Commercial plumbing

Who it is for

Anyone who owns, runs or manages a building that is not a house. A small business with its own premises, a property owner with tenants in it, a facilities manager with a list, a general contractor who needs the plumbing side of a fit out done on schedule.

The work itself is mostly the same work. Water comes in, waste goes out, gas is piped and heat is made, and the pipe does not know what the building is called. What changes is everything around the work: who is affected while it is happening, what happens if it is not finished today, and who has to be told.

Two jobs come up in buildings far more than in houses. Backflow preventers, the devices that keep water from flowing backwards from a building into the public supply, installed and replaced for commercial buildings and for the houses that need one. And commercial appliance installs: the dishwashers and ice makers a kitchen, a bar or a break room runs on, connected to water and drain and left working.

The practical differences

Scale, and duty

Commercial equipment is not residential equipment that is bigger. Fixtures get used many times a day rather than a few, so the failures are wear failures, arriving on a schedule. Water heaters and boilers are sized for how the building uses them rather than for a household, and more and more of them are high efficiency condensing equipment, sometimes several units working together, which is the equipment on the high efficiency page. Drain lines carry things a household drain rarely sees, which is why a commercial drain problem is so often a recurring problem rather than a one off, and why the useful question is what is putting it there.

Access, and the hours that go with it

The pipe is above a ceiling, behind a locked door, in a tenant's space or in a riser shared with the unit next door. Somebody has to arrange access, and that somebody is often not the person who called. Work gets planned around it rather than discovered by it.

Knowing the building

The single most useful thing on a commercial call is having been there before. Where the main comes in, which valve actually isolates what, what was done last time, and which of the three shutoffs on the drawing has been painted over for a decade. That knowledge is built by being the same outfit each time, and it is the real argument for not putting the work out to whoever is cheapest this quarter.

Questions people ask

Can the work be done without shutting the whole building down?

Usually, and that is the first thing worked out. Most commercial buildings can be isolated in sections if the valves are where the drawing says and actually close, which is not always the case in an older building. The plan starts with what can be valved off, what that takes out of service, and how long the work genuinely needs, and the job is arranged in whatever window the building can stand. Where a valve that should isolate a section does not, replacing it is often the first job, so the next one can be done without the whole building knowing.

What should we ask for from any commercial plumber before work starts?

Evidence of insurance, in writing, naming the coverage. The license number of the plumber responsible for the work. And a plain statement of what will be shut off, when, and for how long. Any outfit that does this work regularly will have all three ready, and any that hesitates on the first one is telling you something.

Do you do the plumbing scope on a fit out for a general contractor?

Yes. New construction and commercial are both part of the work, so a fit out gets priced and sequenced the same way a new build does: the drawings read before any pipe is cut, and the finish work coordinated with the other trades. The new construction page covers the sequence. The advantage on a fit out is that the outfit that put the plumbing in is the one that services it afterward.

Is a commercial water heater or boiler a different animal?

Sized differently, and more and more often the same technology. Commercial hot water and heat are sized for how the building uses them rather than for a household, and much of it is now high efficiency condensing equipment, sometimes several units working together. That is the equipment the high efficiency page is about, at a larger scale.