Publisher Dan Ashenden and I were fortunate to attend the ISH Frankfurt show in Frankfurt, Germany, in mid-March. I’ll cover the show itself extensively in the April issue of CONTRACTOR magazine and on www.contractormag.com, but I have some general impressions and reflections here.
Gas runs about €1.60 per liter. That’s approximately $2.22 per liter or about $9.38 per gallon. That’ll get you onto the train, won’t it? The trains are great, clean and on time. Dan and I rode the train to Rudesheim, about an hour west of Frankfurt. The trains (at least the ones I saw first-hand) are electric, using overhead wires. Even the freight trains.
When we checked in to the Frankfurt Intercontinental, we didn’t think the escalator was working. Turns out it’s activated by a motion detector. If nobody is on the escalator, why run the electric motors? Motion detectors similarly activate lights in the hallways. Both of those seem like no brainers.
Walk into the room and there’s a slot for your key card — you have to put your key card in there to turn on the lights. I was aggravated by the paucity of electrical outlets. I don’t know if that was an intentional ploy to limit their plug loads, but it was an inconvenience.
The Villeroy & Boch toilet was rear discharge and activated by a push button on the top of the bathroom countertop. Europeans like to put the toilet tank either in the wall or, as in the case of my hotel room, in the bathroom cabinetry. The damn thing had a 4-in. water spot. It definitely needed the bowl brush that was in the bathroom.
The bathroom sink was Italian, Flaminia, and the lav faucet and shower fittings were both by Hansgrohe. The hotel delivered water that was way, way too hot to the fixtures. Evidently they aren’t hip to the idea that you should segregate water for the kitchen and laundry from the hot water delivered to the guest rooms.
The shower was brisk. Europeans may use less water than Americans, but the showerhead passes a lot more than 2.5-GPM. We saw plenty of giant rain-can showerheads at the show. One American plumbing exec said that Europeans take shorter showers than Americans or, he joked, “No showers.”
Most of the taxis in Germany are Mercedes. Mercedes has a much broader product line in Germany, including some that are suitable for taxi duty. They send the $100,000 cars to us.
The show itself is bigger than you can imagine — 11 buildings, many of them multi-story. The show runs shuttle buses between buildings and, believe me, they’re necessary. If you see a booth number that says it’s in 10.2, zero is the ground floor so the two means it’s on the third floor of Hall 10. The biggest show in the U.S., AHR Expo, could fit into Messe Frankfurt four times. I don’t know if AHR Expo could fill even one of the bigger buildings on the fairgrounds. The booths at ISH are enormous. One hall, known as Festhalle, had only two exhibitors in it, Villeroy & Boch on one side and Hansgrohe on the other. Those big booths all contain lots of meeting rooms. I was once told that the German boiler companies get 40% of their business for the next two years at the show. People sign contracts at the show, a completely different business model than what goes on at an American show. And because exhibitors want to keep people in their booths, they all offer food and beverages, be it espresso or beer.
And then there are the products, which are incredible. I’ll get into them in the magazine. The next ISH is in mid-March of 2013. I’ll be there. You should be too.