In today’s fast-paced world, leveraging the power of online resources is essential for the success of any plumbing contractor. Ferguson.com is that resource.

As a busy service contractor, time is of the essence. When I plan out my busy week schedule, resource efficiencies are at a premium, and that includes stocking my truck adequately. Moreover, running a successful plumbing business requires access to quality products, reliable suppliers, and expert advice. In today’s digital age, having a robust online platform can significantly streamline your operations and contribute to your business’s growth.

In today’s post-COVID world, especially dealing with disruptive supply chain issues, it almost goes without saying; you can never have too much inventory on the truck or back at the shop. That’s why I rely on Ferguson.com, a comprehensive website that has plumbing contractor-specific resources available, all of which are literally just a click away. And that click provides real-time stock and pricing of more than 200,000 HVAC and plumbing products; I can see what’s in stock and my contract pricing.

My plumbing business relies on my wholesaler to carry a vast range of top-quality products from leading brands, and I trust Ferguson to provide those trusted, reliable, and durable solutions. Whether I’m looking for pipes, fittings, valves, fixtures, boiler parts or specialty items, I look to Ferguson.com.

Some really helpful features include “My Lists.” I am able to customize the order process with just a few clicks, instead of individually searching for the products I purchase regularly and organizing lists of the products I want. This ultimately has saved me time and has helped to streamline my ordering process. Ferguson.com even gives me the ability to share those lists I’ve created and keeps products I purchase under the “Bought Often” tab, which is automatically updated monthly.

The Quick Tools feature is a shortcut that makes it easy for trade professionals to quickly access other popular site features. It gives me the quick ability to order, reorder, find an order, or turn existing quotes into orders, all in one place. In some cases, I can even order online and have the order ready in an hour with Pro Pick-Up 1 Hour (at locations where Pro Pick-Up 1 Hour is available).

While traditional brick-and-mortar purchasing is still a viable wholesale solution, with Ferguson.com, I can gain access to a seamless and convenient online ordering system. This allows me to browse through products, check availability, compare prices, and place orders anytime, from anywhere. By simplifying the procurement process, Ferguson.com saves valuable time and effort, enabling me to focus on serving my customers better.

Furthermore, as a plumbing contractor, staying up to date with the latest industry trends and techniques is crucial. Ferguson.com offers a wealth of resources and expert advice to help me stay ahead of the curve. From informative articles and how-to guides to videos and product demonstrations, the website serves as a knowledge hub for plumbing professionals. Leveraging this wealth of information can enhance one’s expertise, expand a skill set, and ultimately elevate one’s business.

Sometimes I need to know what was on an order or the last time I bought a certain product. I’m able to find all of that online and end any confusion about my orders. If I need to see the status of an order, I can see it on my Ferguson Dashboard or Orders, and even get the proof of delivery. (Proof of delivery may not be available depending on how the order shipped or if it was signed for.)

Forward Thinking

Ferguson understands the importance of competitive pricing for plumbing contractors. By signing up for a Ferguson.com account, one can unlock access to exclusive contractor pricing on a wide range of products. This ensures that I can offer my customers competitive rates while maintaining healthy profit margins for my business. The savings one can achieve through Ferguson.com can significantly impact your bottom line and give you a competitive edge in the market.

It’s pretty simple, really. Creating an account on Ferguson.com provides plumbing contractors with a range of powerful tools to manage their business efficiently. By logging in, one can track his or her order history, access invoices, and manage one’s account settings, all in one centralized location. This streamlined account management feature eliminates the need for tedious paperwork and enables one to stay organized and in control.

What’s also cool about the site is that I can enroll for the free PRO Plus™ program. After I enrolled in this program, I now earn one point for every dollar I spent online. I can then redeem those points for cool prizes and earn Bonus Points faster by purchasing featured products. PRO Plus™ customers are also eligible for discounts with select businesses.

Ferguson.com boasts an extensive inventory of plumbing products, tools, and supplies, as well as expert advice and efficient account management, making it a one-stop solution for all of my business needs. By utilizing the features and capabilities of Ferguson.com, I can streamline my operations, relieve operational stress, and propel my business toward greater success. Sign up today and unlock a world of opportunities for your plumbing contracting business with Ferguson.com.

