waterworks best practices: containment backflow preventer design & placement
TRANSCRIPT
…poorly understood by designers
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Best Practices:
Containment Backflow Preventer
Design & Placement
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
“…. The return of any water to the public water system after the water has been used for any purpose on the customer’s premises or within the customer’s piping system is unacceptable and opposed by AWWA. …”
Bottom Line for the future:
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
More Containment More RPZs More Outdoor
Aboveground Installations
Why place a BFP outside?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
1. RPZs are an indoor flood hazard
“Before an RPZ is located, consideration should be given to both how much water will be discharged, and where it will drain. Consideration must be given to the drain system to assure the drainage system can handle the load. If a drain is not capable of accepting the flow, other choices as to the location of the valve, such as outside in a heated enclosure, should be made.”
-2006 ASPE Plumbing
Engineering Design Handbook, vol 2, p 70
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Why outside?
Why outside?Inside a building can be a major liability.
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Where to place a BFP?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Backflow Failure
2. Revenue & prop value: Indoor RPZs Reduce the rentable square footage of a building reducing revenue & property value
Why outside?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Charlotte,
NC: 32 SFColumbus,
OH: 36 SF
Suffolk Cty,
NY: 33.3 SFArlington,
TX: 32 SF
How much space is lost?
Average: 33.325 SF
Annual Rent Value: $999.75(based on Class A Office @ $30 psf)
25-year Cash Flows: $34,149.22(based on 2.5% inflation)
Net Present Value: $12,156.48(based on 9% discount rate)
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Net Present Value - $12,156.48 “If you pay me this today, I am indifferent to the loss of those income streams over the next 25 years”
QUESTION:Will placing the system inside save $12,156.48 over any other method?
… it depends on how much it costs to put it outside.
What’s that space worth?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Aboveground heated enclosure for 3” BPA with heat.
$1,000
$1,120
$1,800
$3,920
$3,266
$1,200
$1,800
$6,266
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Option A: Use conventional model Watts 957 NRS
Option B:
Use new ”n-type” model
Watts 957N NRS
Indoor
Containment
BPA +$12,156.48 +$8,236.48 +$5,890.48
No
Containment
BPA +$0.00
Owner’s Cash Benefit:
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
3. Fire safety: Indoor water resources for fires unnecessarily add risk to firefighters
Why outside?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
1. RPZs are not allowed to be installed in Vaults
Why not a vault?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
2. Confined Space Hazards: Vaults are dangerous and expensive to maintain and repair.
New OSHA Guidelines, May 4, 2015: Google: Pre/Post-Entry Information Exchange Duties of Host Employers and Controlling Contractors
Why not a vault?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Why not a vault?
3. Flooded vaults violate the International Plumbing Code.
608.1 General. A potable water supply system shall be designed, installed, and maintained in such a manner so as to prevent contamination from nonpotable liquids, solids or gases being introduced into the potable water system through cross connections or any piping connections to the system.
- International Plumbing Code 2013
4. Aboveground fire BPA enclosures with FDCs are safest, most efficient solution for firefighters
Why not a vault?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
5. Retrofits: Water use hazard changes over time –whether by changing tenant or changing guidelines – force enclosure retrofits and leave vaults empty
Why not a vault?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
- Plumbing Standards Magazine, Fall 2009
“An outdoor, aboveground BFP installation may be the best way to 1) reduce the owner’s exposure to damage caused by flooding....and the corresponding water contamination caused by a cross-connection; and 2) reduce the legal liability of the design engineers, the installers, and the certified testers whose professional actions, in part, may have otherwise caused the flooding harm. The water industry has a nationally accepted design criteria in ASSE’s Standard-1060 to protect these installations. It’s a win-win-win ‘insurance policy’.”Douglas Cregor, Esq.
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Why an Enclosure?
6. Insurance Policy
90.%
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Texas Survey Results
What do design engineers think?
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Texas Survey Results
72.7%
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Texas Survey Results
78.2%
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Texas Survey Results
Seattle
RaleighCharlotte
Austin
Nashville
Albuquerque
Long Island
DenverLas Vegas
LynchburgColumbusChicago
Forth WorthRoswell
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Portland
ArlingtonGwinnett City
Chesapeake
What’s happening around the country that helps us understand where all this is going?
Chicago, IL
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Chicago, IL
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Chicago, IL
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Central Ohio
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Fort Worth, TX
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Fort Worth, TX
AlpineBedfordBoerneCarrolltonCleburneCollege StationDenisonFarmingtonFarrisFranklinGrand PrairieHaltomTexarkanaWacoWaskomWhite Settlement
AddisonArlingtonBudaCedar HillColleyvilleCrowleyDentonDuncanvilleFort WorthFranklinGainesvilleHighland VillageMidlothianRoanokeRound RockSaginaw
Same language added to muni code in past 5 years
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Central Virginia
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Roswell
did
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
What Can Cities/Counties Do?1. Adopt standard details consistent with best practices
Denver did
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
What Can Cities/Counties Do?1. Adopt standard details consistent with best practices
Columbus
did
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
What Can Cities/Counties Do?1. Adopt standard details consistent with best practices
Charlotte did
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
What Can Cities/Counties Do?1. Adopt standard details consistent with best practices
Las Vegas did too
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Best Practices: Containment Backflow Preventer Placement
Tell DFW to Follow their Lead
The city of Arlington did in February 2016
2710 Landers Avenue ∙ Nashville, TN 37211 ∙ (800) 245-6333