PM Engineer Article - Sanicubic Classic

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February
2011
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PM Engineer - The must-read resource for engineering excellence
> How To Integrate
Solar Heat Pumps
> EPAct Ruling
Raises Questions
Problem-Solver
Grinder pumps help
restore a Connecticut
building’s sanitary system.
Warren Bros. Mechanical
Contractors’ Al Warren inside
the Remington Rand building.
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Contents
February 2011 • Vol. 17, Num. 2
COLUMNS
4
Publisher’s Note: Bob Miodonski
Economy, green buildings
top 2011 stories.
6
Julius Ballanco on Codes
New water conservation ruling
raises many questions.
10
Christine Swanson
on Fire Protection
Fire protection engineers are
always on the job.
14
20
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ts Of 2010
The Top 12 Produc
www.pmengineer.com
February
2011
PM Engineer -
The must-read
g excellence
resource for engineerin
e
> How To Integrat
Solar Heat Pumps
> EPAct Ruling
s
Raises Question
r
Problem-Solve
s help
Grinder pump
cticut
restore a Conne system.
ry
building’s sanita
Warren Bros. Mechanical
inside
Contractors’ Al Warren
building.
the Remington Rand
Environmental Problem-Solver
Duplex grinder pumps play a key role in the restoration
of a Connecticut building’s sanitary system.
DEPARTMENTS
OUR COVER THIS MONTH
The renovation of the 110-year-old Remington Rand building
in Middletown, Conn., faced serious sanitation hurdles due
to heavily contaminated ground. As writer Julie Reynolds
explains, Warren Mechanical Brothers’ Al Warren helped
devise a solution to the building’s plumbing maladies by using
grinder pumps. That’s Warren on this month’s cover next to
one of the building’s Saniflo Sanicubic Classic duplex grinder
pump systems. Photo by Caryn B. Davis.
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2
02.11
Solar Design Notebook
By John Siegenthaler
A versatile way to integrate solar
thermal and geothermal heat pumps.
18 Industry News
24 2010 Products of the Year
26 Product Focus: Commercial
Sinks and Faucets
30 Sustainable Products
31 Reader Service Card
32 Advertiser Index
By Julie Reynolds
>
Environmental Problem-Solver
Duplex grinder pumps play a key role in the restoration
of a Connecticut building’s sanitary system.
Top left: Al Warren is shown in a swampy area on the property. Groundwater was found in old clay pipes and contamination was widespread,
thus ruling out sewer and plumbing line installation. Top right: Seven DFUs flow into the fourth grinder pump unit. The effluent from the fourth unit
is combined with discharge from the first three grinders for a total of 49 DFUs.
F
Storied Past
This is a longer view
from the point where
the discharge from
the third unit enters the
main.
20
02.11
The facility still carries the familiar name Remington Rand. According
to a history of the site, the Noiseless Typewriter Co. took over the property
from the Eisenhuth Horseless Vehicle Co. in 1909. Remington Rand formed
after a number of mergers and reorganizations and continued producing
typewriters and other products. The company merged with Sperry Corp.
Photos by Caryn B. Davis
rom bicycle wheels to automobiles to typewriters and electronics,
a sprawling commercial complex in Middletown, Conn., a city that
sits along the Connecticut River 16 miles south of Hartford, has held
an important place in the state’s economic history since 1897.
The cutting-edge manufacturing hub and center of heavy industry meant
technological advancement and jobs. But over the decades, the work took
an environmental toll on the area, contaminating the surrounding soil and
groundwater while also polluting the nearby Mattabesset River.
The property was finally foreclosed in 1999 when the rundown site
was taken over by the city of Middletown.
in 1955, becoming Sperry Rand. The Remington Rand division closed the factory in
the early 1970s.
Today, the site is in the midst of a
substantial, city-led cleanup and renovation effort designed to help attract
emerging businesses and create jobs.
Bringing the facility’s outdated plumbing
into the 21st century to eliminate pollution is the effort’s centerpiece.