By Bryan Cordill

Buildings—including homes—are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, homes account for nearly 40 percent of carbon pollution in the United States, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Builders and contractors have several options available to them to lower the carbon footprint of the homes they build. Not only in the embodied carbon of the building, but also in the operating emissions of the home over its lifetime.

The Propane Education & Research Council (PERC) understands the need and desire for builders to do their part in the homes they build. Its Propane Construction Incentive Program encourages more builders and remodelers to incorporate clean, reliable propane into their projects. The program awards qualifying and selected construction professionals a monetary incentive for building or remodeling homes using propane appliances in exchange for sharing emissions data and insights regarding their propane use at each home.

Todd Fitzgerald is a builder and owner of Father & Son Construction in New Hampshire. He’s been building homes for 30 years and has participated in the Propane Construction Incentive Program since 2018.

“Building and living in a sustainable home is growing more and more important to my customers, so that makes it part of my job, Fitzgerald said. “When we’re out building and we can use propane, especially through this program, we do it.”

Builders across the country are participating in the Incentive Program and seeing the environmental benefits of using propane in the homes they build. In 2022, the program resulted in the elimination of more than 18 million pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) per year in more than 1,000 homes across 19 states compared to building the same homes all electric.

Eliminating over 18 million pounds of CO₂e is a huge win for the planet. It’s equivalent to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions annually from:

• 1,839 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year.
• 1,038,249,446 smartphones charged.
• 1,075 homes’ energy use for one year.

Many people mistakenly believe an all-electric home is the only way to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions. But this data shows that pure electrification is not the answer, instead builders need to consider a strong energy mix in the homes they build, and that energy mix should include propane.

It will take decades and cost trillions of dollars to expand the country’s electric grid to service an all-electric housing stock. Not to mention, much of the U.S. grid electricity is produced by burning natural gas or coal. Propane is an immediate solution to accelerate decarbonization, as the findings from last year’s program show.

The Propane Construction Incentive Program offers a baseline incentive of up to $1,000 to builders or remodelers who upgrade to propane appliances in a new build or a remodel. Applicants can also earn an extra $500 on top of the baseline incentive based on their geographic location. Visit propane.com for more information.

The 2022 program awarded $1 million in funding to construction professionals who provided data from the Energy Planning and Analysis Tool comparing the emissions of the propane appliances to their electric alternatives. Installations included propane furnaces, water heaters, fireplaces, cooktops, ovens, clothes dryers, outdoor grills, and standby generators.

“Participating in this program means there is extra money coming in to offset costs, which is really good,” Fitzgerald said. “Plus, it’s easy to sign up. I choose propane over other energy sources because it’s efficient and clean. It’s good for the environment, and that’s important to me and my customers.”

Builders and remodelers who participate in the Propane Construction Incentive Program and install propane appliances in their customers’ homes are not only creating a competitive advantage for themselves, but they are also helping decrease greenhouse gas emissions while delivering the comfort and efficiency their customers desire.

Learn more about the qualifications, including bonus regional and remodeling incentives, and apply at  Propane.com/ConstructionIncentive.

Bryan Cordill is the director of residential business development at the Propane Education & Research Council. He can be reached at bryan.cordill@propane.com.

By Jonathan Simon

Most homeowners don’t think about the plumbing materials in their homes until a problem occurs. Yet, plumbing materials play a significant role in their day-to-day quality of life, especially when the system doesn’t deliver on their expectations.

Some plumbing systems can contribute to issues like poor water pressure and water quality. Then, of course, there are the reliability problems that can arise when the plumbing system proves incompatible with local water conditions, leading to failures and water damage that can turn a homeowner’s life upside down.

So, while homeowners don’t spend much time thinking about plumbing materials, plumbers should. Here are four ways that you can protect your customers thanks to the performance of CPVC.

Water Pressure

Low water pressure can be frustrating for homeowners every time they shower, and the design of the plumbing system could be a contributing factor.

Plumbing systems using insert fittings where the fitting goes into the pipe will reduce the system’s diameter at the fitting, restricting flow and creating a much larger pressure loss than occurs with systems where the pipe is inserted into the fitting, such as CPVC and copper. Even expansion fittings, which have the largest internal diameter of the insert fittings, can cause up to 7x more pressure loss in the system compared to a CPVC or copper fitting.

