Back To School With RD Weis Companies

Come have lunch and earn one AIA CEU credit per class toward your relicensing and continuing education!

Thursday, October 14: Provider Armstrong World Industries, Inc.

Program: The Living Colors of Linoleum

Tuesday, November 16: Provider Johnsonite

Program: The Language of Color: A Look At Color Science

Wednesday, December 8: Provider New York Surfaces, Christopher Capobianco Program: Solutions for Floor Moisture Control

Come have lunch, network, and continue your education with RD Weis Companies! Please reserve your class space with Sheri Gorman at 212-376-5355 X 202, or email sgorman at rdweis.com.

For more about AIA Continuing Education, click here.

Excellent carpet performance advertorial from McGraw Hill

Here's an excellent, useful piece from McGraw Hill on carpet performance and selection factors.

US EPA funding help with greening your building

Are you looking for funding help greening your building, facility, or community? The US EPA has a guide to state and local program resources here, and to national programs here.

You’re invited to the 3rd Annual RD Weis Companies Flooring Expo

Dear friends and colleagues

please join us

at the

3^rd Annual RD Weis Companies Flooring Expo

Tuesday, October 12

6 to 9 p.m.

Innovant showroom, 37 West 20^th Street, New York

Drinks and potluck cuisine from around the world

Sheri Gorman and RD Weis Companies are wrapping up NeoCon 2010 in NYC! Join colleagues and friends in Manhattan at the Innovant showroom at 37 West 20^th Street, between 5^th and 6^th Avenues.

Come look around and have fun. We’ll all your favorite manufacturers there -- each bringing special surprise drinks and food -- including:

• Atlas Carpet Mills
• Armstrong
• Blueridge
• Bolyu
• Cambridge
• Ecoglo
• Fortune
• FreeAxez
• J&J/Invision
• Mannington Commercial
• Masland
• mats inc
• The Mohawk Group
• Mondo
• NY Surfaces
• NY Surfaces featuring Capri Cork and Alumafloor
• Stile
• Tandus
• Teragren Bamboo

We look forward to seeing you!

Please RSVP to Sheri Gorman at 212-376-5355 X 202, or email her, sgorman at rdweis.com.

Floor Daily Annual Report: useful info

From last May, Journalists Darius Helm and Jessica Chevalier write up Floor Daily Annual Report 2010 -- full of excellent useful info, including a few reasons for optimism in the residential housing market:

In the commercial market, carpet and vinyl are the big players, and last year, with the education and healthcare markets still fairly healthy and spotty signs of life in retail, vinyl performed fairly well. However, the hospitality market took a huge hit, its biggest hit in 38 years, and the corporate sector struggled too—both are strong markets for carpet. Even though the government sector fared well, and despite carpet’s share in education and to a lesser degree in healthcare, commercial carpet business was still off significantly.

A bit of good news from the residential housing market, however:

Growth was strong in all regions: sales rose 6% in the Northeast, up 24.5% from last year; 7.2% in the Midwest, up 15.5% from last year; 7.1% in the South, and up 13.9% from last year; and 6.6% in the West, up 14% from last year. Median prices were up in all regions except the West.

Click through and scroll down to see the charts of market share for different flooring types.

Airport Carpeteers, via Floor Daily

This is a very fun story, from the good folks at Floor Daily:

Author George Pendle, a frequent traveler, has developed a website that depicts airport carpet he and others have seen on their travels.

His website, carpetsforairports.com, recruits travelers to take photos of carpets and send them in.

"Trapped in an airport? Bored out of your skull? Become an Airport Carpeteer," the website suggests.

"All carpets gratefully received. All photographs fully credited." The site also provides opinions, many of them humorous, about carpets designs and their surroundings...

Green Buildings are blooming!

Here's an excellent article by NPR's Franklyn Cater from the USGBC on green buildings.

Green building now accounts for nearly one-third of new construction in the U.S. That's up from 2 percent in 2005, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, which tracks the industry...

...here's another reason for professionals to get familiar with LEED: In more and more places, LEED is becoming law. Part 2 of this report will look at how many lawmakers buy the idea that encouraging or forcing developers to build green is not only good for the environment but is also good for economic development, and good for the health of workers who occupy those buildings.

Interesting look at a (these days, rare) growth industry.

A Sweet New Year to You

Happy New Year -- shana tova umetukah!

USGBC in New Orleans

Here's a lovely and inspiring press release about the USGBC's work in New Orleans, especially on rebuilding schools to minimum LEED Silver Certification.