[00:00:05] Roberta Mantenuto: around the house, and that's kind of the chunk of what we've been talking about today. But we've really been pivoting our company to become, you know, a building material solution company. Any mundane unloved building products or design accessories that we've all just kind of done that same thing of like, it needs to be there, the light switch has to be there.

[00:00:24] Roberta Mantenuto: Yep. We have to turn on the light. Uh, those are all things that we are challenging and are going to ch. Change the way that we see those things. So started with Vince and now we're pivoting to a bunch of other things, and this is kind of what we call the aria effect, is that once you start to notice these things, it's like they've been in plain sight and we've ignored them this whole, our whole lives.

[00:00:45] Roberta Mantenuto: And now we start questioning everything. Like, you know, we, we'll get calls from customers saying, yeah, I have this like alarm box in my foyer. Can we make something to cover that up? I'm like, yep. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know. [00:01:00] The We got you covered. This is around the house.

[00:01:05] Roberta Mantenuto: Welcome

[00:01:05] Eric Goranson: to The Round the House Show. This is where we help you get the most outta your home through information on education. Thanks for joining us today. We've got a fun show here ahead. I love design stuff, and this is something that's really cool for your house. We're talking with Roberta Manto from our event.

[00:01:22] Eric Goranson: Roberta, thanks for coming on today. This is exciting.

[00:01:25] Roberta Mantenuto: Thank you so much for having me. I'm, uh, I'm stoked. It's not every day that you get to talk to people who get excited about air vents, so, um, right. I'm happy to be

[00:01:34] Eric Goranson: here. This is great. Well, if you know people out there, of course you, you've got audio here, so they're like, what are we talking about?

[00:01:42] Eric Goranson: If you walk over to somebody's house and go, oh my gosh, look at that cool vent. Most likely that's our event.

[00:01:49] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah, I mean, I, I don't think regular events get the same reaction as ours, so I would, I would bet. I would bet, yes.

[00:01:56] Eric Goranson: So as ceo, how did this all come around? How did [00:02:00] you

[00:02:00] Roberta Mantenuto: create this? Yeah, so. We started the company with my dad about seven years ago.

[00:02:06] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, I take no credit for the product design. That's all entirely him. We, we used to say that he was the inventor and I was the everything else of the business. Nice. Um, it's, that's changed a little bit now. There's a whole team of everything else and a team that's a part of the invention process as well.

[00:02:24] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, but yeah, he, he came up with the idea. He's always been, This kind of mad scientist inventor my whole life. He's just always had the wildest. Ideas, and I promise you, this is the only invention he's made that hasn't cost my family money. Um, so we're, we're all very excited about it. Yeah.

[00:02:46] Eric Goranson: Well, you know, that's the cool thing about inventors, right?

[00:02:48] Eric Goranson: If you look at the famous ones out there, they came up with thousands and thousands of things, and like 99% of 'em just absolutely. Failed. Yeah. But there's that one that's the home run.

[00:02:59] Roberta Mantenuto: [00:03:00] Exactly. He says you only need one that hits. And so this is the one that hit everything else that's on the, uh, editing floor.

[00:03:07] Roberta Mantenuto: We just, we just ignore and carry on. Um, you

[00:03:12] Eric Goranson: know, that's all, that's all a good band says too. Right. You know, I just need that one and then it's, then we're good. Yeah. Same kind

[00:03:18] Roberta Mantenuto: of thing. Exactly. That's awesome. So, so yeah, he kind of came up with this idea out of, uh, a need that a customer had. So, uh, my parents used to own a.

[00:03:27] Roberta Mantenuto: A stone fabricating shop. So everything from countertops, fireplaces, things like that. And, um, a customer had this, uh, request, um, and my dad, you know, they were gonna, it was gonna cost a lot of money to do a laser cut, stone vent. So my dad said, you know, let come up with a better idea. Um, and so that's what he did.

[00:03:48] Roberta Mantenuto: The first iteration of this product he showed to the customer. Um, the customer actually didn't move forward with it. He, he didn't like the look of it. And so my dad always likes a challenge. He thought, okay, you might not like it, [00:04:00] but I disagree. Um, and so during that kind of r and b period, he came up with probably a hundred different iterations.

[00:04:07] Roberta Mantenuto: Uh, it's actually funny. I'll get emails in my inbox throughout the night and I'll get like, version one. I don't even bother opening it because by like 7:00 AM the next morning I have an email from three 30, like version 25. I'm like, okay, delete all the previous ones. Um, and so, yeah, that is awesome. At one point he thought he made a humidifier.

[00:04:28] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, he put water inside of the tray of the vent, and he showed my family and he said, I think I made a humidifier. And we were all like, you are crazy. That is a horrible idea.

[00:04:40] Eric Goranson: Um, so, yeah. Uh, interesting on paper. But yeah, that would've been a, that would've been a tough one. That

[00:04:45] Roberta Mantenuto: would've been a tough one.

[00:04:46] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah, it was, it was awful. He put water in the tray and it evaporated overnight. The, the tray holds maybe two ounces of water. Exactly what are you, like humidifying with that [00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Eric Goranson: be better putting a coffee mug on the countertop. Probably just letting go with that. Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:04] Roberta Mantenuto: Exactly. Um, so yeah, that, that's kind of the genesis of like the product development of our event.

[00:05:11] Eric Goranson: Nice. And you know, it's one of those things and, and the first time I saw it years ago, I looked at it and I'm like, okay, what about airflow? And I know that's always probably the first one is people scratch their head and go airflow, but these flow really well when you look at it.

[00:05:25] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah. So that is the number one question we get.

[00:05:28] Roberta Mantenuto: And you know, rightfully so by looking at it, it doesn't look like it would have the same airflow as a regular grill vent. Um, we've done all third party testing. We've actually put all of these in like. My own home and my family's home and like we wouldn't. Do put out a product like this if it didn't do the one thing it's actually meant to do, which is move air.