Insert fittings can also create turbulent zones in the pipe as water jets out of the restriction created by the fitting. These higher-velocity zones may require that the design velocity of the system be reduced to remain within manufacturer specifications.

Plumbers can compensate for the issues created by insert fittings by upsizing piping, but that adds significant cost to projects. Using larger pipe to slow down the water and reduce pressure drop can also pose challenges in areas that need to comply with water and energy efficiency standards. By minimizing pressure drop across the system, CPVC helps preserve water pressure at fixtures.

Water Quality

No plumbing system can improve water quality, but the choice of materials can minimize the risk of various sources of contamination.

One of those risks is biofilm growth. Biofilm that forms inside residential plumbing systems can contain bacteria such as E. coli, coliforms and legionella. The susceptibility of a particular material to biofilm is called its biofilm formation potential and varies across materials. Independent research has found that CPVC has a lower biofilm formation potential than other plastic plumbing systems and is consistently among the lowest of plumbing systems tested.

Permeation and leaching also present risks to residential water systems. Materials vulnerable to permeation can allow dangerous chemicals that come in contact with the outside of the pipe to enter the water supply. The U.S. EPA, in their study on Permeation and Leaching, found that vinyls such as CPVC are virtually impermeable at low levels of exposure and that polyolefin plastic plumbing materials accounted for more than three-quarters of the documented permeation incidents in the United States.

NSF 61 is the industry standard for protecting against unsafe leaching of chemicals from plumbing materials into the water supply. FlowGuard Gold CPVC is certified to NSF 61 under all water conditions. Copper and some PEX brands have limitations on their NSF 61 listings.

By reducing the risks from biofilm formation, permeation and leaching, plumbers play an important and underappreciated role in protecting the health of their customers. And while homeowners may never fully appreciate that role, they could notice the difference in water quality when materials other than CPVC are used. According to research from Virginia Tech, CPVC has the lowest impact on drinking water taste and odor of any residential plumbing material.

Reliability

In addition to good pressure and water quality, homeowners want a plumbing system they don’t have to worry about. If there’s one thing more frustrating than a water leak, it’s having a second leak soon after the damage from the first has been repaired. That was the experience of the Jackson family in Battle Ground, Washington. They had multiple plumbing system failures, one after the other, until an expert finally diagnosed the root cause of the problem as incompatibility between the plumbing material chosen for their ten-year-old home and local water conditions. When the home was repiped with CPVC, the problems disappeared.

CPVC is the only residential plumbing material that is naturally immune to chlorinated drinking water. As municipalities strive to maintain water safety through treatment methods that produce higher oxidative reduction potential in the water they supply, this is more important than ever. CPVC can perform reliably in water conditions and at temperatures, pressures and velocities that could lead to degradation and early failure in other plastic or metal plumbing systems.

Sustainability

For homeowners that prioritize the sustainability of building materials, CPVC is a very attractive choice. Based on comparisons using the National Institute of Standards (NIST) BEES software, FlowGuard Gold CPVC requires less energy to manufacture, has lower embodied energy and results in fewer emissions over its service life than PEX and copper. CPVC is also recyclable through proper centers.

In addition, FlowGuard Gold CPVC is the only residential plumbing system certified by Home Innovation Labs National Green Building Standard (NGBS) and has a lifecycle assessment to enable the material to contribute to LEED certification.

Making the Right Choice

If you’re looking to give your customers the water quality, pressure, reliability and sustainability they are looking for, CPVC is the right choice. And CPVC doesn’t just deliver benefits to homeowners. Plumbers experience lower material costs, faster installation and excellent support from leading manufacturers. To learn more, visit flowguardgold.com/plumber-resources.

Jonathan Simon is the North American residential plumbing manager for Lubrizol Advanced Materials. Half of the world’s consumers use at least one product containing a Lubrizol ingredient. Advanced materials products create and/or improve the performance of our customers’ products and enable unique performance attributes. For 60 years, FlowGuard Gold Pipe and Fittings have provided reliable hot and cold water plumbing systems to residential and commercial buildings.

