HPI Plumbing Services

04/14/2023

04/14/2023

Commercial floor drains
Floor drains can go mostly unnoticed. You may only see them in public restrooms or showers, but floor drains can also be found in a garage, laundry room, and commercial kitchen. They’re an integral feature of public sanitation that is often overlooked. Commercial floor drains catch overflow from sinks, tubs, showers, toilets, rain, and the like, and safely direct it to a sewer or municipal storm drain. Doing so keeps the floor dry and sanitary and ensures that rooms don’t flood.

However, commercial floor drains must be maintained to work correctly. A dried-out drain will release foul odors and a clogged drain will not properly do its job and cause a bigger mess. To keep your commercial drains in prime, working condition, proper drain maintenance is necessary.

5 Tips for Commercial Floor Drain Maintenance

1. Soapy Water Does Wonders

Sometimes, a bucket of soapy water is all you need for your commercial floor drain maintenance. If the floors near the clogged drain are not mopped regularly, commercial drains in the floor can become dried out. To keep your drains from drying out, or to find out if there is a clog, pour a five-gallon bucket’s worth of soapy water into the drain.

This will not only prevent the drain from drying out, but also reveal if there is a clog building. Water that drains slowly may be indicative that it’s time for a drain cleanout.

2. Avoid Dried Up Commercial Floor Drains

As mentioned above, your commercial drains need to not dry out. Floor drains are part of your sewer system. They aid in helping overflow and remaining gasses reach the main sewer line. Just like a bathroom sink, commercial floor drains have U-shaped P-trap pipes designed to hold water, which acts as a wall to prevent sewer gasses from coming up through the drain. Any foul smells will indicate the water trap is dried up, allowing those odors to escape.

This can be avoided by regularly refreshing the drain traps with a bucket of soapy water, as previously mentioned. Adding water should seal off any unwanted aromas.

3. Don’t (Un)Intentionally Clog Your Commercial Floor Drains

Your drains can become unintentionally clogged when debris is intentionally swept into them. This can also help in a commercial kitchen with food scraps. Commercial floor drains can clog more than other drains because they’re on the floor in areas where large amounts of debris and dirt can collect. Your maintenance staff may be tempted to purposely sweep all this dirt in the drains, but doing so can cause all this debris to accumulate inside and cause a clogged drain or even a larger problem.

So, try not to sweep dirt, food, and other litter into your commercial floor drains!

4. Don’t Ignore Stock Room Drains

Drain cleaning should not be overlooked, even in stock rooms or other mostly dormant areas. It is still important to clean these commercial drains! Over time, they can dry out and allow dirt and litter to fill them over time, eventually leading to a clog in your sewer line. Clogs can be both troublesome and expensive to fix, but easy to avoid.

Making sure employees mop even dormant stock rooms once every few weeks, or even once a month, will ensure that these drains remain dry and in good condition.

5. Schedule Regular Floor Drain Cleaning

Preventative care is the best measure against potentially inconvenient and expensive problems. Cleaning your commercial drains on a monthly schedule is the best way to keep up with floor drain maintenance. By marking your calendar at the end or beginning of each month to clean your drains, it will be easy to remember preventative floor drain maintenance care and you can avoid risk for clogs and other problems.

Taking care of your commercial drains allows them to perform as efficiently as possible. A floor drain clogged with materials and dirt is not a fully functioning floor drain. Keeping up with a floor drain maintenance schedule ensures that your drains are working properly and do not become an inconvenience.

Not Sure How To Unclog A Floor Drain? Contact the Professionals

Basic drain maintenance can be accomplished with some soapy water and a drain snake or auger to break up clogs. However, there are some clogs that need professional help. Additionally, you should consider a professional inspection of your commercial floor drain pipes at least once each year.

A professional plumber can catch telling signs of drain performance problems, such as potentially serious clogs or leaks, far more accurately than the average property owner. We can also guide you on the best way to maintain your commercial drains based on the metal you use and what your pipes are made from. Common metals and materials used in commercial drains include stainless steel, ductile iron, cast iron, nickel, bronze, and plastic. Each will have its own unique needs.