[00:05:49] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, and so the third party testing is all available to see, uh, we do recommend always consulting with an H V A C specialist before you install them in your home because different [00:06:00] homes have, there's no like standardization of what CFM each room or each home needs to have. It's like very nuanced. Uh, but we provide all of the information there to make it, um, Make a decision and the one thing that we're really proud of is actually just last summer we sold our 1000000th vent, um, which is wild.

[00:06:21] Roberta Mantenuto: Wow. Congrats. Yeah, thank you. We never thought we would sell 1 million of anything that my dad invented. So again, very happy to be here. And um, yeah, I mean, you know, part of that social proof is you don't really sell a million of something if it doesn't do its core function, which is to move airflow.

[00:06:39] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[00:06:40] Eric Goranson: You know, it's interesting, you know, in my house I started looking at it. Here's the thing. I looked at my hardwood vents at my house, right? And I started figuring out, What the airflow was on those existing vents. There wasn't much there. By the time you put big pieces of wood covering up the holes, I was shocked at how [00:07:00] little my existing airflow was, these are actually gonna move more air than what my existing vents are, where I would've thought maybe it was the opposite.

[00:07:08] Eric Goranson: Yeah,

[00:07:08] Roberta Mantenuto: so that's a great point actually, when you compare our product to other customized vents. Like the one that you're explaining, the, the custom floor vents that are stained to match so on. Um, none of those companies actually list their airflow reporting on their website. We are one of the few that actually do, and you're absolutely right.

[00:07:26] Roberta Mantenuto: Those don't have as much as you think they would, but nobody really questions them because they still follow the traditional form of a grill vent. Um, and so Right, we kind of take all the heat for that. Um, but yeah. You're

[00:07:40] Eric Goranson: absolutely right. Yeah. I started, do I, I geeked out. I'm like, okay, well how am I gonna figure this out?

[00:07:44] Eric Goranson: So I started figuring out all the little tiny slots that you could probably put three credit cards through. And I'm like, this doesn't flow anywhere at all. Yeah. But it's been in my house since 1977. Yeah. You know, and so that's the funny part. Yeah. And

[00:07:57] Roberta Mantenuto: so you bring up another good point [00:08:00] is that a lot of our H V A C systems, especially in um, Tract housing or um, subdivision homes, you know, they're built for masks.

[00:08:10] Roberta Mantenuto: They're not really the best built systems, the best design systems, hundred percent. And so inherently they're. Always gonna, they're not gonna be as efficient as they could be in, in a custom home, for instance. Or if someone really spent some time putting money towards that. Um, and so you'll always have that room that's freezing cold and one that's like so hot.

[00:08:31] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, there's. Like always that imbalance in homes anyway. Um, and so ultimately if you want the best airflow, it really comes down to the design of the H V A C system ensuring that it's optimized for airflow. And in a lot of cases it's not. So when doing renovations consulting that H V A C specialist is important because, um, It could make a difference or it cannot.

[00:08:55] Roberta Mantenuto: Uh, the best way to use our product is always to involve it at the specking stage of a build. [00:09:00] Um,

[00:09:01] Eric Goranson: it's, it's a smart way to go. And, for instance, I've got a brand new system. So I have a carrier system, uh, their Infinity. All I have to do is go back over and hit the reset on it, and it will actually, since it's variable speed, I'll put it through the self-test section.

[00:09:13] Eric Goranson: And after I replace those vents, it's gonna adjust my airflow. Based on the new vets. And so that's what's cool with these new systems. Oh my God. Do you

[00:09:21] Roberta Mantenuto: have a bionic system? That sounds

[00:09:23] Eric Goranson: insane. I do. So I'm kinda excited to go. Okay. I, I, it shows exactly what the pressure is on it and everything else. I'm just curious to see how much more air I get out of it, because the one I have now, it's, it's ridiculous.

[00:09:36] Eric Goranson: So I, I'm excited to see how this goes cuz obviously I'm gonna flow more air, which means my system's gonna be more efficient. You guys have different vents. For the floor, and then you've even got 'em on the wall. But let's talk about the floor a little bit. You guys have 'em where you're building the floor, you're putting either a brand new tile or wood floor or anything else in, and then you've got your kind of original, which is the retrofit.

[00:09:56] Eric Goranson: Retrofit type,

[00:09:57] Roberta Mantenuto: right? Yeah. Yeah. So all of our [00:10:00] vents are made to be as simple as possible. So they're all modular design, which means that you have one vent. That can be applied to absolutely any floor surface that you have. Um, co cork tile, uh, hardwood, vinyl. Uh, we even installed it with Lego for a trade show one time.

[00:10:16] Roberta Mantenuto: It, it really doesn't matter. Anything will work. That's awesome. You'll just, yeah, you'll just cut a piece of whatever the surface material is and drop it inside of the tray. That's kind of like a cookie sheet. Um, if you're a baker, that's pretty much what it is. Yeah. Um, and so that's the beauty of our vents is that you can actually standardize 'em across your home.

[00:10:35] Roberta Mantenuto: So typically in a home, you might have three or four different surfaces, including all the bathroom tile and the hardwood. Maybe there's carpet upstairs. You can use the same vent across all surfaces. Um, so just like you would standardize, The door handle or trim. Now you can also do the same with vents.

[00:10:51] Roberta Mantenuto: That is really the innovation of our event. There's no other air register on the market that has that same level of modularity as ours does. [00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Eric Goranson: That is so easy cuz you don't have to sit there and go, okay, I gotta order 22 different vent styles. Cuz of course you've got different sizes, but you don't have to worry about the different applications.

[00:11:09] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah, absolutely. And as installers, so flooring installers are some of our biggest customers. They will keep these in their trunks of their cars. And as they go onto sites, they make it the new standard, I'm gonna install this here. They don't have to wait for the lead time of that stained custom stained.

