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InSinkErator Safety

InSinkErator Safety

InSinkErator Questions

In November it will be 48 years since I finished high school and began my plumbing apprenticeship. Over the years, I have either asked myself every dumb question or have been asked some interesting questions by other people concerning plumbing.

But last week I got asked a question by Steve, a long-standing client that I cannot recollect ever being asked before. The question being, “What happens if I stick my hand into the kitchen sink InSinkErator waste disposal unit when it’s going?

My first response was to wonder why you would contemplate even doing such a thing. That was until Steve explained it was a question posed by his 5-year-old grandson.

Steve was genuinely worried it was something his grandson may try to attempt. Now the question did not seem so dumb at all. Steve was correct to be worried that his grandson would try to see what would happen if he put his hand down the InSinkErator unit when it was turned on because as we all know a 5-year old has little fear.

Steve was seriously contemplating getting us to remove the food waste disposal unit out of the sink permanently. This was despite him being concerned about the loss of conveniently and hygienically disposing of food scraps which could also increase the risk of a blocked sink.

An InSinkErator Has NO BLADES

Like most people, Steve was convinced that an InSinkErator waste disposal unit is a mass of sharp blades spinning around chopping and shredding everything that enters its chamber. Contrary to popular believe an InSinkErator sink waste disposal unit is not like a kitchen blender and it has NO BLADES at all.

Steve was much happier once I explained how an InSinkErator unit works. If his grandson put his hand into the unit when it was turned on then he would at the worse end up with a bruised and maybe cut hand. Although in all likelihood he would pull his hand out as soon as it came into contact with the spinning plate and or its impellers which have absolutely no cutting function.

Very simply instead of spinning blades chopping, cutting and breaking down the food scraps InSinkErator waste disposal works by:

  • Instead of blades, impellers (or lugs) mounted on a spinning plate use centrifugal force to continuously force food waste particles against a stationary grind ring
  • The grind ring breaks down the food scraps into very fine particles – virtually liquefying them
  • After they are ground, the running water flushes the particles through the grind ring and out of the disposer and into your waste-water pipe and into the sewer house drains

How Does An InSinkErator Work? 

If you want to see exactly how an InSinkErator waste disposal unit works have a look at this 90-second video below which gives you a graphic inside view of how a unit works.
After watching the above video Steve was happy to keep using his InSinkErator waste disposal unit because like most people who have an InSinkErator he knew it was the most convenient, environmentally friendly and hygienic method to dispose of food waste and scraps. Generally, waste disposal units create a safer and cleaner kitchen using minimal water and electricity.

Tips on Using An InSinkErator

If you already have an InSinkErator sink waste disposal unit installed here are a few tips to using it which assist in prolonging its working life:

  • InSinkErator waste disposal units can become stuck or seized, and this can be caused by non-food items such as spoons being placed or falling into the unit
  • overfilling the InSinkErator can cause the unit to jam
  • grease or fatty liquids should not be poured into the InSinkErator
  • InSinkErator units should never be run dry, always use with the cold water running whilst the unit is spinning plus always turn the cold water off after turning off the unit
  • cleaning your InSinkErator waste disposal unit once every week by inserting and grinding a handful of ice in your unit. This will remove any buildup that may have been left when grinding food materials, and often gets rid of any smell coming from your kitchen sink drain. If an odour persists after carrying out this cleaning try cutting up and grinding a lemon or grapefruit will give a fresh citrus smell
  • the InSinkErator unit should be equipped with a reset button either at the side of the unit (older models) or underneath the unit.  If your unit fails to start after pressing the reset, then it is probably more than just jammed disposal, and you should call Whywait Plumbing and have one of our plumbers solve the problem.
Baking Soda and Vinegar Will Not Clear Your Blocked Drain

Baking Soda and Vinegar Will Not Clear Your Blocked Drain

Baking soda and vinegar do not clear blocked drains

Sorry to disappoint you. I guarantee that mixing baking soda and vinegar will not clear your blocked drain. However, I can assure you will create a lovely fizzy, bubbling concoction that fascinates your kids and nothing else.

When you mix vinegar with baking soda, you create a bubbling chemical reaction that produces:

  • a small amount of sodium acetate, which is a salt and also known as hot ice
  • ordinary H2O or water

What is not created is a magical chemical that will clear any blockage in your drains. I realise this is contrary to the popular urban myths spun by well-intentioned DIY gurus.

