Category: Blog

Effective plumbing is one of those utility services we tend to take for granted. Our faucets run, everything flushes and drains, and our access to clean water and wastewater disposal continues to consistently be present. But what about when it stops working? What happens when you see water pooling in your kitchen sink or your toilet starts flushing the wrong way? 

This may seem like a frustrating or frightening experience for most of us, being without functioning plumbing. For a homeowner, while it’s pretty frustrating and inconvenient, the next step is usually straightforward, like putting sticky notes on your home’s toilets and calling your trusted local plumber. But what if you are in the hospitality industry, and your restaurant’s dish washing sink won’t drain, or the toilet’s your customers use won’t flush? As easy as it is to still call your local trusted local commercial plumber, dysfunctional plumbing can be damaging to your restaurant. At the very least, it will slow down service and food production, and at the worst, it can deter potential or returning customers, who can’t use your toilet or hear “plumbing issues” at a restaurant and cross it off the list. 

That’s where Charlie’s Plumbing comes in. We are the most trusted commercial plumbing contractor in Houston, and we have been providing high-quality commercial plumbing services to Houston and the surrounding areas for the past 40 years, for a variety of industries. We have provided commercial plumbing service to a number of restaurants, hotels, bars, and other hospitality establishments in the greater Houston area, so keep reading to see five reasons why your restaurant should have a commercial plumbing contractor and how Charlie’s Plumbing can help.

Protect Against The Inevitable

Plumbing systems are pretty reliable when you consider the entire system and all that it does for your restaurant. But it’s just wishful thinking to hope that a plumbing problem won’t occur at your restaurant. Just like you might buy fire insurance, or increase your stock for a busy holiday weekend, finding a reliable commercial plumbing contractor is just another important step you should take to prepare and ensure your restaurant. Don’t wait for a busy day and broken pipes — plan for the inevitable and find a reliable commercial plumbing company that you can call for immediate service no matter what, like Charlie’s Plumbing in Houston.

Improve Service Efficiency

Ineffective or slow-working plumbing can really impact your restaurant’s ability to provide quick and effective service. A slow draining sink or a clogged grease trap can slow down the pace at which food can be cooked, plated, and served, leaving you angry customers and a dysfunctional restaurant. With a commercial plumbing contractor like Charlie’s Plumbing though, you can schedule consistent check-ups and maintenance to limit the potential of any plumbing issues hindering your restaurant, or have a trusted emergency commercial plumber to quickly contact if you need immediate commercial plumbing service.

Improve Kitchen Safety

As much as plumbing issues might slow certain restaurant processes down, any good restaurant and kitchen crew will try to power through any potential setback during a rush. However, this efficiency-first method might be dangerous combined with certain plumbing issues. For example, if a dishwashing sink won’t drain, those plates and silverware might get placed in work zones and present an obstacle to people handling sharp knives and hot surfaces. If a grease trap gets clogged, cleaning it mid-rush probably won’t happen, and a well-placed flame combined with the grease buildup could cause serious burns for a kitchen worker. Having regular plumbing maintenance, clean-up, and checkups from a trusted commercial plumbing contractor will mitigate any potential of these issues affecting kitchen safety.

Protect Your Customers

A big reason restaurant environments have very high cleanliness standards (i.e. health inspector) is that the germs and bacteria, inherent in standard plumbing appliances and sewer/water lines, are essentially side-by-side with prepared food that will be eaten by customers. So if your employees can’t wash their hands in a working sink, or go to the bathroom in the building, or even worse, experience a backflow of sewage water into potable water flow, you could have a real health hazard for your customers on your hands (literally and figuratively). A commercial plumbing contractor like Charlie’s Plumbing, can provide the regular maintenance and emergency commercial plumbing services that will avoid this issue and get your restaurant back to peak operation ASAP.

Maintain Your Business’s Image

Like the point above mentioned, restaurants generally have pretty high sanitation standards that they have to legally maintain. This can be extrapolated to generally high standards that customers expect from your restaurant, and customers can get cranky pretty quickly when those standards aren’t met. At full operating strength, we know your restaurant already performs at those high standards, but when you have a plumbing issue, operating at that standard becomes a lot more difficult. If customers can’t go to the bathroom because your toilets can’t flush, if a clogged dishwashing sink makes it takes twice as long for a customer to receive an order, if your soda machine can’t access potable water to keep working, these are all potential plumbing issues you could experience and they could cause some damage to your restaurant’s popularity and image. With a reliable commercial plumbing contractor, like Charlie’s Plumbing, you can get 24/7 emergency plumbing services, so any potential plumbing issue can be dealt with immediately, mitigating any PR damage.