[00:11:26] Roberta Mantenuto: Floor event where they have to go and do a return trip to the site, they can install them same day, close up the job, get paid, and carry on to the next one. And the other thing that we do is in all of our products, we make a d I Y version and a flush mount or a pro version. Um, it depends for the different level of, uh, install that you have.

[00:11:46] Roberta Mantenuto: So if you're just a, a weekend warrior and wanna do something on the weekend, you have a leftover. Piece of flooring material. You can easily install our DIY model. If you're replacing your floors and you have an installer in there, then of course the pro model is a little [00:12:00] bit sleeker. It doesn't have a m or a frame that sits on and it gives you that extra elevated look.

[00:12:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah. That's so beautiful on that. And trust me, when I was, uh, placing the order on mine, I was like, how much do I wanna do for work? Yeah. Because I've got an existing hardwood floor and I was like, do I want to tear that far into it? It's tempting. Yeah.

[00:12:20] Roberta Mantenuto: Please don't do that. It's, it's gonna, I know it's gonna be a,

[00:12:23] Eric Goranson: I thought about it, but I, yeah, I thought about it and I was like, no, let's, let's go.

[00:12:26] Eric Goranson: Easy button on this. Let's go easy button. Which is cool. And then on top of that, you know, you've got the different sizes and stuff. And what I do love on the website is it does show the airflows really easily. So I can take a look at it and say, okay, on the chart, okay, here's what it is. Now I can see what it is.

[00:12:41] Eric Goranson: And so that way you can bring in your H V A C person to make sure that you're not, uh, causing any system problems like you would with any event that you're out there shopping for. Yeah,

[00:12:49] Roberta Mantenuto: absolutely. And then we also have our wall vents. So typically, oh my gosh, these are beautiful. Yeah. So typically in Canada, we only see these, uh, really in the [00:13:00] basements or in the, in the foy of a home.

[00:13:02] Roberta Mantenuto: In the internal walls where you have those big ugly air returns, they always end up being in the hallway. Um, usually where the bedrooms are. Yeah, those are really big eye sores. Um, so you can use our drywall vents. We have, again, two different models. We have one that's a pro version, it has a drywall bead, so you just mud in that frame and drywall, sand that all in just like you would any other drywall corner bead.

[00:13:27] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, and if that is not an option for you, we've actually just launched a whole suite of framed drywall products. This is like our. Absolute easiest product to install. You literally just need a drill, possibly a screwdriver. You can do it with that, and you'll just take out that ugly grill that you had, put this in four screws, and then put that tray on top of it or that plate and, and you're good to go.

[00:13:50] Roberta Mantenuto: And it gives you a totally elevated

[00:13:52] Eric Goranson: look. See you guys up in Toronto. Have it good because here in the States we have those ugly wall vents everywhere. [00:14:00] Yeah. I don't know what, what, who's good idea design wise that was, yeah. But I think 70% of our houses have that. And uh, I mean, to me it's a little better than being on the floor.

[00:14:10] Eric Goranson: I don't like the air returns on the floor because people with pets tends to grab even more dirt. Mm-hmm. And stuff. So I get that. But, uh, oh my gosh. Between that and then do you have anything that addresses and I'm. Don't know this question, anything that addresses the ceiling as well, cuz we have plenty of those ceiling return vents as well.

[00:14:28] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[00:14:28] Roberta Mantenuto: So all of our wall vents can be used on the walls or ceilings. There are some wacky, wild, very large sizes that we find out in the states that we do not have sizes for, but, um, I would say probably 90% of the sizes that you, you would find on the market we have in, in our drywall product for sure.

[00:14:51] Eric Goranson: Oh, that is cool.

[00:14:52] Eric Goranson: That is cool because yeah, even my house, I've got that ugly vent. You walk right in the front door and if you look right up, there's that return air [00:15:00] vent like there. And I'm like, really? Did we have to put that right in the foyer when I walk in?

[00:15:03] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah. I mean this, this is like the craziest thing about the innovation is that vents are in literally every room of the home and they're just something that we've all just kind of shrugged and been like, Yep.

[00:15:14] Roberta Mantenuto: They need to be there. We need air in the home. It is, it is what it is. And just carry on. And, and that's really kind of the ethos of our brand and of our products is really challenging that status quo to question like, does that actually need to be there? Does it actually need to look that way? Can we improve the design in some.

[00:15:33] Roberta Mantenuto: Form. Um, and so we started with air vents, uh, and, and, and that's kind of the chunk of what we've been talking about today, but we've really been pivoting our company to become, you know, a building material solution company. Any mundane unloved building products or design accessories that we've all just kind of done that same thing of like, it needs to be there, the light switch has to be there.

[00:15:55] Roberta Mantenuto: Yep. We have to turn on the light. Uh, those are all things that we are [00:16:00] challenging and are going to change the way that we see those things. So, started with Vince and now we're pivoting to a bunch of other things. And this is kind of what we call the Aria effect, is that once you start to notice these things, it's like they've been in plain sight and we've ignored them this whole, our whole lives.

[00:16:17] Roberta Mantenuto: And now we start questioning everything like. You know, we, we'll get calls from customers saying, yeah, I have this like alarm box in my foyer. Can we make something to cover that up? I'm like, yep. This

[00:16:29] Eric Goranson: like, how about that ugly doorbell? Right. That doorbell that's in everybody's house. That, sorry bro. Nutton.

[00:16:35] Eric Goranson: I love you guys, but those things are hideous. Yeah. You haven't made something cool since 1965. Yeah. Yeah, that looks good. Exactly. We gotta hide this. Exactly.

[00:16:43] Roberta Mantenuto: What about like, All of those like toilet cleaner accessories that we all tuck behind our toilet bowls thinking that our guests are not gonna notice.

[00:16:52] Roberta Mantenuto: Right. We came up with a solution for that as well. So we've really just developed a, a team of and, and a customer base of [00:17:00] very, um, you know, anal customers that are now become perfectionists in every sense, thinking, can you guys come up with this? Can you come up with that? And, and yeah, that we love that.

