Whats New

Milwaukee Tool announces the next big breakthrough for drain cleaning
professionals. The M18 FUEL™ SWITCH PACK™ Sectional Drum System
is the first drain cleaning solution that combines the benefits of sectional
and drum machines to create the single most versatile and mobile machine
on the market. This new-to- world solution is easily transportable via an
integrated backpack design, allows users to interchange and connect
drums, and provides maximum power to clear 100’ down the line.

One Woodward stands as a symbol of Detroit’s renaissance. Situated in the center of Detroit’s Civic Center since 1962, the waterfront property experienced the Motor City’s economic boom of the 1960s, as well as the trying times of the 2000s and the city’s resurgence in recent years.

When the town fell upon harsh economic conditions and jobs in the automobile industry started moving elsewhere, even buildings as iconic as One Woodward suffered. In fact, the building’s occupancy dropped to as low as 20 percent in 2013 when the city’s population dipped by over one million people from its peak in 1950.

But as jobs began coming back to the area and companies like Bedrock Real Estate Services—a firm specializing in the strategic redevelopment of Midwestern urban cores — began purchasing downtown properties, the Motor City underwent a gradual revitalization. From a mere 20 percent occupancy in 2013 to becoming 100 percent occupied in 2017, One Woodward represents Detroit’s revitalization. And with hundreds of its sinks and flushometers specified for the building’s renovation, Sloan is a part of that transformation.

With the building undergoing an extensive redesign, Bedrock needed a product that could meet its plumbing needs. Bedrock specified 220 of Sloan’s ECOS® Flushometers as part of the 26-story building’s renovation, citing the products’ water conservation attributes. The ECOS® Flushometer has automatic dual-flush (1.6/1.1 gpf) or single-flush (1.1 gpf) high efficiency closet options, plus 0.5, 0.25 and 0.125 gpf high efficiency urinal flushometer options. ECOS® flushometers provide hands-free activation for improved hygiene in addition to their excellent water savings.

As part of its green building initiatives, Bedrock also installed 100 AER-DEC® Integrated Sink Systems throughout the building. With a soap dispenser, faucet, hand dryer and sink basin working together at arms-length as one touch-free and hygienic system, the beauty of the AER-DEC® is matched only by its flexibility. Building tenants including Quicken Loans, the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, a dentists office and numerous law firms get to experience the future of restroom design with the three-in-one deck unit.

It’s a little before 9 a.m. on a Tuesday at EiO and The Hive, one of Nashville’s trendiest new restaurants, and a six-member team is bustling around the kitchen where the aromas of freshly baked bread and rotisserie chicken waft through the air.

The “EiO” stands for “Everything Is Organic.” The stylish fast-casual establishment serves organic and locally sourced salads, sandwiches and more. Adjacent to the restaurant is a small organic farm with beehives and chicken coops that supplies the kitchen with produce, honey and fresh eggs.

The new restaurant is the brainchild of organic food entrepreneur Jennifer Masley, creator of the successful Jenergy Bar and Sip Organic Juice Bar, plus host of “The Hive Hour” on ACME Radio.

Customers are greeted by an eight-foot-wide sign at the entrance that proudly boasts: Sourcing locally is more nutritious and more delicious. Vintage-looking gold stripes painted to a finished yet industrial-looking concrete floor guide diners into the space, which features a coffee bar for morning customers and a 92-seat restaurant for lunch and dinner.

In contrast to the spacious and cozy feeling of the dining room, the kitchen is designed as an exercise in utility—maximizing every available inch for food preparation, cleaning and efficiency.

Two wall-mounted A. O. Smith ATI-510 tankless water heaters provide abundant hot water to the restaurant.

To meet the restaurant’s hot water demands, Masley’s kitchen needed a high-efficiency hot water system that could handle the pressure of serving a busy restaurant despite the space restrictions of the kitchen.

Masley turned to Allen Buchanan, project manager at Dowdle Construction Group in Nashville, to find a water heater that would meet her criteria. According to Buchanan, the main challenge was to find a heater that could deliver the needed hot water and meet state commercial building rules.

“Tennessee’s plumbing code classifies water heaters that deliver between 100K and 199K BTUs as boilers that must have 36 inches of clearance in all directions—and there wasn’t adequate space for a tank model in EiO’s mechanical room,” said Buchanan. “We had the A. O. Smith ATI-510 tankless water heater sized by a local engineering firm to make sure that it would deliver plenty of hot water, even in peak-demand periods.”

