c/commercial-plumbing

Flux paste finally made sense after 12 years

Always used liquid flux on commercial solder joints, figured paste was for hobby guys. Tried it on a 4-inch copper main in a St. Louis hotel basement and it flowed way cleaner, less cleanup too. Anyone else switch and never look back?

Serious question, has anyone else noticed how much restaurants waste on water pressure issues?

I was at a diner downtown for lunch yesterday and saw the manager banging on a back sink that was barely trickling. Got to chatting with him and he said they've been paying a plumber $300 every other month just to snake the same grease trap line. I looked up the actual cost of installing a proper grease interceptor with a flow control valve and it's like $1,200 upfront but would save them over $1,800 a year in service calls. Wild how many small kitchens just accept throwing money at temporary fixes instead of spending once on the right setup. Has anyone else run into this with commercial accounts?

Just had a 4 inch cast iron stack crack on me in a high rise in Chicago

I'm on a job in a 12 story building downtown, and I'm replacing a toilet on the 8th floor. Last Tuesday I'm cutting out the old flange and the whole damn stack just splits vertically from the 8th down to the 6th. Must have been a hairline crack from years of settling, but now I've got to coordinate with the building manager and get a crew in to replace like 30 feet of pipe. This is gonna eat my whole week and the profit from this job is shot. Any of you guys deal with a sudden vertical crack in old cast iron, or do I just have the worst luck lol.

Appreciation post: That moment a 4-inch drain line finally made sense

I was on a job at a middle school in Amarillo back in March, staring at a mess of mains that never seemed to flow right. Watched a senior guy reroute one branch with a 45-degree offset and suddenly all the noise and backup issues just disappeared. Anyone else had a single fitting change save your whole layout?

Has anyone else seen the shift in copper pipe pricing over the last year?

I've been doing commercial plumbing for about 15 years now, mostly restaurant work in the Dallas area. Around this time last year I was paying $3.20 a foot for 1/2-inch type L copper. This week the same pipe cost me $5.60 a foot. That's a 75% jump in 12 months. Meanwhile, I've started seeing more engineers spec PEX for jobs where they used to demand copper. Some contractors are pushing PEX hard, saying it saves money and is easier to install. But other guys I know swear copper lasts longer and handles higher temps better in commercial kitchens. I'm torn - what are you all seeing on your jobs? Are you switching materials or sticking with copper?

Pro tip: Spent $3,800 on a hydrojetter and it paid for itself in 6 months or burned me bad

I dropped cash on a new hydrojetter for clearing stubborn grease lines in restaurants. First two jobs went smooth, but on the third I blew a fitting and had water spraying everywhere in a kitchen. Now I'm wondering if I should've just rented one when needed or if the buy was worth it for long term jobs. Anyone else go through this with expensive gear?

Trenchless pipe lining seemed like a gimmick to me until I saw it in action

I've been doing commercial plumbing for about 12 years and always figured trenchless was just a fancy upsell that wouldn't hold up. Then a client in Austin had a 40 year old cast iron line under their restaurant slab that was totally shot. The contractor we subbed to got it done in one day with no demo, and the camera inspection after 6 months looked better than the original pipe ever did. Has anyone else here actually switched over to trenchless for commercial jobs, or are you still diggin?

Showerthought: More guys should pre-bend their copper before soldering

I keep seeing pictures online where people are fighting 90 degree fittings into place and the joints look like a mess. After a 40-unit apartment job in Nashville last month where I pre-bent every riser on a jig, I had zero leaks on the first pressure test. Has anyone else noticed that taking an extra 10 minutes to bend clean offsets saves a ton of callbacks?

Heard a new guy say 'just use sharkbites' on a 4 story job today

I was walking through a supply house in Cleveland this morning and overheard this apprentice talking to his lead about using push-fit fittings on a 6 inch main drain line. Made me think back to when I started in the late 90s - we had to sweat every joint on a commercial job no exceptions. Now I see guys arguing that speed is worth the risk on big builds. Has anyone else noticed a real drop in soldering skills in the younger crews over the last few years?

TIL I was installing commercial urinal flush valves backwards for 3 years

I've been doing commercial plumbing for about 8 years now, mostly schools and office buildings. Last month I was swapping out a Sloan Royal flush valve at a high school in Tulsa and the maintenance guy walks over and goes, 'you know the diaphragm goes in the other way, right?' I laughed it off at first, but after he showed me the manual I felt like a total idiot. Turns out I had been flipping the diaphragm upside down on every single job since I started. The valves worked fine most of the time, but I did get a few callbacks for weak flushes I never could figure out. Anybody else have one of those 'wait, I've been doing it wrong this whole time' moments?

That old grease trap under the deli counter took me 8 hours to clean

I got a call about a backed up floor drain at a sandwich shop downtown. Figured it was a simple snake job, maybe an hour tops. But when I pulled the grate I found a grease trap that hadn't been touched in years, caked solid with black sludge. Ended up having to hand scoop 5 gallons of gunk out before I could even get a hydro-jet in there. Has anyone else run into a grease trap that was completely abandoned by previous maintenance crews?

Serious question, is water hammer still a thing with modern PEX?