COMMERCIAL HOSPITALITY PLUMBING SERVICES WITH CHARLIE’S PLUMBING 

When you own and operate a restaurant, one of the last things you are probably considering is what to do if your plumbing goes kaputz. And you won’t really have to consider it, until a plumbing issue presents itself, and by that point, the damage to your restaurant might have already been done. Don’t wait until there is an issue — hire a commercial plumbing contractor like Charlie’s Plumbing in Houston, and improve your peace of mind with Houston’s most trusted commercial plumbing company. Call us today!

While access to running water and functional plumbing has been the norm for almost 200 years now, at times we might take for granted just how consistent and widespread that access is. We might forget to appreciate how good we have it until we lose it.This consistency is now critical to our everyday lives, which is why plumbing is such an important job.

We expect this access wherever we go: taking a shower at home, gas stations bathrooms, public drinking fountains, sprinklers at a golf course, even an industrial dishwasher at a restaurant. These places just can’t function properly if their plumbing isn’t working like it should, and a school is no different.

Schools already serve the difficult function of corralling and teaching lots of children, so not being able to rely on toilets flushing or fire sprinklers working would be both a health and safety nightmare for any school.

Charlie’s Plumbing knows how important plumbing is to everyone, especially when they really need it. Here are a few reasons why your school might need the proper plumbing, and how Charlie’s Plumbing can make that happen.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Our constant access to functional plumbing is a modern convenience, but you might not consider that faulty plumbing could actually be a safety and/or a health concern. Which is even more disconcerting if those safety and health concerns occurred at the place where we send our kids for most of the day, five times a week.

With poorly maintained plumbing, a fire sprinkler system that might fail to funnel water to the sprinklers could lead to horrible consequences if there were a fire. Certain pressure differentials in piping could lead to a backflow of nasty chemicals or bacteria back through the pipes, contaminating clean drinking water. Eroded pipes and seals can lead to gas line leaks which, if undetected, could lead to carbon monoxide poisoning and death, or even an explosion. A burst pipe could also be leaking out toxic building chemicals or creating an electrical shock situation that could be real dangerous.

While these might not seem like very likely occurrences, no one ever expects them to be, and you should never gamble with a child’s safety by allowing improper plumbing practice at their school. Charlie’s Plumbing is proud to use smart and safe commercial plumbing practices, and has plenty of experience handling big, small, or emergency services at a variety of different education institutions in and around Houston.

KEEPING EDUCATION STANDARDS

A broken drinking fountain is nowhere near as critical of a plumbing issue as a gas leak or piping backflow might be, but non-emergency plumbing issues are still something that should be avoided at all costs at your school. As we mentioned before, improper plumbing makes it harder for a place or institution to function properly, and you do not want a school that can’t properly take of children and teach them.

Some clogged toilets in the boys bathroom might disrupt valuable class time by limiting where a child can go to the bathroom or how long they will take to find a working one. A burst faucet head might lead to dirty water puddles, wet clothes and sneakers, and some angry calls from parents. A low-pressure drinking fountain will lead to more kids putting their mouths on the spout, which could lead to a spread of infection and missed school days.

While these issues are probably not matters of life or death like other plumbing emergencies might be, it goes to show that a school with dysfunctional plumbing might become a dysfunctional school.

This is why your schools need to use commercial plumbers that they can trust. Charlie’s Plumbing has a consistent history providing excellent commercial plumbing services to schools in and around the Houston area. We want to keep your schools running smoothly, and allow the teaching and education to be on your mind, not possible plumbing issues or improper plumbing practices.

CHARLIE’S PLUMBING AND YOUR SCHOOL

Charlie’s Plumbing has been providing commercial plumbing services to the Houston area since 1979. All that history has given folks a lot of faith in our services, because we have provided quality commercial plumbing so consistently, for so long. And when you are determining the right plumbing services for your school district, daycare center, or university, you simply need the reliable best, and nothing less. Charlie’s Plumbing can provide that, as we have been for the past 40 years to the greater Houston area. Call Charlie’s and see what commercial plumbing services we can provide to your educational institution.

