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Family Owned | The Early Days | Location | Delivery | Present Day | The Future
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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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