Construction of new buildings involves many systems. Since several of these systems overlap with the structure’s plumbing, it is important to have a plumbing engineer on your building project team.

The first reason is that having this professional on the team ensures that the system will be designed in accordance with the accepted standards of practice for this area of engineering. This standardization provides an additional baseline level of safety for the building’s occupants and the surrounding environment.

Plumbing engineers are also responsible for the design and implementation of temperature, air and water systems, including water supply and drainage. Plumbing engineers make sure that these systems are properly designed and executed, especially when the level of complexity is high. The plumbing engineer serves a key role in making sure that everyone in a building has access to warm or cool water and a working toilet.

To properly size a hot water heater, it is important to know how and by whom hot water is used in the facility. Obviously, if the heating system or distribution system does not have sufficient capacity for the needs of all users, then substandard service will result. Substandard service may be manifested in a number of ways including insufficient quantities or temperatures of hot water, short-cycling of equipment or even excessive runtimes. These conditions may create greater operating costs, equipment damage and/or damage to other systems due to short cycling or unsatisfied demand load, unsatisfactory user satisfaction levels and warrantee issues stemming from improper installation practices or misapplication of equipment.