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Your digital connection to the mechanical world

Welcome to the November edition of MB E-News, your digital source for all things Mechanical Business. Here, you’ll find the news you need to know, pad your calendar with a few events and hopefully leave smiling.

Speaking of events, for those who forgot to mark their calendars, today is World Toilet Day, a perfect time to stop and remind ourselves what an important role plumbing – and the rest of the mechanical industry – plays in proper sanitation and health. So whether you’re in plumbing, hydronics, HVAC or refrigeration, take some time to pat yourself on the back today.

Oh, and be sure to check your mailboxes: If you haven’t received the November/December edition of Mechanical Business magazine, it will arrive soon… If you aren't on our subscriber list yet, click here to get your free subscription.

Dave Bowden
Assistant Editor
Mechanical Business
dave.bowden@mechanicalbusiness.com

World Toilet Day

The World Toilet Organization (WTO) has declared Nov. 19 World Toilet Day, a day to raise awareness about the necessity of toilets and sanitation in developed and developing countries. According to the WTO, lack of access to proper sanitation kills 1.8 million people, mostly children, per year. In Canada, sanitation systems protect us from such vulnerability, but as a result it becomes easier to take this luxury for granted. According to the Canadian Toilet Organization, Canadians use 65 per cent of their indoor home water in the bathroom and flush one third of it down the toilet. Visit the links above for more information.

New Plumbing/Hydronics Expo

Messe Frankfurt Inc. will launch the Plumbing + Hydronics Expo on September 15, 2010 in Baltimore, Md. The show, a successor to Messe Frankfurt’s ISH North America show, will co-locate with Hanley Wood’s 2010 Remodelling Show.
phexpo.com

CIPH's sixth Habitat for Humanity home

CIPH recently presented the Zatlun family with the keys to its new home in Regina, the sixth CIPH Habitat for Humanity home. The family, originally from Burma, spent a number of years in a Cambodian refugee camp before settling in Canada.
ciph.com

 

Residential furnace shipments increase in Q3

During the third quarter of 2009, shipments of residential furnaces increased by eight per cent over the same period last year, from 93,579 to 101,098, reports HRAI. All other product sectors reported declines for the quarter.
hrai.ca

Hydronics remains bright spot

According to the most recent CIPH wholesalers’ sales report, year-to-date total product sales are off 10 per cent from last year, dropping $353.6 million. By product group, HVAC/R is down eight per cent, hydronics is up two per cent, plumbing is down nine per cent, PVF is down 23 per cent and waterworks is down 10 per cent.
ciph.com

Manitoba announces new service committee

The first meeting of the Mechanical Service Contractors of Manitoba Committee was recently hosted by MCA Manitoba executive director, Betty McInerney. As a result of the meeting, the committee has elected Slobodan Suvajac of Randall Plumbing & Heating Limited as the first chairman of the organization.
servicecontractor.ca

Stanley and Black & Decker merge

Stanley Works and Black & Decker Corp., which includes Price Pfister, have announced their intentions to merge into Stanley Black & Decker and estimate the newly formed conglomerate’s worth to be $8.4 billion.
stanleyblackanddecker.com

PHOTO GALLERY

RMC holds AGM

RMC held its Annual General Meeting in Toronto in October. Here, Dennis Larson of Refrigerative Supply receives a merit award. The AGM also featured a presentation on the phase-out of R-22. For more on the phase-out, be sure to pick up the November/December issue of Mechanical Business.
hrai.ca/rmc

 

 

MCAA contributes to MCAC chairman's charity

Lonnie Coleman of MCA America presents a $2,500 donation to Mesothelioma Research, the charity designated by MCAC chairman Bob Hoare, during MCAC’s Annual National Conference in San Francisco. For more photos from the conference, check out the latest issue of Mechanical Business.
mcac.ca

HRAI Toronto hosts ESA

The Toronto chapter of HRAI Contractors Division hosted guest speakers from Ontario’s Electrical Safety Authority at its October meeting. Speakers included general manager Ralph Van Haeren (pictured), technical advisor James Fraser and Scott Saint, vice-president and chief operating officer.
hrai.ca

Canadian schools participate in decathlon

Two Canadian teams competed in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2009 in Washington, D.C., in October. The Solar Decathlon is an international collegiate competition in which student teams compete to design, build, and operate energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses. Team Ontario/B.C. came in fourth overall, while Team Alberta finished sixth.
solardecathlon.org

A Kissing Coursin

Delegates, like Keith Coursin of Desert Aire Corp., were welcomed to “The Rock” in traditional fashion with a kiss of the cod as HRAI took its AGM and conference to Newfoundland and Labrador this past September. Be sure to pick up the November/December edition of Mechanical Business to see more of our photo gallery.
hrai.ca

CIPHEX Roadshows

Mechanical Business was on hand as the CIPHEX Roadshows rolled through the Prairies and into Vancouver.
ciphexroadshow.ca

 

 

WEB STOPS

New AtlasCare website

Home comfort contractor AtlasCare, whose president, Roger Grochmal, is a regular MB columnist, recently launched a new website, which aims to be more user friendly for its customers and features news, tips, tricks and a 'request a quote' form.
atlascare.ca

Online education from Taco

Taco has added a four-part video series on designing and installing mutli-temp, multi-load hydronic heating systems to its FloProTeam website. A video entitled “The Evolution of Radiant Mixing,” narrated by John Barba, has also been added.
floproteam.com

New look for HRAI

HRAI has redesigned its website as part of its ongoing branding strategy. Check out the new layout at www.hrai.ca.

Ultimate Comfort revised

Also in site-renewal mode is the Canadian Hydronics Council, which recently revised its Ultimate Comfort website. Check it out at www.ultimatecomfort.ca.

 

PARTING SHOTS

Not quite a Shawshank Redemption

It might not be the most popular escape method – or the most effective – but inmates in correctional institutions have tried to put the ductwork to nefarious use on more than one occasion.

In New Jersey last year, correctional institution officials declared an inmate missing and circulated his description and photo to local media after he failed to show up for a standard headcount. Two days later, the “missing” inmate was discovered – stuck in the jail’s ventilation system. The jail’s warden told a New Jersey newspaper that heat blowing through the ducts could have helped the inmate elude thermal cameras.

That prisoner’s two days in the ducts pale in comparison to Raymond John Tudor, a “guest” of Alberta’s Drumheller Institution. In 2002, the then 48-year-old inmate spent seven weeks crawling through what authorities called “a convoluted system of passageways between shop walls and ductwork” in the workshop of the correctional complex.

Eventually authorities shut down all heat, power and water to the shop complex and used a combination of thermal imaging, listening devices and other equipment to find and apprehend him.

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Events Calendar

2009

  • Solar Conference 2009
  • December 7-8, 2009
  • Toronto, ON
  • www.cansia.ca

2010

  • CIPH Ontario Regional Conference
  • May 14-15, 2010
  • Niagara Falls, Ont.
  • www.ciph.com
  • COHA Oilheat 2010
  • June 16-18, 2010
  • Charlottetown, P.E.I.
  • www.coha.ca
  • HRAI AGM
  • August 19-21, 2010
  • Kananaskis, Alta.
  • www.hrai.ca
  • MCAC Annual Conference
  • September 22-25, 2010
  • Halifax, N.S.
  • www.mcac.ca
  • CIPHEX West
  • November 3-4, 2010
  • Calgary, Alta.
  • www.ciph.com

For more event listings
visit our website
www.mechanicalbusiness.com