ASHRAE WINTER MEETING
An upbeat mood in the US is helping to drive the building services sector, reports Ewen Rose from ASHRAE’s Winter Meeting in Chicago – the ‘windy city’
C
hicago hosted the country’s largest-ever heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR)
exhibition, the AHR Expo, at the end of January. In total, 1,968 exhibitors from 35 countries took part, despite Chicago’s forbidding winter weather. And the mood was buoyant. More than 70% of manufacturers there said they expected 2012 to be an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ year for business, while 60% said it would be much better, or better, than 2011. They believe the big opportunities are in
retrofit and renovation, with the healthcare sector seen as the most lucrative. The organisers of the show, International Exposition Co, told the Journal that the AHR Expo was a notable bright spot in the US economy as a whole. However, share prices have started to rise and manufacturers, generally, are reporting improved order books as the sluggish recovery creaks into gear. The ASHRAE Winter Meeting, which
took place in tandem with the expo, proved an equally upbeat gathering of nearly 3,000 delegates – despite the usual political uncertainty that accompanies a presidential election year.
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Crippling financial deficit An oft-repeated view in Chicago is that President Obama is ‘anti-business’; many at both the Chicago events said the lack of incentives and fiscal support had slowed the recovery. The Federal programme of spending on ‘green’ projects has also fallen victim to the cutbacks to try and deal with the country’s crippling financial deficit. Similarly, a raft of proposed energy bills remain stuck in the Washington law- making machine. However, ASHRAE president Ron
Jarnagin told the Journal that the general situation was not hindering development in the building services sector. ‘The economy is not impeding us, and our efforts to improve buildings do not depend on energy legislation or on tax incentives,’ he said. There is a strong feeling in the US that it
is futile to wait for politicians to put systems in place to get the market moving again. ‘People often compare the current situation to the Great Depression, but things are very different now,’ said Jarnagin. ‘Back then the government built major infrastructure projects to get the economy moving again, but we are not waiting for that to happen this time. ‘We accept that the deficit must be addressed and, therefore, there will be a
March 2012 CIBSE Journal 27
The economy is not impeding us, and our efforts to improve buildings do not depend on energy legislation or on tax incentives –Ron Jarnagin
Richard Susanto/
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