The following items were gathered by reporter Bill Bregar at the NARI show, held Feb. 23-25. Kitchen jobs are the hottest remodeling projects, according to a survey of consumers by the National Association of the Remodeling Industry.
NARI said 21 percent of remodeling consumers are planning a kitchen project.
About 18 percent of consumers intend to add onto their homes, making additions the second-most-frequently cited project.
Bathroom renovations were third, at 11 percent.
NARI is based in Arlington, Va.
New Mikron plant begins production
Mikron Industries Inc. of Kent, Wash., said its new vinyl window extrusion plant in Kentucky, will ship its first product April 1.
The 90,000-square-foot factory in Richmond has 13 American Maplan extruders, according to Jeff Sandwith, vice president and general manager of the plant.
Within five years, Mikron plans to expand the window profile plant to 450,000 square feet. The building is located on a 31-acre site.
Production is to begin this month. The plant will employ about 100 people this year, Sandwith said.
Owens-Corning adds vinyl window line
Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., which has pultruded a composite window for several years, has expanded by adding a line of vinyl windows.
Owens-Corning is buying profiles extruded by Chelsea Building Products of Oakmont, Pa., and working with several fabricators to make the windows.
Owens-Corning, based in Toledo, Ohio, also offers patio doors made of the profiles. The company said the products are available for both new construction and remodeling.
Wood cabinet marker now uses PVC sheet
Dura-Oak Cabinet Refacing Systems, a Louisiana company that mills wood cabinet doors, has begun manufacturing doors from a PVC sheet using $1 million worth of new machinery.
The Giazo-brand cabinets look like hand-rubbed wood, according to the company. President D.J. Mills said Dura-Oak invested $1 million to buy a vertical press and a computer numerically controlled router to make the doors.
In the manufacturing process, the press first forms the outline of the door from PVC sheet 14 mils thick. The router finishes the job, milling the doors with decorative touches. The simulated wood grain runs through the entire sheet, Mills said.
Mills said the sheet comes from Italy. However, citing competitive reasons, he declined to identify the supplier of the sheet or the machinery.
Dura-Oak is a division of Kitchens by D.J. Mills Inc. of Shreveport, La.
Windows use veneer, not wood-grain film
American Pultrusion exhibited under the name of its marketing arm, Comfort Line Inc., at the NARI show. Comfort Line introduced a new fiber-reinforced plastic double-hung window, with an optional interior of red oak. The wood veneer, called FiberFrame, is attached with an adhesive.
``We observed people's grow-ing dissatisfaction with simu-lated wood-grain film interiors on PVC windows,'' said Michael Monaghan, Comfort Line vice president of sales.
Monaghan said the company would not disclose how many extruders or pultrusion machines it runs in Toledo, Ohio.
American Pultrusion and its sister companies, Winter-Seal Corp. and Winter-Seal Vinyl Inc. and American Pultrusion have combined operations under one roof at the 250,000-square-foot plant in Toledo.
The operations had been in two separate locations in the Toledo area. The new headquarters includes manufacturing, warehouse and office and showroom space. The companies moved into the facility last spring.
Winter-Seal fabricates vinyl windows. Winter-Seal Vinyl extrudes vinyl windows for its own use and for sale to 70 North American window fabricators.
Woodlike vinyl siding gaining in popularity
Heartland Building Products and Royal Plastics Group both showed vinyl siding products that resemble wood, continuing a trend in the siding industry.
Heartland of Booneville, Miss., introduced Lite-Shake, a patented line of vinyl siding made to look like wood shake. Lite-Shake is patented in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia.
Features include wide top-nailing fins, a duel self-aligning locking system, multichamber cross-beam construction for strength and torsion resistance and a step-down design that does not require footing preparation or expertise to install.
Heartland is a unit of Jannock Inc. of Pittsburgh, itself a unit of Jannock Ltd. of Toronto.
Royal, headquartered in Weston, Ontario, showed Woodland 16, a brand of vinyl siding with a low-gloss, cedar wood-grain finish.
Dayton Technologies offers new services
Vinyl window extruder Dayton Technologies unveiled two advanced engineering services for its fabricator customers.
Dayton now offers rapid prototyping using sterolithography equipment at the Pittsburgh technical center of its parent, Aluminum Co. of America. The process can turn a computer drawing of a window design into a three-dimensional part in several hours.
Dayton Technologies also announced its Fast Access System Technology, which enables customers to access technical drawings and documents with their fax machines, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The company, based in Monroe, Ohio, recently changed its name from Dayton Extruded Plastics.