Building Industry Show · Indian Wells · September 3, 2026
The exhibitor floor at the Building Industry Show sold out this year. Something like a thousand people from the homebuilding trade, more than a hundred exhibitors, all of it in one ballroom in Indian Wells. We were there on the third, the day the floor opened, sharing a booth with ES Windows.
What we brought
Two pieces of hardware, and both of them were arguing the same point: get the wall out of the way.
The first was an ES-LG850 multi-slide door. The panels slide and stack until the opening stops being a door and starts being an opening. On a valley house that faces a pool, that is the entire pitch. You are not really buying a door. You are buying the ability to not have a wall there in February, and to close it back up in July.
The second was a pivot entry door. Oversized, walnut finish, a black pull running most of its height. It hangs on a pivot instead of side hinges, which is how something that big swings on one finger. Watching people discover that was most of the fun of the day. Nobody expects it to move that easily, and everybody pushes it twice.
We had spec cards up for two more ES lines as well, which are the less photogenic half of what they make and the half that ends up in far more houses.
- ES-LG850Multi-Slide DoorPanels slide and stack to open a wall.
- ES-LG225Window WallGlazed wall system, floor to ceiling.
- ES-LG250Casement / AwningThe workhorse. Cranks open, seals hard.
About the booth
Oscar Gutierrez, who heads marketing for ES Windows, wrote to us afterward. His team was told by the show’s organizers that our joint booth was recognised as the best booth at BIS 2026. We were not in the room when that was said, so we are passing it along the way it reached us rather than hanging a trophy on the wall.
“I would like to thank the entire California Window and Door team for your support, commitment, and collaboration in making our first participation at BIS such a great success.”
Oscar Gutierrez, Head of Marketing, ES Windows
Michael Johnson ran the booth for us, from the morning through most of the day, with Anthony Ellenz covering the back half. At one point the organizers handed Michael a microphone and he introduced both companies to the floor, which he had roughly no warning about and did well anyway. He came home with a stack of builder contacts, which is the actual reason anyone goes.
A bigger opening is a glass decision before it is a design decision
Here is the part that does not photograph.
The Coachella Valley is California Climate Zone 15, which carries the strictest solar heat gain limits in the state. Anyone who has crossed a parking lot in Indio in August can explain why without opening a code book. When you turn a wall into glass, every square foot of that glass takes over the job the stucco used to do.
That is not an argument against the big opening. It is an argument that the glass package stops being a detail once the opening gets that large. Coating, tint, which direction the thing faces, how much shade the overhang genuinely throws at four in the afternoon in July. Two multi-slide doors that look identical in a showroom can behave very differently on a west elevation, and the one that behaves better is not always the one you would pick by eye.
All of that has to be documented for Title 24, which is the state energy code, and it has to clear your HOA’s architectural committee, which in most valley communities meets about as often as it feels like. We handle both. We pull more window and door permits than any other company in the Coachella Valley, so the counter staff in these cities already know us.
One thing worth knowing before you ask for a quote
A multi-slide door or a pivot entry at that scale is usually not a retrofit.
A retrofit laps the new unit over the existing frame. Nothing gets cut, the stucco is left alone, most homes finish in a day or two. It is the right answer for a great many window jobs. It is not the right answer when you are changing the size of the hole in the building, which is what a wall of glass means. That is new construction work: header, flashing, stucco, and a permit conversation that often outlasts the install.
Both are perfectly normal jobs. They are just different jobs, and it saves everyone a week of confusion to know which one you are asking about. A single patio door or one entry door is a completely welcome call too. Not every project has to be a wall.
Come push one yourselfA multi-slide door makes very little sense on a page and complete sense the moment you slide one. We keep this material on the floor at our Palm Desert showroom, the largest window and door showroom in the valley, at 75-100 Saint Charles Place. Monday through Friday, 7:30 to 4:30. Saturdays by appointment.Book a free in-home quoteCall (760) 773-1053
ES Windows is one of the lines we carry, and there is more about them on our ES Windows page. California Window & Door has been family owned since Timothy Ellenz founded it in 1986, forty years this year. California CSLB License #906636. Our installers are our own W-2 employees, never subcontractors.
