What is a Slab Leak? Causes, Signs, and Repair Guide
A slab leak,or a foundation leak or concrete slab leak, is a plumbing industry term for a leak within the waterline piping below the concrete floor of your home or business. Slab leaks are an issue in homes and buildings of all ages, and can quickly become a very costly problem. They waste an excessive amount of water, but a leaking pipeline system can quickly cause damage to the foundation of your home or business, not to mention compromise your entire structure.
Reliable Water Services’ Asset Control Specialist explains, “When you have water escaping in a slab leak situation, your hot water is constantly flowing and constantly causing your water heater to fire. That constant firing reduces the life of your water heater. If the hole in your piping is large enough, your water heater can’t keep up. The water heater will stay fired and never shut off, but you still won’t get enough hot water flowing through your faucets.”
Are Water Heater Explosions Real? Warning Signs and Prevention
Water heaters are 100% necessary these days, but dangerous when not properly maintained. If you’re concerned about the state of your residential or commercial water heater, ALWAYS contact a trained water heater technician.
Water heaters are generally very safe, especially when properly maintained. Just like your car or even electricity, water heaters are usually pretty safe and predictable when treated with the proper care and respect.
Why Would Anyone Rent a Water Heater?
Commercial water equipment is pricey! It can be much more so than the residential heaters found at hardware stores. Renting can be a wonderful solution to this. Renting alleviates the upfront cost of equipment and often install too—and replacement is included when the equipment fails.
But renting also includes ongoing service coverage on that equipment. And for businesses that depend on hot water to stay in operation, that ongoing service coverage is crucial, because their livelihood depends on having hot water available exactly when they need it. Unfortunately, a water heater will typically break down at the worst time: when it’s in high demand and stressed from constant use.
Indirect Water Heaters: A Boiler Briefing
When it comes to commercial water heating (apartment buildings, restaurants, hotels, and general businesses), most of the time you’ll see one of two common setups down in the boiler room. The first is a standard tank-type water heater setup: in this circumstance, you have one large commercial water heater or several smaller water heaters, appropriately sized for that commercial application.
The second typical boiler room setup is a boiler (water or steam) working in tandem with an indirect (or coil) water heater tank in a combination system. With this system, that commercial boiler is providing heating for the air in the building, while also providing the building’s faucets and fixtures with hot water.
Correct Commercial Water Heater Sizing: It’s No Guessing Game
When you’re shopping around for a new or replacement water heater for your restaurant, hotel or property, size matters. Depending on how much hot water you need to run your business, there may be multiple sizes to choose from, but with so many options how do you pick what’s right for you?
This is very important because if the size is too small and you won’t have enough hot water to run your business, especially during peak operating times. But size too large and you’ll end up spending excess money in both upfront capital and long-term operating costs. Whether you run a restaurant, hotel, apartment complex, senior living facility, salon or fitness center—any business that depends on hot water needs the right water heater sizing and setup.
An easy way to get out of this Goldilocks dilemma is to with experienced and knowledgeable commercial water heater professionals: you’ll not only keep your customers, you’ll also save money across the board.
In the Know: High-Efficiency vs. Standard-Efficiency Water Heaters
Tankless water heaters can offer the highest efficiency potential, but they are more conducive to personal or private use and therefore are generally not considered very efficient in commercial applications.
This article is focused on tank-type water heaters – also called storage water heaters, these classic cylindrical tanks both heat and store the water, keeping it continuously hot and ready for use. Hot water is produced by burning fuel such as natural gas or propane, or using electricity, to generate the heat used to raise the water temperature.
Natural gas water heaters are still the most common, probably because they are generally more efficient than electric water heaters. Gas water heaters can heat the water to set temperature about twice as fast as electric heaters do, and cost about half as much to run as an electric unit.
Proactive Plumbing Maintenance Tips To Prevent Common Commercial Plumbing Issues
Modern plumbing is awesome. It’s just one of those things that pretty much everyone takes for granted. It’s also one of those things we immediately realize we cannot live without once it’s not working properly.
Being proactive about your plumbing is essential to the success of your business. Plumbing problems must be addressed immediately. Water damage is far more costly than proactively hiring a plumber to fix the problem immediately.
Going Tankless: The Hot & Cold on On-Demand Hot Water
There’s a lot of talk about tankless water heaters lately, but are they right for you? Tankless water heaters are perfect for certain situations, such as having a vacation property, like a cabin in the Northwoods. You’re probably not up there all year long, so a tankless water heater is great for this type of residential application.
Traditional water heaters hold heated water in a tank for long periods of time, acting like thermoses. However, while you’re not using it, heat is slowly dissipating through the jacket. This is called “standing loss.” With a tankless, you don’t have standing loss because water is continuously heated on demand, resulting in an endless supply of hot water. Not to mention, without a tank, you’re looking at a very small space footprint; a typical tankless unit is the size of a suitcase, so it hangs neatly on the wall and is directly vented through your wall or roof.
Both traditional tank-type water heaters and tankless water heaters are available in high-efficiency models; however, the tankless, with its lack of standing loss and ability to fit in small spaces and that means additional energy savings.
So if tankless water heaters are great in residential applications, then you might think they must be really great in commercial applications, too. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
