EcoBuild Exhibition – London ExCeL Centre
By Reece Toscani - Fireplaceproducts.co.uk
Tuesday 4th – Thursday 6th March 2014. I am heading off to the ExCeL Centre, London for the EcoBuild Exhibition today. After several months of careful planning and working alongside La Nordica Extraflame regarding the products that we should have out on display, the day has finally come.
So after a train, tube & short hop on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) I have arrived at the ExCeL Centre. Found our stand N1312/1313 right in front of entrance N5 and walked in to find the stand, and what a fine job the builders have done! I had seen the plans before the show so I knew where everything was going to be and how it would be laid out, but I was very impressed with the scale of the stand and how impressive it all looked. We had a good selection of Wood Burning Stoves, Wood Fired Cookers, Cassette & Built-In Stoves, Pellet Stoves, Boiler Stoves, Stoves with Ovens and Pellet Boilers.
I had a walk around the stand with Alessandro the UK export Manager for La Nordica, familiarising myself with all the products again, as it had been a little while since I had seen some of the models, and a few of the pellet stoves were brand new to me. So after a 20minute refresher course on the new models we were ready for the doors to open and the show to begin…
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| La Nordica Italy built in cooker |
Central heating boiler products were very popular across all three days, with many people interested in removing existing LPG or Oil fired systems and looking for a renewable alternative. The Three Pellet Boiler Stoves that we had on the stand received a lot of interest from people. The principal behind running a system like this would be to have a pellet boiler and a thermal heat store (similar to a hot water tank) in a utility room or garage. This can then be linked up to a wood fired stove or built-in stove in a living room that has a boiler and so can also produce hot water. Both the wood fired stove and the pellet boiler create hot water which is stored in the thermal heat store tank. This stored hot water is then used to run radiators or underfloor heating systems throughout the house. You can also add a domestic hot water coil into the tank that will use the stored hot water in the tank to create hot water for your shower, bath or taps. This is a very simplistic overview of what is possible using wood or pellets for your central heating.
Solar energy was something else that was mentioned by visitors to the stand, and the good news is that if you go for a system as described above, it is also possible to integrate solar. This is done by adding another coil into your thermal heat store, the water running through the solar panels is heated by the sun and feed down pipes to that coil. The hot water inside this coil heats the larger volume of water stored in the tank and as a result generates more stored hot water. By adding a solar or wood burning stove into your system your pellet boiler will only come on when the water in the store drops below a certain temperature. Meaning that the pellet boiler will not have to fire as often, so it is cheaper to run as less pellets are being burnt and the hopper will not need to be topped up as often.
After two long hard days on the stand we were at the final day. By this point I still had not had much of a chance to walk around the show and look at what else was on offer, so I called in the cavalry and asked our very own Luke Argentieri to help out on the Thursday so that I could finally leave the stand and take a walk around. I knew that there were a couple of our other suppliers exhibiting so I went out to find the Firebelly, Morso, Eco Angus & Robeys stands and have a look at what they had on offer. I walked one block up to entrance N6 and found the Robeys & Firebelly stands next to each other. Robeys sell the Rais, Piazzetta & Harrie Leenders brands, of which they had one of my top 10 favourite stoves on display the Fuga EL in white, shown below at the front of their stand.
Directly opposite was Firebelly Stoves who had a good selection of their single sided and double sided stoves on offer, in a variety of colors, including a lovely Patriot Blue T1 Stove.
Then popped off and found the chaps at Eco Angus who supplied our log gasification unit that we have burning providing all of our heating for our showrooms in Rayleigh, Essex.
On my travels I also came across several other pellet stove manufactures exhibiting including; Thermo Rossi, Palazzetti, MCZ & Solzaima all of which had some really nice products on display. By this time it was already 3pm on the Thursday and the show finished at 4pm on the last day to give the stand builders a chance to take everything apart. So I quickly walked around the rest of the show to see what else was on offer, as there were a lot of other types of products being show cased outside of the heating industry.
Eventually I came across the Morso Stoves stand that was hiding in the south hall, and with time ticking away I headed back to the La Nordica stand. 4pm came and the PA system kicked in telling people to leave, this seemed to cause a flurry of last minute enquiries and I ended up talking to two or three people all at once who wanted more information on our products. 30 minutes later after the last visitor left the stand, the builders were able to start packing everything up. Prior to the start of the show we had bought a selection of the models that were on the stand. Some have already been sold during the run up to and even while the show was on. The rest were crated and sent back to us and we now have them available for sale from stock, see our Warehouse Clearance Sale Section for more details. All that was left to do was say my goodbyes to the guys from La Nordica for inviting us along, send a quick tweet on my way home and prepare myself to start getting back to all of the people that we spoke to over the three days.
Here is a list of products that we had on display :
Wood Burning Cookers:
· Suprema Mamy (Petite) Wood Cooker - Black· Thermo Suprema 18.5 DSA Wood Boiler Cooker – Cream with Lids
· Thermo Rosa DSA Wood Boiler Cooker – Burgundy
· Romantica 4.5 Wood Cooker - Black
· Sovrana Wood Cooker – White
· Italy Built-In Wood Cooker
Wood Burning Freestanding Stoves:
· Thermo Isotta DSA Wood Boiler Stove· Gemma Wood Stove – Parchment
· Ester Forno Wood Stove
· Thermo Rosella Plus Forno DSA Wood Boiler Stove – Burgundy
· Super Junior Wood Stove – Black
· Super Max Wood Stove – Green
· Candy Wood Stove
· Giulietta Wood Stove
· Isetta Wood Stove
· Fortuna Double Sided Wood Stove – White
· Zen Wood Corner Stove
Wood Cassettes & Built-Ins:
· Crystal 50 Wood Cassette Stove· Crystal 70 Wood Cassette Stove
· Crystal 80 Wood Cassette Stove
· Crystal 100 Wood Cassette Stove
· Crystal 1000 Wood Built-In Stove
· Crystal 80 Double Sided Built-In Stove
· Thermo Crystal 80 DSA Idro Wood Boiler Built-In Stove
· Thermo Camino DSA Wood Boiler Built-In Stove
Pellet Stoves, Boilers & Cassettes:
· LP14 Pellet Boiler· LP20 Pellet Boiler
· LP30 Pellet Boiler
· Souvenir Lux Pellet Stove - White
· Inserto Comfort Mini Crystal Pellet Cassette Stove
· Inserto P70x49 Pellet Cassette Stove
· Duchessa Idro Steel Pellet Boiler Stove - Black
· Melinda Idro Pellet Boiler Stove – Parchment
· Iside Idro Pellet Boiler Stove - Burgundy
· Diadema Idro Pellet Boiler Stove – White
· Liliana Idro Pellet Boiler Stove - Parchment
· Giordana Idro Pellet Boiler Stove – Burgundy
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