Plumbing & Mechanical Engineer

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The author reflects on a recent trip to South America and Antarctica and discusses the topic of identifying back-feed potentials within domestic hot water risers, drawing from an article by Miles Ryan, PE, about typical issues found in high-rise residential buildings.

While exploring International Code Council's first report of proposals for modifications to the Group A Codes, I became curious about which codes are being discussed the most. I decided to take a deeper look and get answers to three questions.

With the world's focus on sustainability growing, plumbing engineers play a crucial role in adopting eco-friendly solutions. A major trend in commercial pump technology is the drive for efficiency and energy conservation. Find out how manufacturers are addressing environmental concerns and high energy costs.

There was a time when furnaces and boilers shared equal flexibility in Btu/h input/output and air delivery. It's hard to imagine, right? But times are changing. Will you embrace this change for profit, or cling to old ways as sales slip away?

Last month, we discussed how solid thermal energy storage, combined with an air-to-water heat pump and an electric boiler, provides a platform to leverage time-of-use electrical rates in ways that can benefit customers as well as the utility providing the electricity.

PM Engineer Chief Editor Nicole Krawcke had the chance to speak with several key industry stakeholders about trends and technological developments in the market, including: Greg Nahrgang, vice president, technical services and product development, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry; Adam Botts, product manager for Viega; and Steven Dolejsi, applications engineering manager, IPEX.

The medical profession confronts dual challenges: ensuring positive outcomes for patients while tackling the prevalence of healthcare-associated infections. Healthcare management is deeply focused on addressing these critical issues.

A reader asked if the process for water heater selection could be used for selecting a faucet. This column provides the process steps for selecting faucets, without discussing the findings in detail, as several resources are available for comparing faucet types.

When a plumbing engineer receives the design of a health care building — our minds gravitate to designing the system to optimize all the different considerations I mentioned above — with the fixture layout the architect has developed. But what if the layout changed? What if the amount of fixtures were reduced? 

Heat pumps are growing in importance due to climate change. Extensive investment in heat pump technology has led to higher heating capacities and smaller equipment sizes.