MULTIPLE WINERIES USE PP-R FOR DOMESTIC HOT AND COLD WATER, NITROGEN GAS AND COMPRESSED AIR

Products used: green PP-R pipe and medium-thick blue PP-R pipe

Young Inglewood Vineyard and other Napa wineries including Bogle Vineyards, Kelham Winery, Gamble Estate and Larkmead Winery, required a highly reliable piping system that could be seamlessly integrated into their plumbing and mechanical systems. PP-R pipe was their choice.

Young Inglewood Vineyards uses green PP-R pipe for interior hot and cold water, nitrogen gas, and compressed air. Bogle Vineyard conveys 25°F glycol at 60 psi from chillers to the fermentation vats through blue PP-R pipe insulated for energy efficiency and UV protection—and reports the system has been operating flawlessly.

Designer Tony Costa, P.E., LEED AP, of Costa Engineering, Napa, Calif., explains that PP-R was introduced as a sustainable piping option that would perform better than conventional piping. Also, that it eliminated corrosion concerns. “The entire Napa Valley is full of silica. If you use regular water treatment, it would glaze the inside of the pipe walls.”

Mike MacBriar, with Pacific Coast Plumbing, Napa, Calif., which handles PP-R installations, reports that PP-R has replaced copper piping. The primary reason? “Due to the changing copper pricing these days, PP-R, with its steady cost, is our choice.”

Certified for food grade applications, green PP-R pipe was specified for high-temperature applications such as equipment cleaning in the wineries. “The pipes have less thermal loss, therefore liquids retain their temperature better,” says Mark Simon, manager at Young Inglewood Vineyards. “One of the reasons we chose PP-R was that, in the event of an earthquake, with fused connections rather than threaded, we would less likely have leaks.”

RETIREMENT CENTER SELECTS PP-R FOR ITS DOMESTIC HOT AND COLD WATER

Product used: green PP-R pipe

Friendship Haven Retirement Center in Fort Dodge, Iowa, wanted a domestic water delivery system that would end problems with pinhole leaks. Mel Smith, vice president of Campus Support Services, was introduced to PP-R pipe via a value engineering process by the center’s mechanical contractor, Midstate Plumbing & Heating Inc. and plumbing wholesaler/distributor Ferguson Enterprises. Smith was impressed with the natural insulation quality and rigid construction of PP-R pipe. “I’m kind of picky and I like things organized. PP-R is very organized and I don’t like how PEX runs like a garden hose,” Smith says.

Friendship Haven selected green PP-R pipe for longevity, quality and the ability to endure hard water, which erodes copper pipe—an issue in the area.

On Midstate’s first project using PP-R, installation had not gone so smoothly. “I almost sent it all back and went with copper,” recalls Midstate’s Mike Omann, as his team struggled to get the heat fusion irons into tight spaces. “I had some plumbers that all they did their entire career was install copper, and they were going to have nothing to do with installing plastic water pipe. But we worked through the issues and found that prefabbing as much as possible made installation much easier and we trained some of our apprentices and first-year journeyman and they seem to have no problems working with PP-R. We had thousands of welds on the project, and after our tests we had only a few leaks—if we would have used copper there would have been a whole lot more than that. The product material-wise is about the same we pay as copper. And it actually goes in nice.”

Since the installers were factory-certified, the manufacturer provided a 10-year multimillion-dollar warranty that covers not only material replacement but also property damage, personal injury and loss of use of the facility.