[00:17:09] Roberta Mantenuto: That's the Ari effect. Now you start to see the problem, right.

[00:17:13] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Okay. We gotta talk about that for the bathroom cuz this is one of the trickiest things and I'm like, finally somebody has addressed this because the, the plunger in cleaning brush has always ended up on the floor right next to the toilet.

[00:17:26] Eric Goranson: And I get it. People are like, well either put it there, I'm gonna put it in the vanity. But then nobody wants their stuff jammed up against it. In the vanity either cause. Well, it's crouch, right? Yeah, exactly. Now you guys came up with a solution for that.

[00:17:38] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah. So that's our, that's our WC niche. Um, really my dad and the product team are very fascinated about maximizing the space and the wall cavity between Joyce.

[00:17:48] Roberta Mantenuto: And we wanna make it super simple. So previously, if you wanted to build out a niche, you would have to frame it out, you know, cut a hole in the wall, frame it out with two by fours, all that stuff. It gets really [00:18:00] time consuming and it's definitely something that you need to be doing at the build stage to retrofit.

[00:18:04] Roberta Mantenuto: It becomes very complicated. So all of our niche solutions are super easy. You literally cut a hole in the wall between the choice. Our niches fit perfectly between the jo, so you don't need to make any modifications. There's a drywall bead, uh, frame that you'll just mud it in just like you would any other drywall bead.

[00:18:22] Roberta Mantenuto: And the WC niche, the one that we're talking about right now is a little bit longer I think. About 30 inches and it comes with a hinge door. That hinge door opens up, it has that garbage bin inside that comes with the product. And then on the other side of it, that's where you can hide the toilet bowl cleaner, the plunger, the brush, you can even put, um, extra toilet rolls in there.

[00:18:41] Roberta Mantenuto: And the beauty of it is, ah, you just close that hinge, you put it up against the wall and it's gone. And if your, if your guests need to find it, they know where to find it. And you look behind the toilet pool, it's perfectly clean. Everything is tidy and tucked away, and we're using space that otherwise we would not have used.

[00:18:59] Roberta Mantenuto: It was just [00:19:00] behind the walls, just a little cavity. Um, so it's just like those little pockets of optimization of space and utility, that's what really excites us. Well,

[00:19:08] Eric Goranson: especially today, you know, I mean, 20 years ago you had the toilet. Nobody really thought about, Hey, let's make that toilet look pretty. But now you've got all these, you know, robotic toilets with, you know, that are 6, 7, 10, $20,000 toilets.

[00:19:23] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Nobody wants to see when you spend that kind of money on a toilet. Nobody wants to see the ugly stuff sitting around it. I mean, you're paying for lights and everything else on this crazy thing. Yeah. Why not use that and hide that

[00:19:34] stuff

[00:19:34] Roberta Mantenuto: away? Yeah. We've, we've invented toilets that literally speak to you, but for some reason there's a pleasure behind it.

[00:19:40] Roberta Mantenuto: Like, what? Can, can we just like roll it back a little bit? Let's talk about what actually needs to be resolved here.

[00:19:50] Eric Goranson: I love it. And, and your other boxes too. I mean, this is great, but so many times the more automated we get with, with switches and controls and things within [00:20:00] a home, you know, the, the smarter the home gets, the more junk we've got to hide places, right.

[00:20:05] Eric Goranson: And you guys have some great covers for that as

[00:20:07] Roberta Mantenuto: well. Yeah, so we have, um, a smaller niche, um, that basically you can mount your alarm keypad and then it comes with a hinge door. And inside that hinge door, we also have a little pocket in there where you can hide other things like, you know, your keys or if you have a dog, you, your pad.

[00:20:23] Roberta Mantenuto: You wanna put any accessories that are always left at the front door, you can tuck them all in there. What we discovered afterwards, we did not invent it. For this reason. But in Toronto in particular, we've had an increase in car theft, uh, in the past six months where basically the thieves will come to your front door, they will scan the door for the R F I D and copy your, um, your, your car key.

[00:20:46] Roberta Mantenuto: And then, yeah, they'll copy it and then they'll just drive off your, just drive your car off your driveway with your car. Um, Do you, I always ask people in the States, are you guys finding that? Does that happen?

[00:20:59] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it [00:21:00] happens here. I mean, uh, I'm in Portland, Oregon here, where we have massive car thefts here, so, okay.

[00:21:06] Eric Goranson: That is, that does happen. Okay. It does happen.

[00:21:08] Roberta Mantenuto: So, so after we had invent come up with this new product, we actually learned that if you put your car keys in there, it actually blocks them from being able to scan the key. And, uh, once we learned that, we were like, yes, that is exactly why we made it for security.

[00:21:24] Roberta Mantenuto: Add that to the list. Um, that, no, that was just a happy accident, but that's, I mean, that's something that people don't really think about and um, as our users just continue to use different products, we come up with these other, you know, selling points of them. So that's one that was a very happy accident.

[00:21:39] Roberta Mantenuto: Other than that, we just launched, I believe it was in December, a device now. So this is really cool. This is great for any smart. Thermostat or anything that hangs off the wall. Mm-hmm. Any kind of device that, so long as it's under five inches by five inches, it will fit into this. And this is just like a recessed little shelf that you can mount it on there.

[00:21:59] Roberta Mantenuto: The other excellent [00:22:00] use for this is also pot lights. Um, or flush mount. Oh, lights. Yeah. Yeah. So if you wanna buy a flush now. Uh, light in Canada, we call them pot lights. Mm-hmm. Is that what? Yep. Same

[00:22:11] Eric Goranson: thing. Okay. Uh, we call 'em can lights here, but pot lights can lights, you know, everybody's seen Mike Holmes so many times.

[00:22:16] Eric Goranson: Call him pot lights here. Everybody figured it out.

