I took a tour of the San Francisco Oceanside Treatment Plant Tuesday with a group of plumbers from the Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors association of San Francisco.

If you have never been, what a facility! Most of the plant is underground, in fact some of the roof area is designed to handle hoofed animals from the zoo.

The Plant processes 20 % of the citys sewage, to be exact thats 17 Million gallions of sewage a day in dry weather and up to 60 million gallons in wet weather.

The first thing the tour guide told us was to that the only thing to go down a toilet should be one of the 3 P's (Poo, Pee, and Paper) we have been telling clinents this for years. In fact anything that does go down that shouldn't has to be removed before the sewage can be processed.

The sewage in eleven hours goes though 3 processes before being pumped 4.5 Miles out to sea. in the process the plant creates enough methane gas to make electricity that power 30% of the plant.

One of the things that really impressed me was how clean the whole facility is, it did smell in some areas but not as bad as you might think.

If you would like more information on the sewer plant or a possible tour, go to :http://sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=396

I Didn't write this this Blog I borrowed it from My friends at Accent Plumbing The information really hits home so I wanted to share it with you.

Enjoy George

Selecting any type of home service company is a frightening prospect for most homeowners. Here’s how to increase the odds that you will make as good of a decision for other industries as you have for plumbing when you selected Accent Plumbing.or George Salet Plumbing <Grin>

This is a different list than you’ll typically see from a consumer magazine or government agency. Few people, for example, want to call three to five companies for an estimate, especially if you need service quickly. People simply want someone who will do a good job at a fair price with the minimum amount of hassle. Almost no one is going to call past customers, check with the licensing board, or investigate the amount of insurance carried. Our list focuses on things you can do quickly and practically.

Use Social Media

Are you social? Asking your friends through Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and other social media sites is a great way to find a social good service company and minimize the odds you will select a poor one. It’s the fastest way to ask a lot of people for a referral. To improve the quality of the information you get, ask your friends and contacts to share their personal experiences.

Use Review Sites

The next best thing to recommendations from friends are public review sites. There are three types of review sites. The first charges you and charges the companies listed. You can pay for this information if you want, but the quality of the reviews is no better than you can find on the second type of review sites, which are the free sites.

Free sites include Yelp! and Google. In Yelp!, simply select your search term and city to see what reviews are available. For Google, search for the type of service and “near” and the town name. If either fails to return enough entries, try another town, a larger town, or the county.

The final type of review sites are known as slam sites. All they carry are negative reviews. A company’s failure to appear on a slam site usually means the company has few customers. Most large companies eventually appear. Some sites even offer a consulting service to “assist” the business owner with his reviews. Think of this as extortion to make bad reviews disappear. The consulting service makes the usefulness of these sites suspicious at best. Plus, the least reputable companies are the ones most like to take advantage of the service. Given that the free review sites include both positive and negative experiences, it’s best to avoid the slam sites.

Look at a Company’s Website

Once you start to zero in on a service company, check out the company’s website. A poor website is not necessarily an indicator of poor quality, but it does show less professionalism and an inattention to details compared to companies with good sites. The complete absence of a website should be a red flag. Most professional companies have websites. Most fly-by-nights do not.

Check for Professional Affiliations and Community Involvement

While you are visiting the company’s website, check for professional affiliations and signs of community involvement. Examples of professional affiliations are membership in a trade association like the National Federation of Independent Businesses or an industry association, the local or national chamber of commerce, and business alliances like the Service Roundtable. These affiliations are signs that the company is committed to professional improvement.

You may or may not find signs of community involvement on the website, but a quick Internet search of the company name and the community or the principal’s name and the community should return service and civic club activities, charitable activities, youth sports sponsorships, and so on. These are companies committed to the community and more sensitive about their reputations.

Look for News Articles

Searching for the company under a search engine’s news tab may not reveal much. However, it is likely to uncover companies under pressure from authorities for poor business practices.

Look for Tangible Clues About the Company

Are the company’s trucks professionally marked and clean? If you can recall seeing one of the company’s field service personnel, was he or she wearing a uniform or a dirty pair of jeans and a t-shirt? Did the employee look like someone you want to invite into your home?

Ask Around

While not as efficient as posting a question on social media, call of few trusted friends to ask for recommendations. Call the “centers of influence” you know. Centers of influence are the people who are especially well connected and seem to know everyone in town.

Ask other service companies for their recommendations. Many will only recommend companies to their customers they believe will take good care of them.

Trust Your Intuition

In the end, the company you call will be the one you feel best about. Trust your intuition over anything else.
 

Here in California we have adopted the California 2010 plumbing code as of January 1 2011. One of the many changes is that you can now put your water heater back on the floor as long as it is a Flammable vapor ignition resistant approved water heater, We are now required to protect the water heater from damage by a car in the garage by installing pipe Ballard or other similar devices

Another standing requirement is that water pressure over 80 pounds per square inch must be reduced to 80 psi however the new code requires when a pressure regulator is installed to reduce pressure a properly sized expansion tank to be included in the system.

The new code has addressed many concerns of plumbers and water heater manufactures you see the new water heater that are flamable vapor ignition resistant prevent ignition of flammable vapors better than raising the water heater. and keeping cars from crashing into water heaters just makes sense.

One of the major causes of premature water heater failure is excessive pressure and metal fatigue. the more pressure in a water heater the more the tank expands creating more stress on the tank, by limiting the pressure to 80 psi that reduces the pressure to approximately 1/2 of the maximum operating pressure the tank was designed for,  When you have a pressure regulator installed the pressure goes in but usually cannot go back so when the water heats up it expands creating more pressure this causes the thank to expand, when your turn on the water the pressure drops back to your 80 psi. A expansion tank absorbs the pressure increase when the water heats up so the tank expands and contracts less, helping reduce metal fatigue.

Excessive pressure and expansion tanks are so important that most water heater companies will not warrant leaking water heaters when the pressure exceeds 80 psi

I was brushing my teeth this morning and marveling how easily my new Moen faucet operated . I thought about my old faucet, an American Standard Reliance, which had given me great service for over 20 years. It still worked well, but the chrome was starting to fail, and it was time to replace it.

Thinking about this reminded me about a conversation I had with a faucet manufacturer representative about faucets sold at discount stores like Home depot and Lowes. The rep told me that the faucets sold at those stores are different products than sold to professional plumbers. In fact, it was great to reaffirm what we already knew, discount stores sell inferior products with low quality plastic parts were as professional products which cost more use high quality parts with metal handles instead of plastic.In short you get what you pay for

With the high cost of labor you don't want to install a cheap faucet then have to replace it before it's time. The faucets I installed in my own home purchased from a professional plumbing supplier have lasted me for over 20 years without need to be replaced and of course it was installed by a Highly Qualified Plumber Me &lt;GRIN&gt;

Thanks
George