hall, Endurance Floor Co.; Jim Boone, Festool; Joe Weinmann, Floor One; Tom Peotter, Historic Floors of Oshkosh Inc.; Chuck Crispin, Legendary Hardwood Floors; Frank Kroupa, R & R Hardwood Floors; Mark Scheller, Scheller Hardwood Floors; Bob Bailey, Artisan Hardwood Floors Inc.; Kevin Mullany, Benchmark Wood Floors Inc.; Howard Brickman, Brickman Consulting; Rod Brown, Phoenix Hardwood Floors Inc. and Michael Osborn, Start to Finish Hardwood Floors.
By the Numbers
After a strong performance in the final three months of 2001, sales of new homes dropped nearly 15 percent in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 823,000 units, the Census Department recently reported.
Residential remodeling flattened out in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the National Association of Home Builders' latest Remodeling Market Index (RMI). During the fourth quarter, the RMI for current market conditions dropped slightly to a 45 rating while future market conditions registered a 42.8 rating, barely higher than the third-quarter score. Both the current market and future market indices remained unchanged in the fourth quarter of 2001 compared with the previous quarter, which was down substantially from the first half of the year. Despite weaker activity in the market during the last six months of the year, the NAHB expects consumer expenditures for remodeling in 2001 to total $161 billion, up 5 percent from the previous year, and the strongest year on record for this segment of the construction industry.
Contracting for new construction in January 2002 increased 2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $491.4 billion, according to the Dodge division of The McGraw-Hill Companies' Construction Information Group. January's data raised the Dodge Index to 148, up from a reading of 145 for the previous two months. For all of 2001, the Dodge Index averaged 147.
People News
David A. Nemes has been named the marketing and sales consultant for Karelia Ltd. (West Vancouver, British Columbia) in the United States and Canada. Nemes will be working out of Vancouver and can be reached at 604/922-5481.
Applicator & More... Ltd. (Paterson, N.J.) has named Paul Dimitriou president and Olga Dimitriou vice president of the company.
Steve Harper has joined Douglas Hardwood Floors LLC (Shrewsbury, Mass.) as the company's sales manager. Harper was most recently with Eddy's Carpet, where he managed the hardwood/laminate flooring department. He can be reached at 800/698-1120 or by e-mail at [email protected]
HomerWood Hardwood Flooring (Titusville, Pa.) has appointed Randy Weed to expand its distributor base in the United States and abroad. Most recently with Weyerhaeuser's hardwood division specializing in distribution, retail and home center development, Weed joins current sales representatives Sandy Day and Wendy Wescoat.
Alex Knauss has joined BonaKemi USA Inc. (Aurora, Colo.) as the western sport sales manager for Bona Sport, a division of BonaKemi USA Inc. Knauss will be based in Portland, Ore.
Dri-Eaz (Burlington, Wash.), a manufacturer of restorative drying equipment, has added David Brinkley to its sales department as eastern regional sales manager. Brinkley will be responsible for representing the company to its restoration customers in the eastern half of the United States. Brinkley will operate out of his office in Gallatin, Tenn.
Manufacturer News
BonaKemi USA Inc. (Aurora, Colo.) has purchased the manufacturing facilities of Rampart Coatings Inc. in Pueblo, Colo. Rampart has manufactured, mixed and filled paint and polyurethanes for manufacturing and wholesale distribution since 1989. "This acquisition will greatly expand our manufacturing capabilities of solvent-based finishes and stains, as well as locally produced waterborne finishes and maintenance products," said BonaKemi USA COO Ron Peden. The newly acquired plant contains 25,000 square feet of production, laboratory testing and research space, in addition to an office complex and warehouse space, on four acres of land.
Armstrong Holdings Inc. (Lancaster, Pa.) recently reported its fourth quarter 2001 net sales of $736.5 million were 2.1 percent higher than in the fourth quarter of 2000. Total sales for 2001 declined 3.5 percent to $3.14 billion from $3.25 billion in 2000. Wood flooring net sales of $654.3 million in 2001 were down 4.4 percent from $684.6 million in 2000, due to lower volume and weaker pricing within the independent wholesaler channel.
Finition UV Crystal Inc. (St. Tite, Québec) is expanding and installing a new finishing line in its facility in St. Tite, Québec. This expansion doubles its capacity to prefinish hardwood flooring as a subcontractor.
HomerWood Hardwood Flooring recently installed two new Doucet DH endmatchers. The endmatchers are the final part of a two-year capital campaign to improve the precision of the company's unfinished and prefinished flooring tolerances.
Karelia Ltd. (West Vancouver, British Columbia) recently launched its sales and marketing operations in North America. Karelia is an ISO 9001 manufacturer of precision-made, prefinished engineered flooring. To date, Karelia is distributed by Timber Realization Company in western Canada, by NRF Distributors in New England and New York, by Gold Coast Flooring Supply in the city of New York and surrounding market areas, by Intermountain Wood Products in the mountain states and by Crescent Hardwood Floors in New Orleans and the surrounding market area.
Lord Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of coatings and adhesives, and Treffert Holdings International, a manufacturer of acrylic UV and waterborne coatings for wood products, announce a new joint venture, L/T Technologies. The venture, headquartered in Cary, N.C., will manufacture, distribute and service finishing systems for the wood flooring, wood panel and joinery industries of North, Central and South America. For more information, contact L/T Technologies' General Manager Stephen Howe at 919/467-5808, ext. 2001, or e-mail [email protected].
Builder magazine has acknowledged Bruce Hardwood Floors (Addison, Texas) as the most-used, highest-quality hardwood floor in the industry. Builder said Bruce leads the industry in four categories: brand familiarity, brand used within the past two years, brand used most and brand quality.
Contract Floor magazine, an English floor covering magazine, recently honored Tsh Products Sdn Bhd (Malaysia) with the Best Wood Supplier Award 2001 in the Engineered Hardwood Flooring category. In 2000, the company was honored with the Best Supplier Award in the Solid Wood category.
Distributor News
Shelman USA (Red Bank, N.J.) announces that its exclusive distributor for the states of Utah, Wyoming and Idaho is National Wood Products Inc. (Salt Lake City, Utah). Hoboken Floors (Wayne, N.J.) will distribute in Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, western New York and Vermont.