Ideal Builders Supply

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FAMILY OWNED

Henry G. Renker,(1881-1947), began the company in 1906 as the Renker Cement & Stone Co. The name became the Ideal Cement Products Co. shortly thereafter. Eventually it became the Ideal Builders Supply & Fuel Co. to better describe the operations of both building supplies and coal.

Henry's father, Julius Renker (1848-1928), came to work in the business for his son when the company began making concrete blocks in the early years. Many other family members worked for Henry as he built the business from scratch. Henry began other companies along the way. The trailer park business was a growing industry and he owned two mobile home parks on Brookpark Road near the block & building supply business. He also began a trailer sales and repair business next door to the building supply business.

Henry died in 1947 leaving behind four children and four businesses. Each of his children inherited a business with his second oldest son Howard H. Renker taking over the block & building supply business after his death. Henry's youngest child still owns and operates one trailer park business today with parks in Cleveland, Ohio and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The other two businesses were sold over the years and some of the land absorbed into the building supply business.

Howard H. Renker, (1906-1989), guided the company until the 1980's until his son Richard L. Renker, (1925-), took over. Richard, a lifelong employee of the company, operated the business until his son, Howard G. Renker (1958-) took over in 1991 as president. Adam G. Renker, (1984-), began working for the company in 1999 making it six generations of Renkers to work in the family business. For Howard H., Richard, and Howard G., Ideal Builders Supply has been the only company they ever worked for in their lifetimes.

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THE EARLY DAYS

Henry Renker began the company as a supplier of flour, feed, cement stone, plaster, lime, sewer pipe, face brick, asphalt shingles and hollow tiles. Soon concrete blocks began to be made by the company, replacing hollow clay tiles. The blocks were made in a slow hand-made process with very few made per day. As demand for concrete blocks grew so did the technology to manufacture them. Ideal constantly updated faster machinery over the years to keep up with the growing demand.

Coal was a product which Ideal supplied since the early 1900's. The coal would be railed from coal mines all over the country to the location on Brookpark Road. Coal would be stockpiled and then loaded on delivery trucks which would deliver the product to its residential customer base in the Cleveland area. This part of the business grew steadily in the early years of the company. Up to 50 trucks were needed eventually just to handle coal deliveries. The coal business died off eventually as homes converted to natural gas furnaces to provide heat.

Plaster products like gypsum, lime and metal lath were also an integral part of the business from the beginning. However, over the years plaster was replaced by the less costly drywall products.

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LOCATION

The company began its operations at 3110 Broadview Road in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1922 many of the operations were moved to 4720 Brookpark Road which was also in Cleveland. The move was necessary due to the growing business, lack of space on Broadview Road and the need for a rail siding. Almost all the materials needed by the company back then were railed in from all over the country where as today they are almost all trucked in. The Broadview Road location was kept into the 1930's as an office and sales showroom. A small office was built on the Brookpark Road property in the 1920's and added on in the 1960's. All employees and operations are located on one property today on Brookpark Road.

When Ideal moved to Brookpark Road they were on the very outskirts of population. To the south of the location was all rural farming land in Parma and other surrounding suburbs. Brookpark Road still had trolley cars operating on it back then.

As the years have gone by the area around Ideal has been completely built up residentially. With the addition of the I-480 freeway deliveries can be made very easily and quickly to the entire northeastern part of the state. The latest new I-176 highway known as the Parma freeway enables our trucks to reach downtown in a matter of minutes.

Wherever one is building their house or new building, Ideal is easily accessible by various freeways to visit our showroom and property on Brookpark Road.

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DELIVERY

The company began as a two horse operation. Today it boasts a modern fleet of automatic unloading block trucks, semi trucks, trucks with all-terrain forklifts attached, and dump trucks of all sizes.

In the early 1900's concrete blocks and other materials were hauled to job sites on a wagon pulled by a team of horses. Eventually this mode of transportation gave way to motor-driven trucks. In fact, Ideal is credited with owning the first truck south of Brookside Park in Cleveland. These motor-driven trucks were able to haul about 300 concrete blocks at a time. The driver and his helper had to load the truck in our yard and then deliver the blocks to the construction site. At the construction site the driver and helper would hand unload by hand the 300 blocks and slide them down into a newly excavated basement on a wet or muddy board. Laborers would catch the blocks and carry them around the basement readying them for brick laying crews. The delivery team could only make one to two loads per day.

Around the 1950's a new innovation changed this delivery process drastically. Trucks were made with hydraulic boom unloading equipment. This equipment eliminated the need for all the labor which was previously used. These trucks would pick up cubes of conctete blocks and set them down in a newly excavated basement. The blocks would then be ready for bricklayers to start laying. The blocks were no longer handled by people until the bricklayer picked them up to apply mortar to them. These newer type of trucks have evolved into very high tech expensive pieces of equipment costing over $160,000 each today. They are able to haul 1200 blocks per load and a driver can make three or four deliveries a day.

click here to view a movie clip of our delivery fleet

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PRESENT DAY

Over all the decades Ideal Builders Supply has grown to keep up with the changing and expanding world. The company is still on our Brookpark Road location which is about 9 acres. We have a truck and maintenance garage, concrete block plant, warehouse, and office & showroom buildings. We inventory a variety of products at our facility. Concrete blocks of all shapes and sizes, patio blocks, retaining wall products, are all manufactured in our production facility and stored on site.

Our warehouse is full of a complete line of building supplies, bagged products, mortar, and cement. In our yard we inventory vitrified clay sewer pipe, pvc plastic pipe, concrete pavers, a variety of bulk materials, and almost 2.5 million face brick.

Howard G. Renker has been president of the company since 1991. He is a 1980 graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College with a degree in business. He has been working in the family business since he was 13 years old. Another family member, Tony T. Schubert, is vice-president and has been with the company since 1977. Tony is a 1975 graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College. Jim Spinelli is the treasurer and a 1985 graduate of Geneva College. He has been employed with the company since 1987.

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THE FUTURE

Ideal is poised for the new millennium. Our plant is modern with new faster and more efficient equipment installed in 1998 and 1999. Our product line is very diverse. We manufacture construction type block, landscape patio products, architectural split-face block, and retaining wall block. The retaining wall market is a rapidly growing one. We manufacture Allan Block which we feel is the best segmental retaining wall product on the market. We offer a wide variety of their product innovations.

Construction in general looks to be a good business with a lot of growth continuing. We have aggressively added many brick distributorships the past several years. Currently there is a massive brick shortage in the United States. However, with all of our lines of brick and property we have been able to stock great amounts of face brick to service our customers. We now boast an inventory of almost 2.5 million bricks from all parts of the country for new homeowners to select from.

Our management team is young but has many years of experience already. Our inside and outside sales staff is very knowledgeable, experienced, aggressive, and eager. The company has been in a growth mode as of late and is beginning the process of a newer and larger office and showroom building on the same property. Forty hard-working employees are experienced and dedicated to customer service and satisfaction. Our location is "Ideal" which provides customers easy access from all directions. We are able to deliver easily and efficiently to anywhere in northern Ohio making us an obvious choice to supply your next project.

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