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?

2 comments

2 Comments

park.adam16d ago

Yeah I used to think those old double checks were tanks and would just keep working forever. But then I had a 1997 unit on a commercial building I manage, failed the test last year because the check valve disc was just crumbling apart. The rubber gets brittle after 20 some years even if it looks fine on the outside so now I'm on board with replacing them proactively.

paul_morgan16d ago

Agree with you @park.adam on this one completely. I had an old unit from the early 2000s that looked brand new inside, but the rubber seals were cracked and leaking during the test last spring. Learned my lesson the hard way, so now I swap them out every 15 years without waiting for them to actually fail.