BEAM Co-sponsors NextGen Flex Home

Recently, BEAM co-sponsored the NextGen Flex Home at the International Builders Show. The home was built by Champion Builders and assembled just outside Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center. It is a home that takes into account the ever-changing needs of the American family. It provided builders with a learning laboratory where they could see how a home can meet the needs of digitally sophisticated, energy and health-conscious consumers and be fully functional for aging-in-place and disabled homeowners at the same time.

A key reason BEAM chose to participate in the project was the fact that this home is being donated to an American hero. U.S. Army veteran Waldemar Alameda was severely wounded by an IED explosion while serving in Tikrit, Iraq. He suffers from severe leg and back pain, and while he can walk short distances, he uses a wheel chair most of the time. In addition he is diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and mild post traumatic stress disorder. The NextGen Flex House will offer a comfortable, functional place for Mr. Alameda to raise his family in close proximity to the VA Medical Center where he undergoes rigorous physical therapy. The family will move into the house in March.

The ABC affiliate in Tampa covered the home's relocation to its new foundation.

Less is More

The recent International Builders Show brought to life the adage, "The Best Things Come in Small Packages."

Builders today are building homes that are an average of 200- to 300 square feet smaller than they were just a few years ago. They're also healthier and much more energy efficient. And many of the products featured at the show were products that help make smaller homes more livable.

A big draw at the BEAM booth was the new Hide-A-Hose. It stores the entire central vacuum hose within the tubing inside the wall. You simply pull out the length of hose you need, start cleaning, then use the power of the central vacuum system to retract the hose into the inlet valve when finished.

Not far from the convention center in Orlando, sits the KB Home Greenhouse. It's Builder magazine's latest concept house and it was designed by Martha Stewart. The 2,667 square foot home is so efficent, it produces as much energy as it uses. It also includes a BEAM Serenity IQS Central Vacuum System to help maintain healthy indoor air quality.

Pictured at left is D.J. Singleton, BEAM's Southwestern Territory Sales Representative, with the Serenity power unit during a reception at the concept house

Hopeful Sign for Housing

The Commerce Department recently announced some encouraging news for the people who build homes and consumers who want to buy them. Single-family housing starts increased by 6.9 percent in November.

It was the first monthly increase since August. The National Association of Homebuilders says the jump in housing starts reflects the need of many builders to replenish their inventory of new homes for the Spring 2011 buying season. The fact that builders believe their inventories of new homes are too low is a good sign. But it's also clear that builders have learned important lessons during the past three years. There may be more buyers in 2011, but they'll be very discriminating. Many of them will be looking for more value, more features, healthier living environments and energy savings.

The fact that BEAM Central Vacuum Systems improve indoor air quality means that if you're shopping for a new home in 2011, there's a good chance that a BEAM system will be either a standard feature or an affordable upgrade.

A Novel Approach to Marketing Green

We ran across a series of articles in the current issue of Builder & Developer magazine about Pardee Homes and a variety of new residential communities the company is building in California. Pardee is a Los Angeles-based homebuilder wirth communities throughout southern California and Nevada that has some innovative approaches to market its green homes.

Pardee promotes a variety of specific options packages under the umbrella brand of LivingSmart.

For homebuyers whose top priority is cutting energy usage, there's the EnergySmart package that includes added insulation, efficient heating and cooling equipment and so on.

There's HealthSmart for those whose priority is indoor air quality. BEAM Central Vacuum Systems, low or no VOC paints and air filtration systems are among the products included in that package.

There's also WaterSmart that stresses water use efficiency and EarthSmart that uses building materials produced from sustainable resources.

We encourage you to check out this month's issue.

Oh, no! Cabin Fever Will Soon Be Here

The switch back to standard time and news of snows in the upper Midwest, Northeast and Rocky Mountain states mean that the winter season is fast approaching. It won't be long until the dog becomes a snow bird -- vacating the dog house for a few months inside the family home.

Millions of us prepare for the season by caulking around the windows, weatherstripping the doors. Those are good things to do to conserve energy. But at what cost?

The more tightly we seal our homes to keep out the cold, the more difficult we make it for bad indoor air, pet dander and dust mites to get out of the house.

Here are three things that will help you keep your home healthier this winter.

• Run your central vacuum system more frequently so that you remove as much dust and allergens as possible from the living area.
• Do your best to keep the home ventilated -- even if it means opening a window or two when the outside temperature permits.
• Change your furnace filters at least once per month and better yet, install a BEAM HEPA Air Filtration System.

BEAM, Builder, KB Home and Martha Stewart Omnimedia Team Up on Showcase Home

A BEAM Serenity™ QS Central Vacuum System will be among the indoor environmental quality features of the KB Home GreenHouse™: An Idea Home Created with Martha Stewart. The home will be a focal point of the 2011 International Builders Show in Orlando.

In addition to the home design from one of the country’s leading lifestyle experts, the KB Home GreenHouse will demonstrate to consumers that this environmentally friendly home not only provides a healthy living environment, but also saves energy and water through the use of solar and thermal systems and meeting EPA's WaterSense for new homes specifications. It will be the first net-zero energy, single-family home in the Concept Home series produced by Builder magazine since 1998.

Central vacuum systems are an important component of green building because they completely remove contacted dust and allergens from the living area.

Find out more at http://beamvac.com/usa/press_center/beam-central-vacuum-to-be-featured-in-builder-concept-home-2011.aspx

BEAM Making Waves at CEDIA

Most everyone has seen or heard about the annual Consumer Electronics Show that is held in Las Vegas every year. Well a not-to-distant cousin is about to have it's annual event across the country in Atlanta.

It's the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association's annual convention and trade show, the CEDIA Expo. The members of CEDIA are the businesses that sell and install home electronics -- everything from home audio and home theatre to security systems. In fact many of the top BEAM dealers in the U.S. are members of CEDIA and will be attending the show.

It's also a place where manufacturers make waves -- and not just those that make audio systems. BEAM will be introducing a number of new products to dealers that are bound to show up in dealer showrooms during the next several months. We'll showcase those products here next week. BEAM will be helping CEDIA members with a series of seminars featuring Rodney Webb -- one of the top sales consultants in the home products industry.