Baking soda and vinegar will not break down buildups of grease, fats, oils or hair

Baking soda and vinegar will not clear your blocked drain because they will not break down the buildups of grease, fats, oils or hair. To break them down, so they run away in water, you require a combination of heat and a surfactant.

The reality is if you have a slow-draining shower, basin or sink drain, then don’t waste money on chemical solutions. Instead, use salt and hot water. All you need to do is pour half a cup of salt into the drain, then slowly pour a couple of litres of water heated to just before boiling.

You may need to repeat this a few times, but it works by melting some grease and fat buildup. This is aided by the salt’s natural abrasiveness, which acts as a scouring agent to force more grease and fat to flow with the water.

We use an enzyme product when we are clearing trade waste drains and grease traps. We can provide you with it also to ensure your internal waste pipes on the shower, basin, or sink don’t clog up with grease, fats, soap or hair. Enzyme solutions need to be used regularly, generally overnight, but they work to keep your drains free from organic buildups. Best of all, by breaking down organic matter, they eliminate odour issues.

Simply baking soda and vinegar will not clear your blocked drain, no matter how much you pour it down the drain. You will waste money buying baking soda and vinegar to create a lovely effervescence with lots of bubbles and fizzing.

You will waste money buying baking soda and vinegar to create a lovely effervescence with lots of bubbles and fizzing.

How long does a bathroom renovation take?

How long does a bathroom renovation take?

Television renovation shows are not reality when it comes to a bathroom renovation. Sadly that’s the benchmark too many people use when they call us to discuss a bathroom renovation. We always know when a client phones and asks “how long does a bathroom renovation take” that they will have unreal expectations.bathroom renovation by Whywait Plumbing

The reality is that a well-planned bathroom renovation will take at least 4-6 weeks. A poorly planned bathroom renovation takes forever and is the most frustrating experience for everyone.

Your bathroom is one of the most expensive rooms to renovate and will need to last you at least ten years. What is hugely fashionable today will not be in two years.

A bathroom renovation is never straightforward and is all about planning, planning and more planning.

Get A Professional Design

There is a multitude of online tools that make designing a bathroom look easy. The reality is that doing your own design can be a false economy.

Getting the floor plan design right from the beginning is your number one priority. I guarantee it will save you money in the long term. A professional bathroom designer will ensure you get what you want. Everyone else involved with the bathroom renovation will be able to give you precise costings based on the design plans.

Remember it’s your bathroom so don’t be intimidated by a bathroom designer. Work with their suggestions and opinions to get the bathroom you want.

Relocating Plumbing is Expensive

bathroom renovation relocation of plumbing by Whywait Plumbing

relocation of plumbing starts with exploration to discover where the drains are hidden in walls

If you have a concrete slab, then relocating water pipes and drains is expensive. If you have a wooden floor and can get under the house, the relocation of your plumbing is much simpler.

In our experience, the unnecessary relocation of drains frequently causes budget blowouts. Utilising your existing plumbing layout will significantly reduce the cost of your bathroom renovation.

Even marginal changes can cause a budget blowout because the plumbing located in the concrete slab can be vastly different once we start exposing it.

As I said, a wooden floor where there is access to the plumbing underneath is a vastly different proposition because all of the plumbing is visible. This gives you much more scope in your bathroom renovation to rearrange the layout of your fixtures.

Draw Up a Specification

a bathroom renovation involves demolishing the existing bathroom by Whywait Plumbing

demolishing your existing bathroom creates a mess very fast

A precise specification of what you want in your bathroom renovation will save everyone a lot of heartache and frustration once work begins.

Project managing your bathroom renovation is not hard providing you have clear floor design plans and precise, unambiguous specifications.

Checklists are a must for your budget peace of mind for the tiler, electrician, plumber, plasterer and painter. This ensures everyone knows what their tasks are and where they stand from the beginning.

If it’s not written down, then you can guarantee you will get a continuous flow of variations that will blow your budget to pieces.

Avoid Reusing Parts of Your Existing Bathroom

The best way to renovate a bathroom is to strip everything back to the bare floor and framework. Keeping parts of your existing bathroom defeats the purpose of having a brand new bathroom.

We frequently see clients keeping the existing ceiling, but it saves very little and is frustrating working around it to install new lighting and extraction fans.

