The following items were compiled by reporter Bill Bregar at the Builders' Show, held Jan. 27-30 in Houston and sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders.
Dayton Extruded Plastics, a window profile extruder, has changed its name to Dayton Technologies as it moves into a $20 million centralized plant in Monroe, Ohio, this year.
Dayton Technologies, with projected 1995 sales of nearly $60 million, is the fastest-growing business unit of the Alcoa Construction Products Group. The company had $50 million in sales in 1994. The firm had been based in Dayton, Ohio.
Model home sports vinyl windows, doors
The New American Home at the Builders' Show offered more proof that vinyl windows, once almost exclusively a remodeling product, have gained acceptance for new homes.
The $186,000 show home, built in Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston, has Grand View brand vinyl windows and patio doors from Georgia-Pacific Corp. Houston builders traditionally use aluminum windows, Georgia-Pacific said.
Royal Plastics Group of Weston, Ontario, extrudes the profiles and Great Lakes Window Inc. of Toledo, Ohio, fabricates the profiles into windows.
The house is sponsored by NAHB's National Council of the Housing Industry and four magazines: Builder, Ladies Home Journal, Popular Science and Home Mechanix.
Berlinex constructs plant, warehouse
Berlinex Polymers Inc. of Ed-monton, Alberta, said it plans to spend more than $5 million to build an extrusion building, a customer support center and an additional warehouse.
The new plant will accommodate 22 extrusion lines and support facilities, including a machine shop, maintenance shop, quality-control area and fabrication testing facility.
Berlinex coextrudes vinyl windows with a thin layer of clear acrylic and pigmented sheet, creating windows in a variety of colors.
Berlinex also announced its windows have become certified by the American Architectural Manufacturers Association, a trade association based in Palatine, Ill.
The company also is expanding beyond windows, and introduced its first vinyl French door at the Houston show.
Townhouses feature plastic foam systems
Foamed plastics will be featured in two townhouses under construction at the National Association of Home Builders' National Research Home Park in Upper Marlboro, Md., a suburb of Washington.
Construction should be completed in June. Themes are energy efficiency and alternatives to dimensional lumber. NAHB outlined the project at a Jan. 27 press conference during the Builders' Show.
The Structural Insulated Panel Association of Washington donated foam-core panels for one of the units.
The other townhouse uses a foam-block/concrete system made by I.C.E. Block of New Carlisle, Ohio.
Two other townhouses will be built on the site, one with steel framing and one with a material called autoclaved aerated concrete.
In other foam news, SIPA and the state of New York will study the impact of recycled content on the energy efficiency of foam-core panels. SIPA also said a foam-core home will be built at the Greater Chicago Area Parade of Homes in July. Last year, SIPA sponsored a house at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference.
Mobil lumber gains use in new projects
Mobil Chemical Co.'s Composite Products Division, based in Norwalk, Conn., announced four new projects that use its Trex brand of plastic lumber.
Energy Smart Corp. of Pensacola, Fla., picked Trex for decking and landscaping at 10 consumer education homes sched-uled for 1995 throughout the southeastern United States.
The material also was chosen for:
A splinter-free bridge to a water park at Fiesta Texas amusement park in San Antonio.
New docks on the Tampa Town Ferry, a water taxi operating on the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Fla.
And, a 4,000-square-foot deck at Sam Hill Waterfront Grill, a floating restaurant in Austin, Texas.
Mobil's Trex brand of plastic lumber can be used in rot-proof decks.
Mobil Chemical Co. photo