[00:22:18] Roberta Mantenuto: Okay, good. Alright. So can lights, we'll go with that. Um, yep. So if you want the flush mount version, they're very tedious to install and they're actually quite expensive. They can get as much as a hundred dollars a light. And if you just take a look up at your home now.

[00:22:32] Roberta Mantenuto: And count how many you have. It can get very expensive very quickly. So with this device mount, you can actually recess, a top mount can light inside of it. Um, the mount itself is about, uh, it's a fraction of the cost. I think it's about $12 US something around there. Oh, wow. You just install it the same way you would the top mount.

[00:22:51] Roberta Mantenuto: Canned light, but you recess it with this device. Um, and so it gives you that same finished look at literally a fraction of the price. And then of course, just [00:23:00] like any of our other products, it's actually easier to install than the other competitors. So it's less expensive, it's easier to install, and it gives you the same finished look.

[00:23:09] Roberta Mantenuto: That's usually like the three things that all of our products are trying

[00:23:12] Eric Goranson: to accomplish. Oh, that is great because yeah, lighting is such a big deal and, and with it changing so much, you know, I mean, we've had so many changes in lights from the in Cadea bulb, and then we went to those horrible compact for us at ones that, that were, you know, made everything look like a really bad hospital or office.

[00:23:29] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And then now we're back into LEDs again, but, and you can spend a ton of money. On good l e D lights these days. Yeah. And just in recess can lights. Yeah, absolutely. Or pot lights as you call them. Yeah,

[00:23:40] Roberta Mantenuto: exactly. Yeah. So

[00:23:42] Eric Goranson: we have plenty of good Canadian followers, so,

[00:23:44] Roberta Mantenuto: yeah. Yeah. Excellent. So the other cool thing about this device now it's, it's one sku.

[00:23:48] Roberta Mantenuto: It's one product. It's five inches by five inches, and you can use it across. All these different devices. Um, so for our retail partners who stock inventory of our product, it's one skew that they have to [00:24:00] carry. It's not that every single device we have to keep up to date with all the development of each device.

[00:24:05] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, it's just like a standard amount that you use with everything that you can find.

[00:24:12] Eric Goranson: Wow, that is awesome. And again, that somebody can have that in the back of their truck or their car and it's got so many uses for that, you know, remodeler contractor

[00:24:21] Roberta Mantenuto: or anything else. Yeah. And then we always keep in mind, you know, um, the couple that just bought their first home, we're doing kind of a, a little renovation.

[00:24:29] Roberta Mantenuto: Maybe they don't know how to drywall mud or they're not as comfortable with that. There's also a framed version of it. So we try to again, hit the pro, hit the diy, make it easy to install. And just like applicable and modular to everything that you can think of.

[00:24:45] Eric Goranson: So what do you see going forward? And we'll talk about a few more things, but what do you see forward going with what you guys are gonna be doing?

[00:24:51] Eric Goranson: I mean, any secrets of new stuff coming out that you're working on? Cause I tell you what, uh, you, every time you guys come out with something new, I'm like, I didn't even [00:25:00] know we needed to address that, but of course we needed to address that. Yeah, because it's so obvious, you know, you see it and you're like, just like the bathroom stuff.

[00:25:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah. No one. Everyone has accepted that as status quo. Exactly.

[00:25:12] Roberta Mantenuto: But it's there. So this year, uh, every third Tuesday of the month, we have something called innovation week, where we're launching new products. Um, some months it's just one product. Some months it's a few at a time. Um, Everything that we're launching this year is pretty much not air registers.

[00:25:30] Roberta Mantenuto: They're all really leaning into that building materials and accessories. I love

[00:25:34] Eric Goranson: it. Well, here's one of the things that I love too, by the way, is I love your receptacle, like your outlet niches where you can flush mount that. Yeah, that looks so trick. Yeah.

[00:25:46] Roberta Mantenuto: So one thing that we've learned is that between trades on a site, there's always this.

[00:25:50] Roberta Mantenuto: Kind of contention of, you know, the electrician comes in, they set something up that the drywaller needs to fix, that the, you know, like the plumber is upset. And so [00:26:00] we're really trying to bring peace to the, to the, uh, job site is also one of the core values of our products. And so, yeah, with the receptacle Mount, again, any other competitors on the market are really expensive and they're also very challenging to install.

[00:26:15] Roberta Mantenuto: And when I mean, challenging to install, right, I mean that it usually involves, uh, cooperation between two. Separate trades. So the drywaller and the electrician and just the nature of job sites, they're not usually on the site at the same time or one happens after the other. So with our product, it's actually less expensive.

[00:26:32] Roberta Mantenuto: It's using the existing apparatus. You don't need to make any adjustments to the receptacle mount or anything like that. There's just a simple adjustment that it needs to be slightly recessed. That can be done easily by the electrician, and then the drywaller comes in and just. Puts this receptacle mount, um, and then the receptacle box is attached to it from the back and you're good to go.

[00:26:52] Roberta Mantenuto: It uses, um, existing screw list wall plates that you have to buy separately and the same apparatus of the electrical box. [00:27:00] Um, it makes it easier to install. All of the trades are happy and don't really need to converse with each other. They can carry on. And the final look is so beautiful. It's basically making sure that the recess, that the, the.

[00:27:13] Roberta Mantenuto: The receptacle mount, um, is flat with the drywall. It doesn't protrude from the wall. And these are really small details that just elevate a space, right? Um, we're, we're so focused on curating every single detail. Why should the receptacle mount stick out from the wall? Why should there be two screws that you can always see it just.

[00:27:33] Roberta Mantenuto: You know, you're spending so much money on the renovation, like just go the extra mile, you know, just do it right. Yeah. And

[00:27:40] Eric Goranson: what I love about this too is that I've tried to use some of the other products as a designer in the past, cuz I've got 29 years of interior design trying to get those guys to put those, you'd almost have to put those boxes in at rough in Exactly.