Reusing bathroom fixtures such as the mixer taps or toilet suite or bath save little as it means we have to remove them, clean them up and reinstall them carefully. All you are saving on is the cost of the fixture, which these days is often marginal.

Use Quality Fixtures and Fittings

luxury bathroom renovation by Whywait Plumbing

Opting for cheap no brand plumbing fixtures will lead to future maintenance problems. Frequently if there is no manufacturers brand name visible, then the plumbing fixtures are a poor quality that will not last past a couple of years.

There are plenty of quality taps and toilets that will not squeeze your budget. Avoid fashionable colours in taps as in my opinion chrome never goes out of fashion and always cleans up well.

Investing in good quality custom built vanity cabinets will give you much more value and aid the functionality of the bathroom. Investing in a quality frameless shower screen will again support the functionality of the bathroom.

Planning is the Answer

As I said, previously, the key to a bathroom renovation is about the preparation. A well-planned bathroom renovation with precise specifications ensures that the work requirements are clear and everyone will happily fulfil their obligations.

Gold Coast Council Water Rates to Increase

Gold Coast Council Water Rates to Increase

Gold Coast council water rates are about to increase again. For both homeowners and business owners, this could be a double whammy when you couple this with the increases in power bills in recent years.

The Increases are likely to continue in coming years even though the City of Gold Coast has not increased its portion of your water bill at all for three years. Bulk water charges for the City of Gold Coast are recommended to increase by the Queensland Competition Authority a further $12 a year for the next two years.

The City of Gold Coast has now finalised the 2018-19 budget. Your Gold Coast council water rates charges will not increase on the retail and distribution component of the water and sewerage charges from the last financial year.

However, the significant portion of your water cost which is Queensland Government’s bulk water price will increase in line with the recommendations by the Queensland Competition Authority. The bulk water price will increase by 2.5% from $2.74 per kilolitre to $2.91 per kilolitre.

Contrary to some urban myths City of Gold Coast no longer owns Hinze Dam and the desalination plant. Gold Coast Water buys the water that you use through your meter from Seqwater owned by the Queensland Government. The price paid for the bulk water is itemised in your water bill.

Essentially the bulk water charges levied by the Queensland Government makes up the bulk of your water bill.

These charges are still reflecting the poor planning from 20 years ago that resulted in the multi-billion dollar water grid construction in 2007-08 which resulted in supply pipes connecting all of South-East Queensland being built. To a large extent, the pipe grid was constructed without dams being built and to lesser extent dams constructed without pipes which also resulted in the construction of the seldom-used Tugun desalination plant.

For 2018-19 your Gold Coast council water rates will increase on 1 July for your water and sewerage which will comprise of the following charges:

  • Queensland Government bulk water charge $2.91 per k/L
  • City of Gold Coast distribution           $1.09 per k/L
  • Total water consumption charge    $4.00 per k/L 

The water and sewerage access charges will remain the same as in previous years being:

  • water access charge of $212.08 per year
  • sewerage access charge of $724.12 per year.

Currently, water charges are relatively stable, but significant problems are looming. Long term planning is required to address the issues of aging infrastructure and their maintenance costs which will impact Gold Coast council water rates.

Infrastructure Australia in a major report has predicted water bills will go the way of power bills increasing by at least $50 every year. They predict today’s average annual water bill of $1200 will increase to $2500 within 20 years.

The report correctly says we need to start planning now as our dams are relatively full which gives us the rare opportunity of “….clear thinking and long-term planning to meet our future needs.”

As we all know from the water management supply crisis of 2007-09 South East Queensland can be adversely effected quickly with a combination of natural disasters, poor planning and below average rainfall.

Very simply if we don’t start long-term planning now for planning our future water needs the drastic increases in water bills will cripple family and business budgets in the same way power bills are now.

Plumbing Innovations are Disruptive Innovation

Plumbing Innovations are Disruptive Innovation

Plumbing innovations have always been the norm in the plumbing industry. Innovation is change and is always about better ways of doing the same thing.

When I started my apprenticeship the clearing of a blocked drain started using a plunger and was at least a two-man job using 1m long drainage rods. The rods were screwed together and manually pushed slowly down the drain until we hit the blockage. Clearing drains this way frequently took 3-4 hours.

Plumbing innovations mean that we now clear a blocked drain with state of the art high-pressure jetrodding technology that was unknown 20 years ago.

