Engineers who design waste systems that depend on gravity alone, despite restrictive site and structural concerns, cite their preference due to the higher cost of vacuum plumbing.
Yet, all this slab work is expensive and time-consuming, which raises labor costs, and there are risks involved. For that reason, it is time for renewed consideration from the industry because vacuum plumbing systems often cost less than a traditional gravity solution. Why? Let’s look at a few typical slab issues that often crop up during commercial remodeling.
Your organization is expanding and looking to buy or lease additional space. If you’re fortunate, you find a real estate unicorn—the perfect building at a great price and in the ideal location.
However, it’s much more likely that you must make a choice. For example, do you take the ideal location or the ideal building? In real estate, the answer is almost always “location, location, location.”
An existing building in the perfect location can sometimes turn into a money pit due to plumbing needs.
Problem: Post-Tensioned Slab
With drainage routing below slab, your costs will increase because x-rays are required to identify the structural steel location. Once that process is complete, you will need to do core drilling, another significant expense, through the slab at each point where drainage is required.
Problem: Continuous Slope
Another issue that raises costs significantly is the slope required for gravity drainage. Gravity drainage runs below the slab and requires slope, sometimes necessitating pumps to send waste to the sanitary sewer connection.
In addition, when you must run a long distance to get plumbing from one end of the building to another, that continuous slope will require more digging and trenching. All this consumes time, comes with risks, and is expensive.
Problem: Asbestos
If your renovation plan includes getting at the under-slab piping, you’ll likely be cutting through concrete. Unfortunately, from the 1930s until the early 1980s, many cement mixtures contained dangerous amounts of asbestos. If you think there’s any chance you’ll find it in your slab, you must have it tested.
When dealing with asbestos-contaminated concrete, any construction—like cutting—that has the potential to release particles into the air must be performed in adherence with OSHA’s Safety & Health Regulations for Construction, Standard 29 CFR 1926.1101(g) (PDF). It has been implemented to prevent workers from developing asbestos-related diseases.
AcornVac’s Solutions to Commercial Remodeling Challenges
- Vacuum plumbing accommodates restrictive site and structural concerns because it requires no trenching or cutting of the slab.
- Installation is quick and easy. It can be performed after-hours, eliminating customer inconvenience and liability issues. Since the plumbing is done within the building envelope, there is no washed-out concrete slab or rain delays. In addition, there is no cutting into the existing electrical, refrigeration, or sewer lines.
- Vacuum plumbing uses much less space. The piping system is installed overhead with other mechanical or electrical systems, eliminating the need to provide vent and waste stacks, thus reducing material and labor costs.
- The piping system uses a smaller diameter pipe than gravity waste systems, yet it can accommodate various waste types and flow rates. With a vacuum system, changing the piping connection to go in a new direction is simple and allows for last-minute design changes.
- Since waste is pushed by air pressure, shallow but long piping runs are possible. This minimizes or entirely eliminates the need for dewatering and trench stabilization in areas with high water tables or unstable soil conditions.
- In an existing building, plumbing fixtures and refrigeration systems can be relocated or added to any part of the building. The space can be adapted to the new occupant or design needs. Turn any area into valuable space with a versatile plumbing system!
By utilizing vacuum plumbing, engineers, contractors, and architects provide added value to their clients. Imagine being able to tell your customer there’s no need to worry about structural concerns, high water tables, unstable soil conditions, contaminants in the concrete, or even designated historical building limitations.
Imagine telling them instead about the savings that go hand-in-hand with a vacuum plumbing solution because not only does it eliminates the need for extra engineering and labor, it also brings your customer flexibility of design.
For example, consider the case of The PolyClinic (PDF). They decided to move their healthcare clinic into a Class B office building where the cost per square foot was much lower than the Class A space that medical offices typically lease. In addition, there were just a couple of restrooms on the floor to accommodate an office set-up, but The PolyClinic required drainage in almost every room.
Traditionally, that would require disrupting businesses above and below and making invasive floor cuts and core drilling. All that expensive work would far exceed the cost-savings of a Class B lease, not to mention take a long time before they could start seeing patients.
On the advice of their contractor, The PolyClinic broke from tradition and decided to go with an AcornVac vacuum toilet plumbing system rather than fight with significant drainage challenges or compromise an ideal clinic layout. The AcornVac system allowed The Polyclinic to quickly renovate the space in a much shorter timeline than a gravity system because the piping could be contained on the same floor being renovated.
AcornVac Is Here to Help
Whether you are a building owner/lessee or a contractor, you now know you have a choice. A choice that increases your odds of finding a real estate unicorn—the perfect building at a great price and in the ideal location. Just make sure to include the experts at AcornVac during the design process!
Our broad experience with challenging site conditions and our ability to provide expert training on operation and maintenance of systems make us uniquely suited to assist with your project. We will be there from the beginning to the end, from design to operation, and our technical support staff is available to assist with the vacuum plumbing system operation whenever needed.
If you think you have a project that might benefit by introducing a vacuum plumbing solution, we’d love to hear about it! Our experienced staff can provide on-site consultation, training, service, and support for all installations.
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Vacuum Plumbing for Sustainable & “Future-Ready” Design
Want to learn more? Take our free, online CEU course at GreenCE! It explores in detail how vacuum plumbing contributes to LEED projects, its community health and safety benefits, and how its flexibility of design facilitates future renovations.