Within a 45-year career, a construction worker has a 1-in-200 chance of being fatally injured on the job. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Construction Safety Week serves as a reminder to industry professionals that they should continue to reinforce and follow job site safety procedures to protect themselves and their teams. While this is a great first line of defense, there’s also another way you can create a safer construction site: choosing safe and smart products.

As plumbing and mechanical contractors know, plumbing codes often require an end goal without specific direction on how to get there, which can force you to piece together unreliable makeshift methods that could have serious consequences if installed incorrectly. Even methods and tools that have been around a long time can be outdated to the point that they present safety issues.

By updating your workflow to incorporate modern and engineered solutions, you can better protect yourself on the job while maintaining professional and cost-effective installations. Look for plumbing solutions that comply with code regulations and go above and beyond to address OSHA requirements and eliminate risks associated with field-devised or traditional installation methods.

Those risks vary across products, as do the benefits of using engineered solutions instead. Below are some common makeshift methods for commercial plumbing installations and how using engineered replacements can better protect you on the job.

The risks of common field-devised plumbing installations

Makeshift methods are most common for two kinds of plumbing installations: pipe supports and water heater accessories. But as is the case for all field-built installations, they’re entirely inconsistent, meaning they could fail and cause harm to you or your team. Fortunately, there are better alternatives that are easily accessible and trusted today.

Pipe Supports

The most common pipe supports to be cobbled together are overhead and in-wall pipe supports. In-wall supports are often made from scrap material, such as cut lumber, tin-snipped metal studs, baling wire and random strapping material, while trapeze pipe supports might be fashioned using strut or channel that is manually cut into pieces with a variety of expensive clamp options.

When it comes to no-hub fitting restraints, it’s not uncommon for installers to use different materials like metal banding, angle iron, riser clamps and thread rods, but this is untested, unproven and costly. More specifically, makeshift no-hub fitting restraints usually fail to meet the intent of CISPI standards.

The inconsistent reliability of these makeshift installations means they could fail and cause a potential leak hazard . For in-wall supports, there’s an additional safety hazard from using several power tools to create the final product.

By contrast, several engineered overhead and in-wall supports are made of durable materials like galvanized steel so they’re strong enough to support different applications throughout the entire life of the building, reducing the risk of injury during and after installation.

For no-hub restraints, manufactured solutions take on-site cutting, bending, measuring and modifications out of the picture and replace them with an engineered solution supported by test data, torque data and product specifications that ensure the safety and reliability of the restraint’s design. The result may look something like the HoldRite #117 series, the only no-hub restraint product to have third-party testing data that shows what each product is rated and tested to.

Water Heater Supports

Water heater platforms and seismic restraints are some of the most common water heater accessories assembled in the field. Platforms are sometimes built with wood or steel, while random steel strapping or even plumber’s tape is often used to create an earthquake restraint.

But this offers no engineering data regarding the stability or longevity of the installation, which can lead to injury during installation and, down the line, leaks or even an explosion hazard if natural gas is involved.

On the other hand, professionally manufactured water heater platforms are designed for safety and strength and list explicit weight limits, so you don’t have to wonder if it’ll support the water heater. Some brands, such as HoldRite, have water heater supports that are third-party lab tested to exceed code requirements and are often certified by other entities as well.

The risks of an outdated DWV testing method: fall hazards

One of the biggest downsides of the traditional plumbing ball testing method is that it can create a high risk of falls during testing. If the test ball ruptures, floors and installers get wet. When it’s deflated at the end of the testing process, water can spray out of the test port location, too. Both possibilities create a slip-and-fall hazard on the job, especially in the wintertime.

Alternatives like  help keep job site floors dry during testing by allowing system fill-up or drain-down option directly at the test tee and including a triple-seal protection design to ensure a dry, safe environment. This helps minimize slip and fall hazards caused by water or ice on the floor.

At the end of the day, the first step toward better safety is education. Education about the top risks you’re exposed to and how to reduce those risks. But knowledge must be combined with action for the best results. As you follow policies and procedures that protect you, also consider the tools that can increase your safety. Investing in safe and smart products will always pay off.

Neil Ross is a product manager at RWC — a market leader and manufacturer of water control systems and plumbing solutions for residential, commercial and industrial applications.