Innovation is always about change, but at Whywait Plumbing we have always been at the forefront of plumbing innovations. We have always lead change as Gold Coast plumbers from the purchase of our first high-pressure water jetting unit in 1992 or installing vehicle tracking systems or introducing guaranteed upfront pricing in 1999.

What we always considered was developing and improving our way of solving your plumbing problems is now referred to as disruptive innovation. I agree disruptive innovation is the new term in business in the 21st century. But it’s not new it’s just a new way of talking about improving our methods and practices using the latest technology.

Change is the norm, but it just appears to be frantic to an outside observer with online banking, online shopping, online flight bookings and so the list goes on. At least with plumbing, it can’t be done online except for those DIY enthusiasts who believe Google Plumbing has all the answers.

The level of disruption through plumbing innovations has impacted all plumbing installation and maintenance has been significant starting with:

  • Increasing use of prefabrication of bathroom and kitchen modules off-site where the plumbing is all undertaken in a factory, transported to the site and connected up to a water and drainage connection.
  • Continual advances in sustainability with the advent of low flow toilets, low flow taps, waterless urinals and recirculated hot water.
  • Advances in energy efficient products with heat pump hot water units, solar hot water, instant hot water and underfloor heating.
  • All of the different materials we now use in the pipework, relining of existing pipework, CCTV cameras to inspect pipes and pipe jointing methods where welding is now obsolete.
  • Excavation methods with advanced technologies in hydro excavation and tracking and locating of underground services.

The ongoing changes in technology in the plumbing industry are disruptive if not embraced. I agree that plumbing innovations cause a significant difference in how we undertake to solve plumbing problems and how the plumbers at Whywait work now.

Ultimately plumbing continues to be about protecting the health and safety of the community for now and the future to ensure we have good quality water and sewer systems in our buildings.

It’s A Fact ZeroFlush Waterless Urinals Save More Water Than Money

It’s A Fact ZeroFlush Waterless Urinals Save More Water Than Money

ZeroFlush waterless urinals are an increasingly widespread investment being made by architects, hydraulic engineers, facilities managers and building owners throughout Australia because they help conserve water.

Here at Whywait Plumbing, we concur that there are conflicting arguments about the amount of money they save. ZeroFlush waterless urinals do operate without flushing any water, so they will always save water first and foremost. But when making a case for their installation and the investment in maintaining and operating them the best evidence is they are environmentally and sustainably superior to every water flushing urinal.

Installation of ZeroFlush waterless urinals as a corporate responsibility effort should always be a consideration, but here at Whywait Plumbing our experience with ZeroFlush enables us to give you a performance guarantee.

On current Gold Coast Water charges we can guarantee installation of ZeroFlush waterless urinals will reduce your water and sewer discharge costs.

Contact us at Whywait Plumbing now to discuss how you can benefit by installing ZeroFlush waterless urinals as we can guarantee the following:

  • the reduced capital cost to install as no expensive electronic water flushing systems are required
  • reduced maintenance costs with no water reticulation valves to maintain
  • simple and easy cleaning procedures with our natural enzyme cleaning products
  • reduction in blocked drains and drainage traps
  • all products used in the manufacture and maintenance of ZeroFlush waterless urinals are environmentally sustainable

Determining exactly how much water a ZeroFlush waterless urinal keeps from the Gold Coast Water sewer system is somewhat complicated. The number depends on a variety of arguable variables, such as the amount of water that a water flushing urinal would use, the number of people using the urinal and how often those people will use it.

A single water flushing urinal can use anywhere from 50,000 litres to 180,000 litres of water every year. Once again this is based on multiple variables such as the size of the building, the number of male employees and how many times they use the urinal each day. A building such as a factory with one bathroom facility, three ZeroFlush waterless urinals and 120 male employees, would save approximately 900,000 litres of water each year.

Calculating the payback period for installing ZeroFlush waterless urinals can be a complicated process. Using the average of $9 per 1,000 litres of water from Gold Coast Water and the example of an office with four men working in it, we can come up with some estimates.

Let’s say each man flushes a urinal 2,000 times per year or about 5.5 times per day, meaning that the four men flush the toilet 4,000 times a year in the office. With an older, water flushing urinal using 15 litres per flush will use 60.000 litres, costing about $540 every year just for water.

Ultimately, ZeroFlush waterless urinals save more water than money, but we guarantee that they are still worth the investment in sustainability.

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