Back in 2010 I used to install copper with expansion loops on every riser at the Mercy Hospital annex, and we never had hammer issues. Now on a retrofit at a 6-story office building downtown, I see guys running PEX without any arrestors and it makes me wonder if the pipe material alone solved it. Has anyone actually tested this side by side on a commercial system, or are we just lucky so far?

Hit 100 commercial service calls this year without a callback

I do commercial plumbing for a few office buildings and a strip mall in Tucson. On Wednesday I finished my 100th service call for 2024 and not one of them has needed me to come back for a fix. That feels huge for me because last year I had 7 callbacks on the first 100 and it bugged me nonstop. I just changed how I double check flanges and flush valves before I walk away. Anyone else track their callback rate or am I just weird about details?

That Tuesday where three separate drain lines clogged on me before lunch

Last month I had one of those days where nothing went right. We were at a 4-story office building near the Target on Route 37, and before 10 AM I got calls about backed-up sinks on floors 2 and 3, plus a main line issue in the basement. Turns out some contractor had flushed concrete washout down the toilets during a renovation a year ago (go figure) and it had finally settled in all the wrong spots. Has anyone else dealt with that kind of cascade failure where everything fails at once?

Just realized I was wasting way too much time on toilet flange repairs

Used to always cut out the old cast iron flange and replace it with a new PVC one. Took like 45 minutes every time and I hated dealing with the hub on those old pipes. Then a guy I was working with on a job site in Denver showed me how he just uses those twist-n-set repair rings. Honestly never even knew they existed. Now I can fix a broken flange in 10 minutes flat. Saves me so much hassle on those older commercial buildings. Has anyone else made the switch to those repair rings? I still feel like I'm cheating somehow.

Spent $300 on a commercial grease trap pumping service that missed a massive clog hidden three feet past the cleanout

They did the standard pump-out and said everything looked fine, but two days later the kitchen flooded because they never scoped the lateral line, has anyone else dealt with lazy pumpers skipping the inspection?

Spent 3 hours chasing a water hammer issue in a 4 story office building

Went to a job in Austin last Tuesday for a tenant complaint about banging pipes. Checked the main water pressure first and it was fine at 60 psi. Then I spent 2 hours opening up access panels looking for loose pipe supports or air chambers that might be shot. Turned out the PRV on the roof was failing and sending surges back down... took me another hour to get up there and confirm it. Has anyone else had a PRV go bad without the pressure gauge showing it?

Hit 500 backflow tests this week and I'm still alive somehow

Had a talk with a building manager about backflow testing

I ran into a building manager at a supply house in Phoenix last Tuesday who said he'd been skipping annual backflow tests on his 10-unit complex for 3 years. He told me "nobody's ever checked on it" and I had to explain the city fines plus the health risk. Anyone else run into property owners who just ignore these requirements?

PSA: stopped using Teflon tape on gas fittings after a 4-inch crack showed up

Was capping off a 2-inch gas line for a restaurant remodel and the tape just crumbled apart under the threads, almost got a leak that would've shut down the whole block. Has anyone else had dope or pipe dope hold way better than tape on high-pressure gas jobs?

Had to pick between a floor sink and a trench drain for a brewery project

I was working on a small brewery setup in Denver last month and the owner wanted something that could handle heavy rinsing without pooling. I went with a trench drain because the floor slope was tricky and I figured it'd be easier to clean with all that yeast and grain debris. It's been about 6 weeks now and honestly it's working great so far, no backups or standing water. But I'm still second guessing if a floor sink would've been simpler for the mop sink connection. Anyone else dealt with this choice and regret it later?

That $400 backflow preventer I installed backwards cost me double

Last spring I did a rush job on a restaurant remodel downtown and slapped in a new backflow preventer without reading the flow arrow on the body. Thought I knew better since I had done a dozen residential ones. Three days later the health inspector flagged it during a walk through and the plumber who fixed it charged me $250 for labor and I had to buy another unit for $150. The kicker was the original one was fine I just had it flipped around and could have saved the whole thing with a second look. Has anyone else made a silly mistake like this on a commercial job that cost way more than it should have?

Those cheap push-to-connect fittings had me worried at first

I was doing a big commercial kitchen remodel in Austin last spring and the owner wanted to use those plastic push-fit fittings everywhere under the sinks. I told him straight up I didn't trust them for hot water lines that see heavy daily use. But he insisted and I figured I'd see how it played out. Eight months later I went back to fix a different issue and checked all those joints, not a single leak or failure. I still prefer copper or ProPress for my own jobs but I gotta admit these newer fittings held up way better than I expected. Has anyone else seen these hold up long term in high use commercial spots?

Overheard a building inspector talking about backflow preventer testing failures in older buildings

I was at a supply house waiting for an order and this inspector was telling the counter guy that something like 40% of the backflow preventers he tests in buildings built before 2000 fail on the first go. He said it's mostly those old double checks that never got maintained. Got me thinking about the property I manage, we have one from 1998 I think. Have any of you guys ran into a lot of failures on older units like that?

Warning: That cheap backflow preventer cost me $1,200 in repairs

I picked up a no-name backflow preventer off Amazon for about $80 thinking I was saving money on a restaurant job in Denver. It worked fine for 2 weeks then failed during a pressure surge and dumped water all over the basement kitchen. The health inspector shut them down for 3 days and I had to replace everything plus fix water damage. Has anyone else had a cheap part blow up on them like this?