Figure 1
Restoring Its Former Glory
A Simple Solution
The city, flummoxed with the situation,
encouraged licensed plumbers to bid on
the project.
“We didn’t have a lot of money to spend,”
Warner says. “We wanted a design-build
alternative for the interior sewer main. We
told them they could not dig in the ground,
and they would have to bring the sewer
main to the end of the building where the
manhole and tie-in are.”
But there was a further challenge. The
Remington Rand building is 950 feet long
— the length of more than three football
fields — so bidders had to present a solution for moving plumbing waste across
this expanse plus another 100 feet or so
beyond its walls to the sewer main.
“If you applied the normal plumbing
pitch,” Warner says, “you would have more
than 20 feet of drop across the 950 feet.
The problem is, the first floor is only 12
feet high.”
Enter Al Warren, a 30-year plumbing
industry veteran and the owner of Warren
Brothers Mechanical Contractors in Stafford
Springs, Conn. Warren won the contract
based on his system design, which uses a
series of Saniflo Sanicubic Classic duplex
grinder pumps.
“The concept took a little thought, but
really nothing is complicated about it,”
Warren says. “I called my supply house
(The Granite Group in Colchester, Conn.)
and told (Branch Manager Rob Pellegrini)
what I was up against and we batted it
back and forth and came up with a plan.
He had the product, I had the method, and
together we got it going.”
The result was the installation of five
Sanicubic duplex grinder systems positioned at intervals along the entire length
of the building. Each system pumps effluent up through small-diameter pipe into
the main, positioned near the ceiling, and
out to the sewer.
How It Works
Measuring 23 3/4 inches wide by 19
1/4 inches deep by 16 1/2 inches high,
each unit contains two 1-horsepower
grinders capable of processing 60 gallons
of effluent per minute.
Using any or all of five adjustable outlets
(from 1 ½ inches to 4 inches), each unit’s
two independently operated grinders have
fast-rotating cutting blades that reduce solids
in the wastewater stream from fixtures. The
product can handle waste from toilets, tubs
and showers, sinks, washing machines and
dishwashers. Effluent is pumped from the
unit through small-diameter PVC or CPVC
piping (by Charlotte Pipe) connected to the
top of the unit. A 1 1/2-inch stack vent (by
IPS) vents to the outdoors.
More specifically at Remington Rand,
the five duplex grinders handle wastewater
from all 12 plumbing fixtures in the building’s two long floors: five toilets, two urinals, four sinks and a shower (see Figure 1
above).
Illustration by Mark Coleman
“The building was a disaster when the
city took it over,” says William Warner,
Middletown’s director of planning, conservation and development.
The area, all but abandoned, was filled
with junked cars and other debris and
had become a host for illegal activity. All
the refuse needed to be removed, but the
city also had to deal with a serious pollution problem.
“The property was never tied into the
Middletown sanitary sewer system,” Warner explains. “When it was built in 1890,
the plumbing was designed to flow into
the nearby river. So we took it over and
started the cleanup, looking for a way to
solve the [plumbing] problem.”
Initially a septic system seemed the way
to go, but when workers dug for sewer lines,
they couldn’t find them. A piping map dating
back to 1956 turned out to be inaccurate. A
camera was used to trace the line.
“We found out the sewer lines were 15
to 20 feet in the ground,“ Warner says.
“We went to where the sewer was outflowing and there was groundwater in the
old clay pipes.”
That eliminated using a septic system.
Making matters worse, contamination
was found nearly everywhere, so digging
to install new sewer lines and plumbing
wasn’t an option either. At that point, the
city turned to the local plumbing community to help solve the dilemma.
pmengineer.com
21
> Environmental Problem-Solver
The restrooms on the first floor use Saniflo Saniplus macerating toilets that can be
installed on the floor without digging for
drainage. The second-floor facilities use
conventional gravity-flow toilets (already
present when the renovation started) with
below-floor drainage.
Plumbing waste from these fixtures is
processed in sequence through the five
units, which all sit on the slab on the
ground floor, driving the combined effluent
from the 12 fixtures more than 1,000 feet to
the city sewer.
