Commercial Plumbing Wollongong

Plumbing for shops, offices, schools and food premises

The work shifts with the type of premises, so here's how it usually breaks down.

Shops and offices

Amenities that see constant use: toilets, urinals, taps, basins, staff kitchens and hot water. Small faults here are worth fixing early, before they turn into an out-of-order sign on the bathroom door.

Cafés and food premises

Kitchens send fats, oils and food scraps down the drain every day and draw far more hot water than a household. Drains, grease traps and hot water capacity are where problems start, and trade waste rules apply, as set out further down this page.

Schools and early childhood centres

Large toilet blocks, bubblers and hot water outlets used by children. In NSW, heated water at personal hygiene outlets in the parts of a school or early childhood centre used by children must not exceed 45°C, which means fitting a thermostatic mixing valve or a thermostatically controlled tap. For urgent call-outs, see emergency school plumbing.

Light industrial units and workshops

Industrial plumbing on a smaller scale: wash-down areas, amenities, gas lines and drainage that takes heavier use than an office. We'll look at what your site produces and where it drains before recommending anything.

Strata and shared buildings

Common-property plumbing in apartment blocks and mixed-use buildings, organised with the owners corporation or managing agent. Our strata plumbing page explains how those jobs are handled.

How do we keep downtime to a minimum?

For most businesses, the real cost of a plumbing fault is the disruption rather than the repair. When you call, we'll ask about your trading hours, which facilities you can't do without, and whether part of the building can keep running while we work.

• Booking non-urgent work for before opening or after close.
• Isolating one section of pipework instead of shutting off water to the whole site, where the layout allows it.
• Breaking larger jobs into stages, so a toilet block or kitchen isn't out of action all at once.
• A clear scope and quote before work starts, so you can plan around it.
• Sorting out keys, alarms, parking and any site induction at the time of booking.

Commercial plumbing maintenance schedules

Planned maintenance is how you avoid the call on a busy morning. A schedule sets out what gets checked and how often, based on how hard your plumbing works. Our preventative maintenance service and the commercial plumbing maintenance checklist cover it in more depth; a typical schedule includes:

• Drains and grease-affected lines, cleared before they block.
• Hot water units and the temperature control valves that serve them.
• Toilets, urinals, taps and cisterns in high-use amenities.
• Stormwater pits, gutters and downpipes, checked ahead of heavy rain.
• Backflow prevention devices that need an annual test.
• Gas appliances, serviced to the manufacturer's specifications.

Trade waste, grease traps and backflow

Sydney Water, which supplies the Illawarra, requires businesses to get formal approval before discharging commercial trade wastewater, unless the process is a low-risk 'deemed' one. Most commercial trade wastewater customers must also install and maintain grease traps or other pre-treatment equipment, and Sydney Water doesn't allow in-sink food waste disposal units on business premises.

A grease trap needs to be the right size for the business and installed by a licensed plumber, so build it into a kitchen fit-out plan early. Our guide to trade waste drainage explains more.

Backflow prevention stops used water on a property from flowing back into the drinking water supply. Property owners are responsible for having the right backflow device installed and maintained, and Sydney Water requires testable devices on medium and high hazard properties to be tested by an accredited backflow plumber when installed and every year after.