Welcome to the start of conference season. The biggest one for builders & designers happened last week with the newly merged NAHB IBS (International Builders Show) & KBIS. Depending on your interests, like Energy Efficiency / Building Better / Green you could probably attend at least one a week for the next few months or like my friend Allison go to one or two almost every month. One I noticed that is missing from his list is one he attended & spoke at last year – The Better Buildings: Better Business (B4) conference. (I guess that’s what happens when you move it from December to February…)
The B4 conference is essentially Illinois top Residential & Remodeling building conference held during the year. While there are numerous other conferences on better buildings, efficiency, this is the only one that really is focused on residential. (With that the USGBC Building the Heartland 2015 conference is adding in a special Residential track for the first time ever – yay)
This year’s focus is on “Be Prepared,” “Grow your Business,” & “Satisfy your Customers.” As the main home page states “Keeping up with current trends, technologies and products in the residential building and remodeling industry? Ready to show customers you’re prepared to make their dream home a reality? Enhance your skills and boost your business savvy. Attend the Better Buildings: Better Business Conference in Illinois Feb 26–27, 2015.”
Speakers & Credits:
Peter Yost will be making a return this year, with many other well known and maybe not so well known local & out of state speakers (like Paul Francisco, Tim Fuller, John Curley, Don Plass, Joe Konopacki…) This year I get to count myself among them as I present on Building Codes 20125 & Beyond. For those needing continuing education credits (AIA, ASHI, BPI, GBCI, IACET, NAHB, NARI, NATE and RESNET.) my course and numerous other ones are approved for many if not all of them. For a full list of speakers and their topics: 2015 B4 Sessions Grid view – to see what credits are available per session click on the title of the class.
My Session:
My session is the last one on Friday being held in the Midway Auditorium and focuses on the 2015 codes (yes Illinois is moving forward with it – it’s just the amendments we don’t fully know about yet). The four main learning objectives are:
- Identify “potential” changes to the codes & how they impact you
- Learn about techniques and tricks in use today and how implementing them could help you build better today…
- Explain what is a HERS rating and how that applies to the new alternative compliance path
- Differentiate the above code programs that are available and which would be best to meet your needs
With that I hope to see you at the B4 conference in Rosemont this February 26th & 27th. If you haven’t registered you can do so here B4 Registration. If you happen to belong to the SSHBA or a similar organization you may wish to contact them as many have discounts available.