General Plumbing Knowledge
- Florida Plumbing Code!
Next time you have a plumber in your home, ask what a fixture unit is.
Truth is about 90% of the personal in the field, yes those that answer calls to homes like yours, don't understand even the simplest items about the Florida Plumbing Code.
Usually a Company has one Licensed holder and the rest are workers that have experience in some aspects of plumbing.
One day while working in Star Island, Miami FL. (where Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Estevan have homes) a Building Inspector saw our truck, stopped and asked for our Plumbers Journeyman License. All were properly licensed and he moved on.
In South Florida it takes three years experience in the Trade and passing of a written Code Examination for your Journeyman License.
Master License (Contractor) requires four years documented experience as a Licensed Journeyman to even qualify to sit for the Master Exam.
In North West Florida we have the same requirements with one acception, the law does NOT require that any plumber coming to your door have a license of any type, only the business owner/qualifier must have a master license.
My Point: It's up to you to make sure you get qualified Plumbers in your home!
With Hogan Plumbing you will have a licensed plumber on every job.
Interesting (sometimes boring) Facts and Codes!
A Fixture Unit is 1 cubic foot of water = 7.5 gallons and is the standard by which water and drain lines are properly sized.
Example; Residential water closets are 3 fixture units. Lavatories are 1 fixture unit each.
Water weighs 8.33 lbs. per gallon. Want to know the weight of your water heater? Multiply your gallons by 8.33 and add the weight of the unit itself!
50 gallons of water weighs approximately 415 lbs. !
Drainage lines in our area are installed with grade for proper drainage. This is usually expressed in a percentage on Commercial projects and in fractions per inch for residential.
A 2" line installed at 1/4" per foot will carry 21 fixture units
A 3"line installed at 1/8" per foot will carry 36 fixture units
Vents in a system will determine how well it drains. All you have to do is stick a straw in a glass of water, put your finger over the end, pull it out of the glass and the water is trapped in the straw. Now take your finger off and the water runs out because there is air available to take the place of the water. Not to complicated! That is basically what the Code does...it provides different venting systems that have been proven to work and they are the standard we use.
Venting systems... Most common in this area is Wet Venting. You also have Common Vents, Individual Venting, Loop & Circuit Venting and Combination Waste and Vents.
- Tank-less Water heaters!
ENDLESS HOT WATER! Saves energy too!
Sounds to good to be true. Well it's not.
We have installed many Rinnai and Noritz water heaters and everyone has been "more than happy" with them.
How they work;
Most standard water heaters are storage water heaters. This means they have a capacity That they keep hot 24 hours a day.
Do you have a 50 gallon water heater? Then you keep 50 gallons of water hot 24/7.
Do you have an 80 gallon water heater? Then 80 gallons is kept at the proper temperature 24 hours a day.
A tank-less on demand water heater has a heat exchanger inside.
The energy in these units is intense so that as the water passes through the exchanger it is heated instantly.
Although they use more energy when on... the fact that they are almost always off is where the savings comes in!
They are on when you shower, use the kitchen sink etc... But think of how often you are not using hot water. That's how often they are off...not using any energy!
While you are sleeping and your standard unit is keeping 50 or 80 gallons of water hot...
At the same time your tank-less is not using ANY energy.
This savings usually pays for the unit within a couple years...
Don't forget about the re-bates offered by ESP to convert to one of these units (currently $1000.00) plus the fact you will never run out of hot water!
- Water Heaters!
Storage water heaters store however many gallons they are rated for as noted above. About the only thing you need to know about them is when they leak...replace them. When they do not heat the water you have bad thermostat or heating elements if it is electric. There is a variety of possibilities to trouble shoot if it is Gas. If you have no hot water you at least have the upper element burned out. If you have only a limited amount of hot water the lower element is burned out. This is because the upper element goes on first heating the top half of the tank. Then the thermostat alternates to the lower element to heat the rest of the tank. They operate this way because it is quicker recovery. Therefor if the upper element is burned out the whole process is shut down... No Hot Water! More likely the bottom element goes first allowing the top one to heat only a portion of the tank, then when relaid down to the bottom, it's dead only producing less than half the water you are use to.
- Back-flow Preventors!
More and more Utility Company's are enforcing annual testing of these units. They simply prevent water from moving from the Residence or Business itself back into the public water supply.
Example; Back 30 years ago the water was shut down on a high-rise in New York that happened to contain the Corners Office. When the water was shut down at the street it created a negative pressure in the water supply system allowing contents from an Autopsy Table to be drawn back into the public water system. Does not sound good! Many people in that building and surrounding ares got sick as a result of that cross contamination. Because of incidents like this Back Flow Preventers have become an integral part of the Plumbing Systems.
There are different types of Back flow Preventers. There are low risk Double Check Valves up to High Risk PRZ Back flow Preventers. They can keep anything from sewage to chemicals out of our water systems!
Annual Inspections are required to make sure they are working properly!
Hogan Plumbing & Gas LLC
Pensacola's Premier Plumbing Contractor