Plumbing systems in buildings require careful selection of vertical or horizontal piping distribution. The building type is a key factor in this decision, and relevant codes and standards must be followed.

Plumbing & Mechanical Chief Editor Nicole Krawcke had the chance to sit down with Tina Gullickson and discuss her goals and strategies in leading Caleffi North America through this next chapter.

A reader asked if the process for water heater selection could be used for selecting a faucet. This column provides the process steps for selecting faucets, without discussing the findings in detail, as several resources are available for comparing faucet types.

When a plumbing engineer receives the design of a health care building — our minds gravitate to designing the system to optimize all the different considerations I mentioned above — with the fixture layout the architect has developed. But what if the layout changed? What if the amount of fixtures were reduced? 

The Water Demand Calculator has been adopted in several states and cities, including California and Seattle, and is expanding peak flow rate calculations into commercial buildings. The future looks bright as version 3.0 is in the works for commercial buildings.

Uponor North America celebrated the grand opening of its newly constructed Uponor Experience Center located at its regional headquarters in Apple Valley, Minnesota in September.

Finding, training, and retaining employees will continue to be a challenge moving into next year. With many homeowners still feeling the pinch of inflation, contractors will notice that more potential customers are price-shopping.

How can we attract the next generation of young designers and engineers to join our industry, and how can we keep the ones already in?

What do the 3-model codes, UPC (Uniform Plumbing Code), IPC (International Plumbing Code) and NSPC (National Standard Plumbing Code), have to say on the subject?

I do not fully agree with the statement about the quality decline in the plumbing industry. A couple of bad installations do not define the entire plumbing contractor industry. How do we fix it?