Plumbing is a complex field that covers a range of utilities and services we use in our everyday life. It takes a licensed professional to be able to determine and fix any possible plumbing issues, but there are a few “facts” and practices that have circulated long enough to gain traction, even though they aren’t accurate or helpful. Here are a few common commercial plumbing myths and the truth behind them!

Charlie’s Plumbing is proud to have both knowledgeable and experienced commercial plumbers, and we want to make sure that any work done by any commercial plumber for any place is properly done. Call us today and see why we have been the go-to commercial plumbing company in Houston for 40 years.

MYTH #1: IF WATER IS DRAINING, THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH YOUR PLUMBING

This common myth is a dream for the optimists out there. But unfortunately, the effects of plumbing issues don’t always happen immediately, or at least might not present themselves so clearly. A drain that takes longer to drain than usual, but still drains all the way might be showing early signs of a clog or another major plumbing problem. If your water is starting to taste a little metallic or odd, but still looks clear and runs well, there might be some chemicals leaking into your water. Don’t let minor plumbing problems turn into major ones; call Charlie’s Plumbing today.

MYTH #2: YOU SHOULD FLUSH YOUR FISH DOWN THE TOILET

A common burial for dead (or assumed dead) fish is to be flushed down your home toilet, out of sight, out of mind. Unfortunately, this is actually a bad practice and can be potentially harmful to the environment, as well as cruel to the fish. The fish are usually alive more often than not, and have to swim through toxic materials which generally kill them pretty slowly. Living and dead fish can carry diseases that can potentially spread to native fish populations. Put your poor guppy in a plastic bag and you can safely dispose of them in the trash, or if that is too barbaric, you can put the bag in a box and bury it in your yard.

MYTH #3: YOU CAN PUT ANYTHING DOWN YOUR GARBAGE DISPOSAL AS LONG AS THE WATER IS ON

Other than constantly making you think that you will get your finger chopped off, the sturdy and whirring blades of your garbage disposal are very adept at crushing and mulching food waste for disposal. But they aren’t invincible and neither are your drain pipes. Bones can dull the blades, and even if they make it through, they won’t make it past your drain. Celery, banana peels, and potato peels can become stringy and wrap around the blades, which could break the motor. If your garbage disposal has trouble mulching things, or if you have already put one of these items in your garbage disposal, give Charlie’s Plumbing a call and see what we can do.

MYTH #4: IT’S SAFE TO TAKE A SHOWER DURING A THUNDERSTORM

While you usually feel pretty safe in your house during a thunderstorm, a running shower might actually be somewhat risky. The absurdly powerful electric current produced by lightning strikes can actually travel through the conductive metal pipes and into your shower water or standing water in your bath, shocking you. Even if you have plastic pipes, water is also an excellent conductor and the electric current can still travel through the water currently in your pipes. Avoid other water sources in your house during a lightning storm, including sinks, dishwashers, or washing machines. You should also avoid things that conduct electricity in your home, like anything plugged into an outlet.

MYTH #5: COMMERCIAL DRAIN CLEANER IS SAFE TO USE ON A CLOG

When you get a clog in your sink, it is very tempting to get some powerful commercial drain cleaner and pour it down on the clog until it is eaten away. However, those same nasty cleaning chemicals that might clear out the clog can actually eat away your pipes and erode them entirely. They are also terrible for the environment if their path down the drain takes them to a water treatment plant or watershed area. If your drain has a clog, as enticing as it might sound to try to fix it yourself with drain cleaner, give Charlie’s Plumbing commercial services a call before and see how we can help.

CONTACT CHARLIE’S PLUMBING

Hopefully, you learned something new, or a little bit more of what to do to keep your plumbing running right. Charlie’s Plumbing is a proud commercial plumbing service provider for the Houston area for 40 years now. Our talented team of HVAC and plumbing specialists provide school plumbing, government plumbing, local plumbing, and hospitality plumbing services whenever they are required. Give us a call today, and see how Charlie’s Plumbing can best serve you.