[00:27:53] Eric Goranson: And then, The drywallers were trying to mess around and the drywallers had never seen 'em before and you know, they'd end up [00:28:00] getting half torn out and it was just always a nightmare trying to get those working. And you guys just went, Hey, if you just put the box back a little bit, we're good to

[00:28:07] Roberta Mantenuto: go. Yeah, basically, yeah.

[00:28:10] Roberta Mantenuto: There's a, there's another, there's actually a product that I wanna talk about that's gonna be launching in a couple of weeks, if that's all right. Ooh. So yeah, please. One of our best selling products is actually at an exhaust mount, so the ugly exhaust vent that you have in your bathroom that's like accumulating dust and yellowing, and you just like look up once in a while and you're like, oh my God.

[00:28:30] Roberta Mantenuto: We should clean that and then we never do nasty. Yeah. Yeah. So

[00:28:34] Eric Goranson: you're so honest. I love it. Cause everybody in the house is going Yeah, I meant to do that last weekend and I've been pushing off for six

[00:28:40] Roberta Mantenuto: months. Yeah. Well this is the thing is like now I look at these things cuz this is my job and I get into people's houses and I'm like, yeah, we should probably fix something.

[00:28:48] Roberta Mantenuto: Do something for that. So we came up with this exhaust now, which basically you use this, you use a fan, the same fan that you do. Mm-hmm. Panasonic. Whatever, bro, on whatever company you use, bro. Yeah. And you actually [00:29:00] recess it so that nothing is sitting flesh on, uh, nothing is protruding from the drywall and the ceiling.

[00:29:05] Roberta Mantenuto: Everything is tucked behind and you actually don't see that ugly grill fan. It has a mount that you just close it and you just see this like beautiful plate that you paint to match your drywall. Um, so we've had the metal product out. So the metal version of that product we've had out for a few years, it's actually one of our top sellers.

[00:29:25] Roberta Mantenuto: And what we do is every time we develop product, we make it in solid steel first. And if we find that there's a product market fit and it's doing well, we'll replicate it in plastic. And so that's what we've done. Yeah. We've now launching the plastic version of this model. Um, it's gonna come in two different models, like I mentioned before, a drywall bead and then an.

[00:29:43] Roberta Mantenuto: Easy DIY framed version. Nice. Um, it'll have all of the same functions, but it's actually gonna be less than half the price of the metal counterpart. Um, You're, you're now gonna be able to get that finished, look at a more accessible price point, which is what we do with [00:30:00] all of our other products. We have a higher end metal version and then a, and then a mid to low end plastic version that has the same function.

[00:30:06] Roberta Mantenuto: It's paintable, the whole thing. It's compatible with the same models. It's just at a different price point. And the one thing that we're really proud of is that all of our products, regardless if their metal or plastic are made here in Canada, that's something that's been so important to us. Besides the fact that we have innovation and, you know, we're very aggressive with protecting that and, and making sure that we're the only ones on the market that can sell our patented products.

[00:30:32] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah. Um, quality is also very important to us and our customers as well. Um, you know, our products are more expensive than, you know, the status quo. Which, you know, is logical. Um, yeah. But it's

[00:30:45] Eric Goranson: North American made, right? I mean, that's what's cool about that.

[00:30:48] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah, absolutely. And every single product is hand inspected by our team, uh, on our assembly line.

[00:30:55] Roberta Mantenuto: So yeah, equality is a really big deal to us for

[00:30:58] Eric Goranson: sure. [00:31:00] Nice and that's cool. Yeah. That's hiding that bathroom fan. Brilliant. That is absolutely brilliant. Because man, there's not a single one out there that I go, Ooh, that's sexy. No, they all just need to be hidden. I love it. Yeah. One thing I do like that you guys have is how does that shower niche work that you guys have, that's kind of trick too.

[00:31:21] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah. So the shower niches, all of the niches and. Regular niches and showers, you can still see all of the bottles and you know, the things that accumulate on the little shelf. And so, yeah, just like everything else, we wanted to add a hinge door to the niche so that you can tuck everything away and hide it.

[00:31:38] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, it comes now in two sizes. Um, so there's a, I think it's a 12 by 12 and then a 12 by 20 size, so a little bit longer. The beauty of this niche is that it fits between the. So you don't need to move, reframe anything. Um, they actually fit into preexisting, um, you know, anybody who has a, a waterproof, [00:32:00] um, Mount like Schluter has one.

[00:32:03] Roberta Mantenuto: I believe it fits perfectly into that. So you'll just put the Schluter waterproof easy. Yeah, niche in there. And then you'll put ours inside of it. You don't need to tile inside of the niche, which is, you know, can take a lot of time. It's very tedious. So tile setters really enjoy this. And then it has a tile will door, um, where you just, whatever tile you're putting on the rest of the wall, you will tile that inside of the door and it has a hinge door you can open and close it.

[00:32:26] Roberta Mantenuto: So put all of your, you know, your lofa, your shaver, your ball, your. Shampoo bottles and you just put all that all in there. Mm-hmm. You close the door and nobody can see it.

[00:32:34] Eric Goranson: Okay. That's cool. I love that. Yeah, I love that. And then I guess those bottles always look horrible. I mean, they do in my shower. They do In everybody's shower.

[00:32:44] Eric Goranson: As the design wise, I always try to hide them. I. You know, as a designer, cuz I've designed thousands of bathrooms out there, as in my career of doing it. I'm always like, well, they're like, why'd you put the niche way down over there? Because I don't wanna look at it. Yeah, right. I just, you know, so many people make that the [00:33:00] centerpiece and I'm like, Why should somebody's Costco bottles be my centerpiece in this beautiful $20,000 shower?

[00:33:07] Roberta Mantenuto: I'm, I'm glad you brought up the Costco bottle, cuz I just wanna get ahead of the game. It does not fit a Costco size bottle. There's just not, there's not enough depth in the, to make up for that. No, there's.

