April
By PLUMCORE | Posted in Blog
Commercial plumbing emergencies can threaten to close down your facility causing thousands of dollars in damage, lost productivity, and unsanitary situations. These issues need to be addressed quickly and efficiently to get your business back up and running. Today we explore commercial plumbing emergencies and their causes.
Commercial Plumbing Emergency List
Sewage backup
Gas Leak
Broken Pipes
Sewage Backup – What is it?
Sewage Backup is an issue where a sewage system has become clogged or blocked and backs up sending water through the pipes into your business.
Causes of a Sewer Backup
- Clogs – drain pipes and main sewer lines can become clogged causing a backup. This can happen in commercial plumbing frequently because of the high traffic volume of people using the facilities in commercial buildings.
- Tree Roots – tree roots can grow into pipe lines blocking and/or damaging your sewer line.
- Pipe Breakdown – older sewer lines that are older may more easily broken or become corroded creating a sewer backup.
Gas Leak – What is it?
A Gas Leak is a leak of natural gas or other gas products running through your commercial pipelines. These are potentially very dangerous as breathing in the gas can be toxic and many times are flammable and may explode when exposed to a flame or spark.
Causes of a Gas Leak
- Faulty Appliances – appliances such as commercial water heaters, and Furnace use natural gas or propane to create heat. They may be improperly installed or grow older causing a leak into a commercial facility, putting everyone in the building at danger.
- Faulty Piping – the maze of piping that connects all rooms in the building may become old and due to wear and tear start to leak.
- Poor Ventilation – if an exhaust fan stops working, gases such as natural gas, propane, carbon dioxide can leak back into the commercial facility. If outlets become clogged this can cause carbon monoxide to leak into the facility.
Broken Pipes – What are they?
A Broken Pipe is simply a pipe that is not functioning properly by failing to transporting its assigned liquid or gas to its rightful destination.
Causes of Broken Pipes
- Tree Roots – same goes here as it does for a sewage line, the tree root can grow into the pipe line damaging or blocking it entirely.
- Corrosion – older commercial pipes may be using outdated methods and materials such as steel. This leads to rusting lines and break down of pipes causing your water flow to not work properly. Maintenance and inspections should be done if a facility was built before the 1970’s or if you think there may be leaks cause by corrosion in any commercial facility.
- Burst pipes – this is normally cause by sudden cold fronts that freeze the water inside the pipes causing expansion and eventually the bursting of a pipeline.
- Collapsed Pipe – normally caused by shifting environmental changes like soil shifts or construction around the area of the pipe.
Consult a Professional
If a commercial building owner has any of these emergency problems, it is recommended that a professional is called. Not only can it help fix the problem, but discover other problems that may be lurking that cause lost time and money out of the commercial facility owners pocket.
Contact Plumcore today for your plumbing emergency!
2605 Decatur Highway Gardendale, AL 35071
205-631-4343