Sanitary Play-By-Play
What follows is a step-by-step description of how the plumbing system works at
Remington Rand. Please note a drainage
fixture unit is a measurement of the expected discharge from one or more fixtures into
the drainage system.
Unit No. 1: Second-floor plumbing fixtures with a total discharge of 12 DFUs flow
through 4-inch PVC piping into the first
unit, which also handles effluent from two
macerating toilets (8 DFUs) on the ground
floor. The combined effluent from these fixtures (20 DFUs) then flows vertically 12 feet
through 1-1/2-inch PVC pipe and 300 feet
horizontally through 3-inch pipe. Finally, the
effluent flows back down 12 feet through
4-inch PVC into the second unit.
Unit No. 2: Additional fixtures from the
second floor (18 DFUs) drop down into this
unit, combining with the effluent from the
first unit. The combined 38 DFUs are then
pumped 240 horizontal feet and then flow
into the third unit.
Unit No. 3: An additional macerating toilet (4 DFUs) also pumps into the third unit,
bringing the total flow to 42 DFUs.
Unit No. 4: The remaining second-floor
fixtures (7 DFUs) flow into the fourth grinder,
combining with the 42-DFU flow from the
first three units, for a total of 49 DFUs. The
waste is then relayed 260 feet horizontally
and then down into the fifth unit.
Unit No. 5: This last unit in the
sequence handles 4 DFUs from a macerating toilet. This effluent is pumped up to join
with the cumulative flow from the other four
units. A total of 53 DFUs are then pumped
275 horizontal feet out of the building and
into the sewer.
22
02.11
The first of the five grinder pump systems is installed at the front of the building.
“Our design essentially relocated the
sewer main from the slab to the ceiling
between the first and second floors,” Pellegrini explains. “The pitch is quite long
and quite steep (1 1/4 inches per 10 feet).
We had to avoid the beams and several doorways with roughly 400 feet or so
between them. We ran the main a few
hundred feet, then dumped its contents
into a grinder, pumped it up to the ceiling
and ran it another few hundred feet horizontally before dumping it into the next
grinder, and so forth.
“It’s like a stair effect. Without it, you
could never get the right pitch in the pipe
in such a long building.”
Staging the duplex grinders with some
separate piping also avoids potential problems that could result when units flow into
one another and create a high flow rate (a
wave effect could trigger a level alarm).
`Very Creative’ Solution
The new plumbing system at Remington
Rand not only solved an immediate problem, but also kept the future in mind.
“If there had been no contamination
around the building, it might have made
sense to install new drainage pipe, but it
would not be the best solution because you
don’t want the maintenance of a septic system the rest of your life,” Warner says.
Pellegrini labels the system “a home run.”
Warren, who had not used Saniflo products prior to this job, notes the installation
was straightforward.
“I have never had a job like this before,
so I was pleasantly surprised,” he says.
While the Remington Rand building may
be unique, duplex grinders are applicable
for any application and a viable alternative
to septic systems and sewage ejectors.
Previously limited — because of the
plumbing problem — to renting out only the
warehouses on the site, the renovated Remington Rand facility now provides an additional revenue stream for the city. While
a former owner is responsible for the vast
majority of the environmental remediation,
the city earned a $200,000 grant from the
Environmental Protection Agency to partially fund hazardous cleanup and community
involvement activities.
“We’re embracing a very creative solution to send all of the sanitary waste into a
city sewer instead of our river,” says Warner, who notes the expansion will help to
create jobs in the area.“It has huge environmental benefits. And once this system is
in, we can rent space to new and emerging
businesses because we’ll be able to handle
sanitary waste properly.”
About the author: For more than two
decades, Julie Reynolds has been writing
about issues of interest to U.S. contractors and
consumers. For 15 years, Reynolds directed
public affairs and corporate communications
at the National Fire Protection Association
and has worked with the Home Fire Sprinkler
Coalition since its founding in 1996 and with
the Home Safety Council since 2003.