[00:33:18] Eric Goranson: So, so that there's not a niche that's made to fit that. Yeah. You know, and trust me, I built my own custom one.

[00:33:24] Eric Goranson: And where's the Costco bottle? At my house. It's on the floor next to the bench. Yes. Okay. Because that's, the wall's not thick enough to put a Costco bottle. Yes. You know? Absolutely. So let's, let's, let's get ahead of that right there. Yeah. Yeah. Those are always meant to fit on the floor. Cuz if you try to fit 'em on, even in a normal wall, it's gonna try to fall off, so.

[00:33:40] Eric Goranson: Yeah, exactly. It won't fit in anything.

[00:33:41] Roberta Mantenuto: Exactly. So, and then the one other piece of feedback that we have gotten, or or question that we get about is, Um, inside the, inside the niche. Um, can water accumulate in the back and start creating molds? So the base of the niche is actually slanted down, so the water should drain out.

[00:33:59] Roberta Mantenuto: But you [00:34:00] know, of course, just like anything else, the niche does not absolve anyone from cleaning their shower. You absolutely need to do that. And so you'll clean our niche just like you would any other niche. It's actually stainless steel. So in terms of molding, it's actually better than a tiled. Uh, niche that actually can, especially if it's natural stone, it could start of, start absorbing that water.

[00:34:21] Roberta Mantenuto: You don't have that issue with ours because it's stainless steel. So yeah, definitely still clean your shower. Don't, don't stop doing that.

[00:34:30] Eric Goranson: Oh, trust me and I, funny story on that, just a little side note. I had a, uh, when we started using some of the new high performance grouts a few years ago in projects, it was this easy, clean grout, everything else, and a customer had us come back, me and the contractor come back, look at a.

[00:34:46] Eric Goranson: Project we had designed like, and built like three years ago. And he is like, yeah, the tile. The tile looks horrible in there. What happened? So we're over there kind of horrified what's going on? What happened? We have to redo a shower. Oh no, this dude hadn't cleaned his shower in [00:35:00] three years and thought, because we said it was an easy clean, that it was self-cleaning.

[00:35:03] Eric Goranson: And I'm like, dude, clean your shower. Yeah, we're this isn't, you can't get away from that. I mean, there's things you can do, but that's. You still gotta clean it. Yeah.

[00:35:14] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah. That's, we're, we're not there yet. The technology is not there. I'm sure. The toilet bowl, uh, the, you know, the, the smart toilet people will probably come up with like a smart sha self-cleaning shower or something.

[00:35:25] Eric Goranson: The closest, my shower is the closest out there that I have now. It's, uh, it's a, uh, drying shower system, so there's air vents in there that blow my shower. Yes. And so my, my, my steam shower has 13 air vents that blow in the glass, the doors and across the floor to dry it. So in 20 minutes my shower's dry.

[00:35:45] Eric Goranson: So it's makes it much easier to stay clean. Do you live

[00:35:48] Roberta Mantenuto: in like a bionic home? Like what do you have

[00:35:50] Eric Goranson: such,

[00:35:52] Roberta Mantenuto: wow, I didn't even know that was a thing. That's insane.

[00:35:56] Eric Goranson: Yeah, so that's actually, it's really cool for self drying. You don't have to [00:36:00] get the squeegee out. It's the squeegee. Yeah, it's the squeegee list shower.

[00:36:03] Eric Goranson: So I'll show you pictures of that off air. It's cool. Yeah, it's, it, it makes it so when you're doing a shower, it's no other way to do it. Literally, you just hit the timer and walk away. And I just make sure my bath fans runs faster, you know, longer than the, than the drying system. But yeah. Hey, in

[00:36:18] Roberta Mantenuto: theory, if you stayed in there while events were on, could that also just dry you?

[00:36:23] Roberta Mantenuto: So you don't need a towel. Absolutely.

[00:36:25] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It feels like, it literally feels like you can feel the air in there. It's, it's like a, a cold hair dryer moving around in there. That's insane. I love it. Armada is the brand of that, and they do a great job with that. But you guys also make a, a shower bench.

[00:36:39] Eric Goranson: System, right? Yeah. If I

[00:36:41] Roberta Mantenuto: remember right. Yeah. So this is called our BR 14. Um, basically it's just an easier way to make any floating bench. So shower bench is probably the best use case, but you can use it for any floating furniture. Um, and the beauty of the BR 14 is that it's easier to install. A floating shower [00:37:00] bench.

[00:37:00] Roberta Mantenuto: The bras actually, um, are modular so they can attach to each other. So depending on how wide the span is, you can just keep attaching them and going as wide as you need. They're also pretty solid. I think they, each bracket alone can hold, uh, upwards of 150 pounds. So of course you need two brackets. That's 300 pounds right there.

[00:37:21] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, same thing though, like you definitely need to put a, a waterproofing substrate around it. It's not. It's not like waterproof before that. Um, yeah, that's been, that, that products actually been a sloper and that was our first accessory that we ever launched, uh, primarily because my dad found a need for it in his own personal use, and he like, maybe we could.

[00:37:41] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, so yeah. And now they've really kind, they've really taken off. So again, that's that the, the. Goal mission for that product was just to make the install easier and to have something that's already, um, pre-made. So you can just use that in any application.

[00:37:56] Eric Goranson: Why not a great deal for a tile installer? Just to have [00:38:00] that sitting around and just to be able to go, okay, I got it.

[00:38:02] Eric Goranson: I don't have to go sit there and try to fabricate something. Yeah. And it gives you a place where you can hide your Costco bottles underneath it. Yeah, exactly.

[00:38:07] Roberta Mantenuto: Exactly. Hey, and, and every time you make something easier, you also make it more cost effective because the tile setter's time is valuable. So you know, the faster that they can actually focus on the craftsmanship of.

