It was a whistle-stop tour around London Build Expo this year. After a site visit in the morning at St James’s Square, I dashed over to Olympia to visit the 2019 Expo.
London Build is always a great event – see my write-up of their 2018 Expo. It’s an opportunity to see what new products are out there, and what’s trending construction-wise.
It was good to see a queue of people in the ‘Meet The Buyer’ area who were waiting to see our old friends at Baxall (such a great contractor).
A real shame I couldn’t get there earlier, as there were a lot of talks I wanted to get to, discussing sustainability, climate action, mental health, BIM and digital construction, and the Future London Summit. Hopefully they make some of them available on line.
A few companies caught my eye:
BeadMaster
Great products for achieving a perfect finish around sockets and switches.
Cristofoli
Beautiful stone on a honeycomb backer board. If you really must have stone, these guys have a great solution to keep it stable and lightweight.
Gripple
A small stand this year. I love their products. If you have a lot of services to install quickly, these are the only suspension fixings to use.
Marselli
They had a stand out stand. Some of their products are beautiful, really nice aluminium frame windows and doors.
Protektor
All the bead edges and profiles you could ever want! An unbelievable array of plastic and metal edges.
Sugatsune
The guys showed me some lovely hinges, concealed and lift off (geek alert!).
Coopers Fire
Their ResQ-window fire curtain was a great product that I hadn’t seen previously. It helps first responders see through a fire curtain into a room prior to entry. Having done more CPD events on fire this past year than ever before, anything that can save lives and reduce risks has got to be a good thing.
GIRA had a few KNX system products that always look great, but no new toys this year. The people on the stand told me they were waiting on the big shows in Europe early next year to release new equipment, so keep an eye on their website.
My highlight of London Build Expo 2019 was an unexpected surprise: a retro gaming area with a few games that took me – and obviously quite a few other attendees – back to my youth (and no, I didn’t play any!).