This can help commercial properties avoid outright disasters with piping and plumbing. Prevention is key in commercial plumbing, and while there’s much you can do to maintain your floor drain maintenance and care for your drain pipes, having an experienced plumber come by annually can be a valuable advantage for your property

03/23/2023

WATER HEATER
Temperature and Pressure (T&P) Relief Valves
How They Work
The last line of defense for pressurized equipment, Temperature and pressure (T&P) relief valves are critical safety devices that protect equipment from excess pressure and, ultimately, catastrophic failure.

T&P valves used on residential water heaters are typically designed and manufactured to relieve pressure at 150 psi and temperature at 210 degrees F. ASME, ANSI and CSA (AGA) approved relief valves protect the water heater from excess pressures and temperatures by discharging water.

Thermal Expansion
When water is heated it expands. In a 40-gallon water heater, water being heated to the thermostat setting expands by approximately 1/2 gallon. The extra volume created by this expansion usually pushes back into the water tower of public water supplies, or into the well tank in homes with a private well, resulting in negligible pressure increase. However, on public or shared water supplies were a backflow device is installed on the water main feeding the house, the pressure can no longer push back into the tower or well tank. With no place for the expansion to go, pressure will dramatically increase.

A good indication of a thermal expansion problem are small, recurring discharges from the T&P valve (a thermal expansion issue can be confirmed using a Watts IWTG gauge). These recurring discharges can compromise the function of the T&P safety valve so it’s critically important that any thermal expansion problem is addressed! The preferred way to address a thermal expansion problem is with the use of an expansion tank designed for potable water applications, such as the Watts PLT series.

What You Need to Know
In normal operation of the water heater and T&P valve, no water should be discharged from the valve.
A relief valve functions by discharging water, it is essential that a discharge line be piped from the valve outlet to carry the overflow to a safe place of disposal.
The discharge line must be the same size as the valve outlet, and must pitch downward from the valve with no traps and no more than 4 fittings.
The termination point of the discharge line should be observable to the occupants of the building so any discharge can be readily detected.

Discharge from a T&P valve may indicate an unsafe temperature or pressure condition exists, which requires immediate attention by a qualified service technician or licensed plumbing contractor.

03/23/2023

It’s easy to forget about your home’s plumbing through day-to-day life. Yet, when something appears wrong, panic can make it hard to figure out what to do.

Before you reach for the drain cleaner, know when it’s better to call in a drain cleaning service. Trying a fix yourself might not only be ineffective, it could do more harm than good.

To help you keep your home’s drains happy and running smoothly, let’s look at 10 signs you need a professional drain cleaning.

1. Standing Water

Have water that won’t drain from a sink or washing machine? Maybe you take a shower and get left standing in water that comes up over your ankles.

Standing water means there’s a plug somewhere in your drainage pipes. Whether it’s clogged by hair or gunk, there’s enough of it that won’t let water pass by.

Cleaning your drains is the only way to unplug the pipes to let water drain out of your home. If it’s clogged enough to not let any water escape, it’s time to call in a professional for help.

2. Slow Moving Drain

If it takes your bathtub or sink longer to empty of water than normal, it’s likely you have a clog forming somewhere in your drain.

Over time, substances such as hair, soap, grease, and food particles will gather in the pipes. It starts to build up, slowly creating a blockage.

A slow-moving drain will become a bigger problem if you don’t clean your drainage pipes. Taking care of the problem as soon as you notice it will save you money and headaches down the line.

3. Unexplained Foul Odor

You’ve noticed a weird smell in your home but don’t know where it’s coming from. No matter how much you clean, it only seems to get worse, not better… but maybe you’re not cleaning the right area.

Your drains could be the source of the problem. Even if your drains seem to be functioning as they should, that doesn’t mean food or sewage isn’t building up somewhere in your pipes.

A drain cleaning service can come out and get rid of any material that’s stinking up your drainage line. They’ll have special equipment that can reach the source of the smell no matter where it’s located.

4. Frequent Clogs

You had a clog in the bathroom sink last week you thought you took care of. Yet, here is a clog again. Getting frequent clogs might mean you have a more serious blockage a simple fix won’t get rid of.

Gunk and residue can build up on the inside of pipes. Home drain cleaners might help break the clog down, but it won’t always get rid of the entire issue. The buildup comes back and creates frequent clogs in your home.

This is when a professional drain cleaning service can help get rid of the problem once and for all.

5. Gurgling Sounds

There’s an odd sound coming from your sink. It sounds like gurgling, even though your drain seems to be working fine.

