What’s New

One hot trend for 2011 is glass tile, which should give Trend USA, an international manufacturerand distributor of tile and stone products, an unfair competitive advantage. Working from their palettes of standard glass mosaics, available in traditional or custom shapes and sizes, Trend has introduced a line of “custom blends.” Using a tool on their website or at a showroom, customers can personalize their mosaic to include not only a blend of colors, but also textures, opacity, and reflectivity. For the ultimate high-end expression, accent tiles with metallics and 24-carat gold layered between the glass are available.

GeoSpring Hybrid Water Heater Performance – and savings – in a sleek design Most electric water heaters, once installed, sit for years unnoticed in a utility closet. But with the recent release of this EnergyStar-rated hybrid model from GE, you may just want to place it front and center. Designed as a smart replacement for existing water heaters, this 50-gallon model uses standard plumbing and electrical connections to reduce installation time. What makes this unit special, however, is the evaporator unit on top. It pulls in ambient air and transfers that heat into the water tank. GE estimates the GeoSpring uses 50-percent less energy than standard water heaters and can save households an average savings of $320 per year, based on an average of national electricity rates.

Automated Home Entry Gates
Gates that stand the test of time
Like the old saying, “You get what you pay for,” the cost of installing a gate can come with a hefty price tag. So naturally it’s best to go with materials that measure up well to continuous usage. Stan Osowski, president of Island Automated Gate Company in Huntington Station, suggests paying attention to how much entrance and exiting from the home happens on a daily basis. For example, a manual gate might just be opened in morning or closed at night, but an automated gate could serve constant traffic throughout the day. Osowski also notes that while the right equipment is essential for a successful automated gate installation, what matters most is how the end product will maintain through continuous operation and resulting wear and tear. “It’s not so much the materials you use but how you put it together to make it function. It has to stand up to certainforces,” says Osowski.

Read this next article about Household Automation on Long Island