HPBA Exhibition Visit. New Orleans, USA, March 17 – 18th 2016
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Our Managing Director, Peter Mintoft recently visited HPBA Exhibition in New Orleans.
Here is a brief report during his visit.
The 2016 Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association show was an interesting insight into the North American fire and fireplace market, after an interval of 3 years since I last visited. Held in New Orleans, the outdoor temperature was reaching near 30 degrees C in the daytime, but the powerful air conditioning inside the Ernest N Morial Convention Centre kept it at a steady 20 degrees, despite some powerful gas fires burning.
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The exhibition was around 50% related to patio activities including barbecues, grills, smokers and their paraphernalia with water features, lighting and sound products, and even outdoor pool tables and the like making an appearance!
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On the fireplace side we were interested to see some things had changed since we last visited, but many had not, including the stark differences between the US gas fire and stove market and the UK or even EU markets.
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Some fairly common US items such as fireplace doors and fascia’s that mount on existing open fireplace recesses are products that really don’t exist in the UK. Wood stoves are completely different in appearance, sometimes deeper than they are wide, and mounted on a pedestal or tall legs, long door handles and utilitarian features seemingly dominating the aesthetic look. Only a tiny niche market exists for UK and EU style stoves and there isn’t much sign of that changing in a hurry.
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Along common themes, the US are tightening up their emissions requirements for wood stoves through the regulations of EPA – this is definitely something that is happening worldwide. North American gas fires have long been different from European and UK models, gas consumption being generally much higher up to around 14kW for glass fronted fires, and sometimes even more on gas log sets.
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Flueless “unvented” gas log sets are again unique to the US fireplace markets and simply would not survive the transition across the Atlantic. The outside burn area was a disappointment with virtually no wood burners in action, only a number of the plethora of grills, smokers and barbecues being put through their paces for visitors. Mind you it was so warm outside that my guess is visitors viewing heating stoves might well have started passing out with heat stroke!
All in all it is certainly an education attending overseas exhibitions, and if nothing else it puts the UK and EU markets in perspective in comparison to what goes on around the world.
