Problem

After working in the plumbing industry for over 22-years, licensed plumber Travis Abaire has been the proud owner and operator of TAP Plumbing & Heating in Bristol, Connecticut, for the past three years. Handling both residential and commercial projects, Abaire provides plumbing services to clients in Bristol and several surrounding cities, such as Waterbury, Burlington, and Plainville. As a plumber who actively promotes high-efficiency, condensing water heaters, boilers, and furnaces, TAP Plumbing & Heating understands the importance of treating discharge coming from this type of equipment with some sort of neutralization.

If this runoff is disposed of through a home’s or a building’s plumbing system, the piping could corrode, rust over time, and cause serious damage to local sewers and water treatment facilities. Pumping the waste outdoors or into sanitary sewers could contaminate the groundwater or degrade the local water infrastructure. Condensing technology saves energy by maximizing the amount of heat energy transferred to the water during the combustion process. A byproduct of this process is water or condensate, which tends to be acidic because of the chemical reaction caused by the heat of the gas burner.  

According to Abaire, plumbing codes in his service area require neutralization for corrosive waste. That’s why he didn’t give it a second thought when he installed a neutralization pump in a recent water heater replacement project. 

Abaire says the original, undersized, standard water heater could not keep up with the family’s water demand. The homeowners finally had enough, realizing their hybrid water heater wasn’t going to cut it. Opting for instant hot water and higher efficiency, they decided to purchase an on-demand tankless water heater with a 97% efficiency rating.

Abaire agrees that the higher the efficiency rating, the higher the acid level in the water runoff, placing increased importance on finding an effective, affordable way to neutralize the condensate and protect condensing water heater systems. 

Luckily, TAP Plumbing & Heating had previously sourced a solution that eliminates the danger of destroyed pipelines from condensing heating and water heating equipment.

Solution

Having completed numerous successful installations with its reliable above-floor plumbing solutions, Abaire subsequently learned about Saniflo’s condensate pumps.

According to Abaire, Saniflo’s condensate pump technology offers something most acid-neutralizers on the market don’t: the ability to not only neutralize acidic condensate, but also pump it away, using a single pumping product. 

“With Saniflo’s condensate pumps, you kill two birds with one stone, because you don’t have to install a typical acid neutralizer and then dump it into another condensate pump,” he explains. “Saniflo’s condensate pumps do it at the same time, not to mention the fact that the new Sanicondens Best Flat can handle a wide range of condensing units up to 500,000 Btu per hour, which is pretty incredible.” 

Abaire adds that he doesn’t like how, in some acid neutralizers, the neutralizer comes in a small cartridge that’s probably about the size of a C battery. “There is just a little bit of acid-neutralizing media, so it wears out pretty quickly,” he explains. 

The new Sanicondens Best Flat combines a condensate pump with a pH-neutralizing pellet tray into a single, space-saving, environmentally friendly solution for ultra-high-efficiency condensing equipment, both residential and commercial: boilers, water heaters, air-conditioning and refrigeration systems, and other appliances.

The built-in neutralizer boosts the pH of the acidic condensate before it can be discharged into a drainline — thus preventing corrosion. Its streamlined design incorporates two 1-inch inlets: one on the side and the other on the top near the neutralizer tray. The unit can discharge condensate 15 feet vertically and 150 feet horizontally – or a lesser combination of these two distances. (A vertical run of 3 feet is equal to a horizontal run of 30 feet.) 

Abaire ran the condensing line from the tankless water heater to the pump to give the condensate a place to travel for this installation. He then connected it to a drainline to ensure it operates properly. The Sanicondens Best Flat pumps the neutralized condensate 10 feet before connecting to the drainline. The pump inside the Sanicondens Best Flat moves the condensate through a flexible vinyl hose (3/8 inch in diameter) to a PVC discharge pipe. In addition, the pumping unit can be floor or wall mounted and comes ready to install with connections to an external overflow, shut-off switch or alarm system. It also includes all necessary hardware for ease of installation: 20 feet of vinyl tubing, inlet adapter, discharge adapter and neutralizing granules.

The Sanicondens Best Flat’s built-in tank has a capacity of 0.9 gallons, maintaining longer contact between the condensate and the neutralizing pellets, allowing the unit to handle fixtures with higher BTU inputs.

Results

Installation of the on-demand tankless water heater took several hours, but the Sanicondens Best Flat required 15 minutes at most, according to Abaire. “The Sanicondens Best Flat saves a lot of time, which translates into cost savings,” he says. 

“It also makes servicing in the future a lot easier. When the time comes to replace the neutralizing media, it’s just as easy to do: Just open the tub compartment and dump a new medium in, and you’re done.” 

Abaire is confident that the Sanicondens Best Flat has ensured his customer’s plumbing system is protected. He adds that the homeowner is also very happy with the installation,and provided positive feedback on TAP Plumbing & Heating’s Instagram page, saying, “Loving all my hot water!! Thank you.” 

Abaire says he has installed more than four Sanicondens Best Flat units since the product’s introduction in March 2020 and will continue to incorporate it into all high-efficiency, on-demand tankless water heater and combi-boiler installations.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can always call the Saniflo technical hotline at 800-571-8191 to find out which of our products would work best. Or you can send an email to sfasales@saniflo.com with details on your installation.

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