[00:38:21] Roberta Mantenuto: Doing their job instead of building all these substrates and, you know, putting all these things together, we just wanna make it super easy for them. And then of course, the homeowner will see the upside of that as well, because they're gonna be able to get the job done faster and um, with more precision.

[00:38:38] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that is great. You know, I love on the, on the wall, Vince, I love how you make 'em with the drywall where you can drywall 'em in. Cuz to me that is that just very fine detail of making those look absolutely perfect when you have to put the frame in. There's nothing wrong with that, but to me, if you really are trying to get that ultra finished, fine detail look.

[00:38:58] Eric Goranson: The hard corners of [00:39:00] that, how sleek that is. It's, it's trick. Yeah,

[00:39:03] Roberta Mantenuto: for sure. If you're like me though, we gotta do more. Drywalling is not in my, uh, my arsenal of skills, so I go with the frame.

[00:39:12] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You know, I, I, I just had this conversation cause I had to do, uh, for the TV show a few weeks ago, I had to do a drywall patch segment and I'm like, next to doing insulation.

[00:39:21] Eric Goranson: There is nothing that I hate more than doing drywall. But when it's done right, it looks so good.

[00:39:26] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah. We, we had to make a sample for a trade show a few years ago and I told, I'm pretty artistic myself. I told my dad like, I can probably do it. Like how hard could it be? You know, I didn't, I did it. He looked at it and he's like, we need to throw that out.

[00:39:40] Roberta Mantenuto: We we're going to a show where drywallers we're gonna embarrass us. Ok.

[00:39:46] Eric Goranson: Oh, that, that is the worst part with me out there, because I'm not an electrician, I'm not a drywaller, I'm not a plumber. So I was doing a segment last week and I'm sweating pipe. With the torch and I'm like, I can hear every plumber [00:40:00] making fun of me in the background.

[00:40:01] Eric Goranson: I know what I'm doing, but it's not beautiful like it is for them. Right? Yeah. You know, and it's just like I can hear every plumber on, on social media going, really? And I'm like, it looked good. Yeah. But. Still know your strengths. You're gonna get beat up. Know your strengths. Yes. So Roberta, how do people track you down out there?

[00:40:19] Eric Goranson: How do people find these? How do people buy them? How do they put 'em

[00:40:22] Roberta Mantenuto: in their home? Yeah, so our event is actually one of the first, um, Companies in our industry that started as a direct to consumer brand. So we actually started with selling on ri event.com and slowly, slowly, we've actually started reselling to other retailers.

[00:40:39] Roberta Mantenuto: So there's a whole list of retailers that you can buy from. In Canada, we sell some of our products through Home Depot. If you're in Quebec, bmr, uh, those are like the biggest names. Other than that, yeah, any really flooring store, um, you can find our products in. The best place to find all that information is Aria event do com.

[00:40:58] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, if you wanna buy from a local [00:41:00] retailer and see the product before you buy it, you can go look at our store locator and that'll give the list all that our products. You can buy aria com.

[00:41:12] Eric Goranson: Cool. Cool. So what else have we missed today, Roberta? This is great.

[00:41:16] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, the, I think the biggest thing that I really wanna make sure people understand is that all of our products are our own innovations.

[00:41:24] Roberta Mantenuto: The majority of them have been protected by patents. Um, as a brand, we're really trying to. You know, change, uh, the industry and provide people products that are modular, functional, they look beautiful. Um, and yeah, just kind of get people to love things that have just been. Mundane and you know, status quo for the longest time.

[00:41:48] Roberta Mantenuto: That's really our mission.

[00:41:49] Eric Goranson: So if it doesn't say Aria vent on it, it's not the real thing. Yes, yes, yes. There. Yeah, for sure. There's always, [00:42:00] you know, that's like, they always say, oh, it's when people copy. It's flattering. No, you're ripping me off. Don't copy me. Yeah. That's just how I look at it. I'm sorry. Yeah, and I mean, I don't like the, I don't like the knockoff stuff.

[00:42:09] Eric Goranson: It's something I attack all the time, the knockoff people in the world out there. Cause. It's everywhere in every industry, and I can't stand it. Yeah.

[00:42:17] Roberta Mantenuto: I mean, and it's kind of the name of the game. When you have innovation, you'll always have copycats coming to the market with different products. Um, and so as a, as a innovation company, really one of our mandates is to protect our patents and make sure that, um, we're honoring, uh, our inventions and our innovation.

[00:42:35] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, you know. Yeah. It's really the only way that you can do it. If you're not gonna do that, you're. The, the ripple effects that that will have in the industry is that people are not gonna be as motivated to innovate if they know that everybody, people are gonna start ripping them off as soon as you do.

[00:42:50] Roberta Mantenuto: Um, and so absolutely, yeah, that's, that's really one of our strategies is to make sure that we're protecting our patents. And of course, we protect our partners as well. All of those retailers that [00:43:00] find on the store locator, they're invested in, uh, the success of Aria. They're carrying inventory with us.

[00:43:05] Roberta Mantenuto: You know, we need to honor those relationships and make sure that. You know, we're protecting our brand and our product because they have a, they have a vested interest in that as well.

[00:43:15] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So if you're tackling that project this weekend, head down to your local retailer, might be able to grab it off the shelf today, and then if you're getting it off that list, you know, it's the real thing as well.

[00:43:23] Eric Goranson: Yeah, absolutely. Roberta, thanks for coming on today. I really appreciate it. I even learned some more about what stuff you've got coming out and, uh, there's some exciting stuff for you guys in

[00:43:33] Roberta Mantenuto: 2023. Yes. I appreciate you having me so much. It, this was just so much fun. And, uh, yeah, we're on a mission to get people excited about air registers and other unloved building products, so I think we did that here today, at least between you and I.

[00:43:47] Roberta Mantenuto: Yeah.

[00:43:49] Eric Goranson: All right, Roberta making those ugly things in our home. Sexy again, our event. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. I'm Eric G and you've been listening to Around the House[00:44:00]