Plumbing & Mechanical Top Stories

RSS

This may come as a shock (or not), but I’m not a huge sports fan. I root for my Alma Mater Michigan State (Go Green!), and that’s about it. Whereas my husband started planning his Super Bowl menu weeks in advance. Clearly, opposites attract!

Fresh water is an undeniably valuable and essential natural resource. But are plumbing engineers unintentionally putting building occupants are risk by implementing water conservation guidelines and equipment? What are the unseen consequences of water conservation?

Not too long ago, the plumbing industry relied strictly on analog processes. Every job was manual, from installation and repair to dispatch, invoicing and accounting. In 2022, the plumbing profession now runs on advanced technologies that range from thermal-imaging leak detection to smart water heaters and trenchless pipe repair.

A lot of things are out of your control when working on a job involving multiple trades. Whenever I design any type of system, I always go down a list of “what ifs.” The “what ifs” are scenarios that can affect the performance of a system due to an unknown. This includes actions by other trades.

The most universal characteristic of a plumbing company in 2022 is a dearth of job candidates. Do not complain about it. Do something. Here are 12 things you can try.

Where do you draw the line? That’s easy if you’re a one-person shop. Telephone rings; it’s 2:30 a.m. The clock face comes into focus as you reach for the phone.

“My faucet is dripping and the noise is keeping me awake. How soon can you be here?”(Seriously?)

You’ve certainly heard all the cliché statements around taking a “30,000-foot view” of the business or your department. How taking this view can help you see things you weren’t able to see “from the ground” when it comes to process, procedure and daily activities.

Frozen steam coils always seem to happen at the worst of times, don’t they? You’re busy because it’s cold enough to freeze coils. The place with the frozen coil contains people who are doing things that are so important they can’t possibly be without that particular coil. Not even for a minute. They’re on the phone, and they’re not being reasonable.

As interest and incentives build to transition space heating and domestic water heating systems away from fossil fuels and toward electricity, a somewhat predictable but only marginally quantified problem is developing. Two words describe it: Peak demand.

An installer is asked to add a monobloc-style air-to-water heat pump to an existing hydronic system that is supplied by a mod/con boiler.