Weird noises coming from pipes is a sign there’s a problem building up behind the scenes. As a clog begins to form, it creates air bubbles as water rushes past it. These air bubbles are what is causing the gurgling sound you hear as the sink drains.

Once a drain cleaning service cleans out the clog, these sounds will disappear as well.

6. Water Backup

It’s every homeowner’s worst nightmare, you walk into your bathroom or laundry room to find a pool of dirty, sometimes foul-smelling, water.

Water backups can be a hassle to clean and expensive to repair the damage. It’s caused by drain lines being completely clogged, leaving your water nowhere to go but back into your house.

Call a drain cleaning service right away. Not only will water backups cause water damage to your home, they can also be unsanitary to your family.

7. Problem with Fruit Flies

You never had problems with fruit flies in the past, but for some reason they seem to have appeared overnight. You’ve cleared any food off kitchen counters and cleaned as best as you can, but they won’t go away.

Many people don’t know fruit flies are attracted to food stuck in your drainage pipes. When food begins to build up, fruit flies will take notice.

Plumbing professionals will know how to clean all traces of food from your drains. When the food is gone, your fruit flies will have no choice but to move on.

8. Overflowing Toilets

It’s easy to know why your toilet overflowed when your child flushes his favorite toy car. Yet, if it overflows often with no clear explanation, it could be the drainage lines.

Waste and toilet paper can clog up sewage drains. Frequent overflows mean there’s a clog that’s not allowing your toilet to empty properly.
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A drain cleaning service will find the location of the sewage clog and clear it so your toilet can flush freely again.

9. Multiple Clogged Drains

You don’t have just one sink clogged, but the bathtub, toilet, and other sinks in the house won’t drain as well.

Multiple clogged drains are a sign there’s a serious problem in your pipes. There might be a main sewer line clog or an issue going on with the main drainage line.

Call in the professionals right away. If you let this sit too long, you risk having water back up through multiple drains in your home, causing major damage.

10. Using Too Much Liquid Drain Cleaner

Usually, one bottle of liquid drain cleaner does the trick. Yet, this time you’ve used two bottles and your drains are still moving slow.

Don’t continue to pour store-bought cleaners. Not only is it not clearing the problem, you could cause damage to your pipes.

For tough clogs, only a drain cleaning service will be able to clear it out while protecting your pipe’s structure.

Use a Drain Cleaning Service to Get Happy Drains Again

Don’t let a clog create a big problem. By knowing when to call a drain cleaning service, you can keep the water flowing freely and your drains happy.

02/07/2023

Camera inspections save money!!!!!!

01/12/2023

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hpi plumbing services drain cleaning / cable or hydrojetting plumbing repairs

01/02/2023

HPI a full service plumbing company. Commercial, residential service. Camera pipe inspection, drains

12/26/2022

Merry Christmas
Happy holidays from hpi.

12/22/2022

You might be familiar with products like Drano or Liquid-Plumr, which are powerful chemicals designed to break up blockages in your pipes and drains. While these products might sound like a great solution, the chemicals can actually end up damaging your pipes more than the initial clog. Even if the bottle claims the product is “safe on pipes,” the reality is that harsh chemical use will lead to pipe damage. If you insist on using a drain cleaning solution to clear blockages, choose an all-natural product instead. All-natural drain cleaners typically use natural enzymes to break up clogs, causing the least amount of damage to your plumbing system.

12/23/2018

Kitchen drain issues
Cabling just clears solids from drain
For a almost brand new pipe on the inside, have your line Hydrojetted!
Saves $$$$$

03/08/2016

What causes a running faucet? How do I get the hair out of my sink's drain? We have answers to these and other pressing questions in our bi-weekly Ask the Plumber series.

02/09/2016

This is an airgap for the dishwasher drain. it is very important to have one of these in your sink if you have a dishwasher, it prevents water from the sink or from a backup in your sink from going into the dishwasher and contaminating it. This also helps your dishwasher to drain correctly. If you do have an airgap and notice water coming out of it when your dishwasher is running, it means that the drain hose is clogged with buildup and needs to be cleaned. Cleaning of the hose is a simple matter and can usually be done yourself, many so called plumbers or handyman will install dishwashers without an airgap because there may not be a hole available in the countertop for it. Airgap drain installation is a very simple and affordable service that will protect you and your family from contaminated dishes that could cause sickness. If there are any questions about airgaps please feel free to comment. I will be more than happy to help.