If you work on the plumbing side in a facility maintenance capacity, you know that mechanical faucets and flush valves are in many ways, easier to maintain and more reliable than sensor operated alternatives.

Crank handle car windows can be described the same way; more reliable and easier to maintain than electronic ones. It’s fair to assume that most of us prefer the electronic ones as end users, even if they are more of a challenge for maintenance professionals.

This article takes the perspective of your facility’s customer, the end user. Whether your facility is a high-end sports arena, a public-serving property like a school district or an airport, a hospital, or a commercial office building, your customer wants a minimal touch experience in public restrooms. 

Perception

Most consumers are not overly savvy about plumbing. They know that if a restroom is dirty, touching things feels “icky.”

This leads to the squatty potty “hover” approach, the kicking of flush handles, and leaving faucets on to not touch with clean hands what you just touched with dirty hands. In short, the people who use your facility’s restrooms want to do their business without the possibility of sharing someone else’s business. In practice, this means touchless faucets and flush valves, toilet seat covers, and touchless paper towel dispensers; because we all know air dryers have been shown to blow “toilet bloom” around the restroom. 

Health

As the facility maintenance team, you already know the horrors of public restroom hygiene. What often gets lost in the wash is our humble plumbers enormous impact on the success of civilization.

Sanitary plumbing separates clean water from dirty water. It funnels the clean water in and the dirty water out, protecting consumers from illness. Plumbing concepts are used in farming providing water to crops, fire prevention and control, transporting gases for cooking and heating, and for various medical processes. It’s fair to say, Plumbers save the world every day of the week. 

Access to clean water unlocks the almost magical ability for humans to wash pathogens away from themselves. Even in this latest pandemic, soap, and water was acknowledged as the best way to protect against the virus. In 1900, most of the US was without indoor plumbing, and 18 million died of diarrhea, enteritis, and typhoid fever. By 1924 most homes had indoor plumbing and there were less than 2 million deaths from these diseases.

It’s our job to help you minimize the risk of infections. Touchless amenities are an essential part of that. 

During the heightened health concerns of the Covid pandemic, The Part Works helped a major sports stadium in our region install over 1,000 Sloan Side Mount retrofit kits in anticipation of both the heightened sanitary standards and the perception of a safe space to congregate (the stadium, not the restroom!). With over 65,000 potential users at a given event, the cleanliness of the restrooms really matters.

Water savings

One element that may be overlooked with Sloan sensor products is how much potential water savings they can generate. The home of Seattle’s WNBA Seattle Storm and the NHL Seattle Kraken, Climate Pledge Arenatakes water conservation very seriously, even using rainwater runoff from their roof to make the “greenest” ice in the NHL

With the over 700 combined water closets, urinals, flushometers, and faucets, Sloan valves are helping Climate Pledge Arena reach its goal of being the worlds most progressive, responsible, and sustainable arena. This includes Sloan’s: 

SU-7009 Washdown Urinals (45)

• paired with high-efficiency Sloan 8186 Exposed Sensor Urinal flushometers 

• 0.125 gpf

WES-1000 Water-free Urinals (110)

•0 gpf

ST-2459 Vitreous China Wall mounted water closet (329)

•G2 8111 Exposed Sensor Flushometer

•1.6 gpf

Optima EAF-350 Battery-powered Deck-mounted faucets 

•0.35 gpm sustained flow rate

•Referenced article linked below

Financial savings

Saving water in a large facility like Climate Pledge Arena pencils out massive ongoing savings on the water bill. Take Portland International Airport (PDX), for example. With over 35,000 people using their facility daily, the terminals 400 toilets get an average of 200 flushes per day each! At 3.5 gallons per flush that was 280,000 gallons of water down the toilet every day. 

The Port of Portland recently installed Sloan ECOS Flushometers in the executive offices. ECOS flushometers 

use Sloan Smart Sense technology to select the proper flush cycle, based on how long the user remains in the sensor range. The ECOS will activate a lighter flush for a short sensor activation and a heavier flush when the user is in front of the sensor for longer. 

While not a sensor flush valve, PDX also installed Sloan UPPERCUT dual-flush Flushometers in all of the terminal’s public restrooms.

With the UPPERCUT, pushing the handle up releases 1.1 gpf for clearing liquid waste, and pushing the handle down releases 1.6 gpf for clearing the bowl of solid waste. With these new configuration flushometers installed in the public restrooms and the executive offices, PDX immediately went from 280,000 gallons a day in flushed water volume to 103,000 gallons daily. 

By changing out these 400 flushvalves, PDX uses 37% of its previous water consumption. With that kind of savings for a large facility, it’s worth taking a second look at your monthly water bill and asking how many months it would take for 63% savings on water to pay for new flushometers in your facility?

••Referenced article linked below

Customer expectations

Ultimately, your customers expect to spend their hard-earned dollars with responsible and responsive organizations. Whether those dollars are in the form of taxes or school levies, hospital bills, entertainment venues tickets, or their office building lease, everyone wants to feel safe, clean, healthy, and accountable with their resources. Sloan is committed to being that responsible and responsive organization. Their high-quality sensor products are an important part of that commitment.

At The Part Works, we’re here to help. The work you do is too important to have to do it all, alone.

References

•https://www.sloan.com/design/inspiration/case-studies/entertainment/climate-pledge-arena

••https://www.sloan.com/design/inspiration/case-studies/transportation/portland-international-airport