Buchanan’s team wall mounted two A. O. Smith ATI-510 tankless water heaters, a model with a Uniform Energy Factor of 0.80 that can use up to 199,000 BTU an hour of natural gas to provide an abundant supply of hot water—as much as 10 gallons per minute each.

Due to its industry-leading compact design (less than eight inches of depth from the wall), the 510 series is well suited for commercial applications such as small restaurants. Restaurant managers can count on dependable performance courtesy of a heat-resistant commercial grade copper alloy for the heat exchanger tubing and a thicker heat exchanger drum.

The A. O. Smith tankless water heater provides plenty of hot water for both food prep, hand washing and cleaning.

“We have used A. O. Smith tankless water heaters in other restaurant projects and have never had any issues,” Buchanan added.

Masley confirmed that the new water heater has performed flawlessly even when demand is high.

“We have three back-of-house food prep sinks with up to 10 employees using them,” she said. “The A. O. Smith tankless water heater has provided plenty of hot water for both food prep, hand washing and cleaning.”

Since EiO and The Hive opened in May 2017, it has steadily grown its reputation for being more nutritious and more delicious. But no matter how busy it gets—even during peak hours—Masley and her team know they’ll have the hot water they need to keep customers happy and business humming.

Products Used:
• A. O. Smith ATI-510 tankless non-condensing water heater
• Compact, space-saving design
• Fully modulating, gas-fired tankless water heater
• Uses up to 199,000 BTU per hour of natural gas to deliver a maximum flow rate of 10 gallons per minute
• Utilizes heat-resistant commercial grade copper alloy for the heat exchanger tubing
• Uniform Energy Factor of 0.80

Mechanical hub is proud to support and sponsor another apprentice in the annual PHCC CONNECT national plumbing apprenticeship contest in Milwaukee, Wis. Just weeks away from testing for his Journeyman’s license, apprentice plumber Joe Pilachowski has worked four years at Midwestern Mechanical, Inc., Sioux Falls, S.D., a commercial plumbing and heating, fire protection, HVAC and service company with four locations that spans two states: Sioux Falls, S.D.; Rapid City, S.D.; Spencer, Iowa; and Sioux City, Iowa.

After high school Joe was working two jobs, one in a hospital kitchen, and also as a loader for UPS. It just so happened that Midwestern Mechanical had in-house plumbers at the hospital; he talked with a few of them about their job and the kind of training needed to become successful.

Pilachowski contemplated the idea and then talked to a co-worker at UPS, who happened to be the daughter of then VP of Midwestern Mechanical, and decided to apply. “I chose plumbing because I always knew I would end up working a manual labor job, and I had been hunting for one for quite awhile before I applied. I looked into trade schools that I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford, and when I found out I could be paid to learn the trade rather than paying for it, I jumped right in,” says Pilachowski.

Pilachowski enjoys learning new things and the challenge of the plumbing trade, as well as the rapidly changing workplace. “I go to work in the morning knowing that I’ll have to figure out solutions to problems, and that those problems will not be the same everyday. I’m fortunate enough to work on smaller more specialized projects for Midwest Mechanical. It keeps me sharp and always allows me to experience and learn new things everyday,” says Pilachowski.

Entering the national apprenticeship contest in Milwaukee is important to Pilachowski to prove he hasn’t wasted the past four years of his life learning a trade, and winning the state PHCC competition proved that. Moving onto the national PHCC creates validation and helps not only prove to his foreman and his company, but to himself that he hasn’t wasted anyone’s time.

“I’ve worked hard these four years going to classes—even the extra training that was not required—to be the best at my trade that I could be. I applied myself to make myself better at a career I enjoy and now I can try my skills against others like me who strive to have excellence in all the work they do,” says Pilachowski.

Oh yeah, the only downside of the trade that Pilachowski sees? As any fellow plumber can attest—the smells and waste. “I don’t have a weak stomach, but no one likes having to cut into a live sewer line, or replace a used sewage ejection pump. It’s gross,” says Pilachowski.

But for those who are willing to put the time in to be successful in plumbing, Pilachowski says go for it. That’s been his mantra for anyone considering the trades, “Just jump into it, listen to the ones teaching you, and work hard at learning everything you can.”