Summary
¦ Interbuild attracted about 17,000 visitors.
¦ Timber company attendance was low.
¦ Proctor Group is expanding availability of Maibec cladding.
¦ Irish sawmills had a strong presence.

It’s been impossible to visit Interbuild these last two years without comparing the show to how it used to be.

Back in 2004 there were 50,000 visitors and 1,200 exhibitors, with a big timber presence, be it joinery, engineered timber or cladding. It rightly laid claim to being the UK’s biggest construction products exhibition.

But since then it’s been getting smaller. Partitions screening off unsold space are more noticeable, as is the reduced footfall and smaller number of timber firms.

Anticipation of the government’s spending review, announced during the 2010 event, and its expected impact on construction was a spectre hovering over this year’s show.

The 2010 figures will make grim reading for organiser EMAP – just 12,000 people visited the main part of Interbuild – the Built Environment Solutions & Technologies (BEST) Show and the Infrastructure Show, which had a strong emphasis on low carbon.

Combined with the interlinked Interbuild Onsite exhibition, which featured tools and vehicles (4,929 visitors) and Glassex (2,192 visitors), total attendance was about 17,000 people.

In parallel with this shrinkage, the rival Ecobuild show has grown exponentially, with many former Interbuild exhibitors and visitors now seemingly choosing the London event.

Changes

The recent recession can’t have helped, while organiser initiatives to take the show forward, including moving the timing of the show (from spring to autumn), going annually and renaming the main part of the show (dropping the Interbuild branding) do not appear to have had a positive effect.

All in all it’s tricky to see where they go with it from here.

BEST show director David Pierpoint admitted that dropping the Interbuild name from the main part of the show may have hit attendance this year, but he maintained that the event had gained power specifiers and construction professionals, delivering a “strong buying dynamic” to the show.

“In the first year of BEST, our promise to exhibitors has been about quality of attendee,” said Mr Pierpoint. He reported a very strong exhibitor rebook for next year.

Business pitches

Looking on the positive side, and forgetting the show’s history, it’s still not a bad event and the timber companies that did attend made a good pitch for business.

A Proctor Group had wall-to-wall timber cladding on its stand under the banner “Love wood, love warranties, love cladding”.

The display included pre-finished Maibec products from Canada featuring a 50-year guarantee against wood decay and an 18-year guarantee on the stained finish; pre-finished Royale cladding (treated with Osmose’s Royale treatment process) with a 30-year warranty against decay; and Regent products (treated with Osmose’s MicroPro preservative system) which confers a lighter, more “natural” appearance.

Proctor’s Duncan Kirkwood told TTJ that the company was planning a new initiative in the first quarter of 2011 which would transform the availability of Maibec cladding.

At the moment Proctor is on a lead time from Canada of 8-12 weeks and imports a 40ft container of Maibec every other month – about 1,500m². “We’re looking to establish three depots to make Maibec an off-the-shelf product in standard colours and profiles,” said Mr Kirkwood. “It’s about the speed of getting the product to the customer.”

He said the Regent product was starting to gain momentum, with several trials with national housebuilders. Proctor has been picking up enquiries from builders who have had problems with larch and cedar.

Jeld-Wen product manager Tony Pell reported some good contacts made at the show. The company displayed an engineered, finger-jointed window it is supplying in large numbers to Barratt’s Code Level 6 development Hanham Hall, with the emphasis on the installation method designed to cut down on air leakage and heat loss. Building work has started on the first two plots at Hanham Hall, with 185 plots planned in total.

Structural insulated panels

The UK SIPs Association erected a structural insulated panel (SIP) structure, featuring JJI-Joists and open-web joists and reported good feedback and interest from architects and specifiers.

“It’s a product which is becoming more and more mainstream,” said Mike Fleming, of Glosford Timber Solutions. “The architects are looking more closely at it because it seems to provide the answers they need, like build speed, fabric performance and off-site manufacture.”

The association was formed two years ago and comprises 12 companies, six of which are SIPs manufacturers.

TRADA, which used to co-ordinate a Timber Zone at Interbuild, was promoting its services, the benefits of membership and displayed a section of timber frame wall to demonstrate Part L compliance. A year’s free TRADA membership was the prize offered for visitors who could correctly identify the thermal bridges.

TRADA was buoyed coming into the event by its achievement of already selling half the stand space for its Timber Expo event in 2011.

Irish contingent

A trio of Irish sawmillers – Glennon Brothers, Murray Timber Group and Graingers, together with Coillte Panel Products, had the single biggest timber representation at BEST on a shared stand backed by Enterprise Ireland and Coillte.

The sawmillers were looking to consolidate their presence in the UK, which has become more important to them since the Irish construction market dropped off a cliff. Irish carcassing exports to England have been on an upward curve and the sawmillers were determined to ram home their brands, especially in the absence of any UK mills exhibiting.

Graingers, on its first outing to Interbuild, said it had initially met some resistance from English customers to Irish carcassing. “But once we have convinced people to take a trial load and they have seen the quality of the product they do not look back,” said Susan Grainger.

She said the ability of Irish mills to offer a 48-hour service was an advantage over Nordic timber suppliers. “The UK mills are well-known in the market here, but we are not, so there is more of a reason for us to be here,” said Glennon Brothers’ joint managing director Mike Glennon. “The show provides a platform to promote home-grown wood”, although he hinted that Interbuild was not quite the meeting place for customers it used to be.

“We’ve worked hard in the last two or three years to be able to position ourselves as a one-stop shop for sawn softwood in the British Isles,” he said.

British interests

In fact, Glennons now employs more people in the UK than in Ireland, due to its ownership of Windymains Timber, Adam Wilson & Sons and Alexander Timber Design. “We are very much a British Isles-based business,” he added.

Mr Glennon said the first eight months of the year were “very busy”, with exports from Ireland up more than 100% over the past year, but this had changed in recent weeks.

Murray Timber Group had a rolling video of its production technology, which included a recent €1m investment in Microtec X-ray grading equipment at both its mills.

“We have a lot of customers over here now,” said managing director Paddy Murray.

Its carcassing exports to England are expected to be about 90,000m³ in 2010, up on last year, while total group sawn capacity is now approaching 500,000m³.

Norbord and Finnforest were represented on Barratt Development’s residential hub.

The Interbuild Onsite exhibition, which featured about 60 exhibitors, focused on tools, floor-laying demonstrations, challenges for carpenters and other tradesmen, as well as vehicle displays.

Power tools manufacturer DeWalt again provided some dynamism to proceedings with its tradesman challenges, held in conjunction with Stanley.

And the final of Irwin Tools’ Ultimate Tradesman Challenge 2010 saw Daniel Shepherd from Harrogate-based Grahams Machinery emerge as winner and take home the keys to an Aston Martin V8 Vantage.