Better Buildings: Better Business Conference - A 22-year legacy

At Slipstream, it is our goal to provide the education and solutions for everyone to make smart energy choices. The Better Buildings: Better Business Conference is one way we try to achieve that goal in the residential building industry. Slipstream has been putting on the Better Buildings: Better Business Conference since 1998. Although the conference has had various names, the mission has not changed – to provide one central hub where home builders, suppliers, manufacturers, contractors, and the industry can find out what they need to know to stay current and ahead of residential building trends. 

Throughout the years, we have partnered with several organizations including the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of Energy, Focus on Energy, Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, and the past 6 years we have teamed up with the Wisconsin Builders Foundation. These partners have been integral in helping us shape content, deliver a high quality and leading edge conference, and have a greater impact on the residential building world. 

It is our goal to make sure home builders and remodelers get their advanced building issues solved and leave the conference with knowledge to change their business for the better. In order to accomplish this, we provide opportunities for attendees to interact with hands-on demos and displays and get real-time feedback from home building experts during sessions or in the expo hall. We offer continuing education credits for every session to ensure attendees have a productive use of their time spent away from their business. 

The Better Buildings: Better Business Conference will be held March 9-11 in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Check out the national experts who will be headed to the conference in 2020.

• Sam Rashkin, author of “Retooling the U.S. Housing Industry: How it got here, why it’s broken, and how to fix it,” will bring you a fascinating look at housing crises and disruptions for the opening general session. Discover the predicaments that make disruption imperative and disruptions that will transform an industry resistant to change.
• Justin Wilson of Construction Instruction will join the general session and respond to Sam’s housing industry disruptions with business solutions that will help you navigate this new reality in the home construction industry. Justin will also lead three other sessions on window installation, cladding types and advanced attachment techniques, and foundation systems moisture and thermal control. 
• Eric Corey Freed, architect at Morrison Hershfield and author, will give the closing plenary and leave attendees with ideas on how to innovate or transform their business or projects. He will help uncover the ways traditional business thinking is holding attendees back, help them identify blockages to growth, and develop a path forward. Eric will also present on “Carbon based lifeforms creating zero carbon buildings.”
• Katrin Klingenberg, co-founder of Passive House Institute US, will present on the research project REALIZE that will evaluate the transferability of the successful exterior retrofit Energiesprong model from the Netherlands. She will report on solutions, progress, and next steps on the first pilot project in Boston. 
• Lisa White, project certification manager of Passive House Institute US (PHIUS), will lead the pre-conference session “Getting to Zero with Passive House.” This full-day session will provide a deep dive into the key performance criteria for PHIUS+ 2018 certification, the development of these targets, and the design methodology to achieve this. She will demonstrate the capabilities of WUFI Passive which is the energy modeling tool used to guide design and verify compliance with PHIUS+ performance targets. 
• Peter Yost, sole proprietor of Building-Wright, is a fan favorite. Peter is known for being a very engaging speaker. He will lead three sessions, “Building products and systems: the good, the bad, the ugly,” “Cathedral roof venting deep dive and demo,” and “Your moisture problems solved: challenges and risks decoded.” 

Hear from a few of last year's attendees about what makes the Better Buildings: Better Business conference stand out (below). Want to sponsor, exhibit, attend, or just learn more? Check out b4conference.org.