They say a picture says a thousand words, and after taking a trip to Vegas for the International Business Show, Hayden LePage couldn’t wait to share a few with us.

We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’; however, in this instance, I think it is okay to make an exception.
Being an inquisitive person and having developed a fascination with intuitive building materials and practices over the past several years means that I’m always on the lookout for new products and ideas. Given that everything is bigger in the US, I decided to take the leap in January and fly to sin city for the NAHB International Builders’ Show (IBS) in Las Vegas to see what I could find.

The Yanks really know how to plumb a house. This is a manifold fed system commonly used in upmarket houses; each line goes to a specific outlet or faucet and can be independently controlled. Impressive, hey?

IBS is the biggest annual light construction show in the world, every year attracting more than 60,000 visitors from 100 countries. It brings together some of the industry’s most important global manufacturers and suppliers and showcases the latest products, materials and technologies involved in all types of buildings – including wood, concrete, stone and brick. The event is held across a staggering 550,000ft2 with more than 1400 manufacturers and suppliers of the latest and most in-demand products and services on show. To say I was buggered by the end of the convention would be an understatement. There was seriously just so much to see, from full-scale modular homes to ridiculous inventions; this show really takes it to another level.

This is a Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery (MVHR ) unit commonly used in passive house builds. It pumps fresh air into the house and at the same time expels the stale air. Nothing new there, right? Well this unit extracts the heat from the exhaust air and injects that same heat into the fresh incoming air at about 80% efficiency. Now that’s clever.

In addition to the products and exhibits, forums and presentations were held by industry experts and covered everything from sales and marketing to construction and codes.
I wanted to share some of the smarter products and ideas with you to give a better understanding of just how far behind we are, and to hopefully inspire some of the more creative among us to venture out and try something different.
If you ever get a chance to fly over and check out the IBS I highly recommend it, as it really will give you a greater perspective of what can be achieved in our industry. While I don’t think we’ll ever catch up to the Yanks in terms of innovation, we can certainly learn from them and put our own touch on things.

This is the kind of installation practice that sets everyone else apart from us. This is a brilliantly concealed shower recess drain system with an incorporated waterproofing system that you wouldn’t find anywhere on our shores.

Believe it or not, this is a modular building I watched being assembled in the car park the day before. Once you step inside, you would be hard pressed to find anything different to a typical suburban home construction.

This was just one of many presentations dotted around the venue covering everything from new products to new techniques and services.

The electrical regulations in the US are so much tougher than ours. I don’t think we realise just how easy we have it here. So if you’ve ever complained about any of our electrical codes or regulations… perhaps you should consider what these blokes have to put up with.

These are some seriously sexy faucets. You could see these tying in nicely to a modern bathroom.

Even sexier toilet seat. Yep, I called a toilet seat sexy. Imagine what these would do for the visually impaired at night time. Night Glow glow in the dark toilet seats will stay lit all night long, after a charge from any light source.

Structurally Insulated Panels, or SIP’s for short, are gaining steam very quickly in the States. The larger profile is able to span up to 7.5m in residential applications, providing huge insulation benefits.

The company display trucks were typically American but they were impressive nonetheless. We could certainly take some inspiration from the amount of time, thought and effort that goes into their displays.