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PLUMBING CONNECTION
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“PPIG has helped facilitate the meetings by providing
funds for physical spaces to meet; however, we as the
manufacturers have all covered the travel costs required to
get us all in the same room.
Standards Australia picked up the project and dedicated
its own project manager to oversee proceedings; however,
all of the drawings and content came from the four
interested parties. The journey has spanned five years and
hasn’t come without challenges.
“I’m optimistic that the challenges we faced won’t be
as severe for those trying to achieve the same sort of
thing because we have pointed out a lot of holes that have
evolved with the transition of the WaterMark scheme and
the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) running the
Plumbing Code of Australia (PCA) and the likes.
“We came in with our project early on in that process and
faced a lot of challenges that Standards Australia and the
ABCB are now aware of. With that in mind, you would assume
that if suppliers came along today and made the same sort
of applications that we did, Standards and the ABCB would
make recommendations and suggestions earlier on in the
process,” Marc says.
Now that the Deemed-to-Satisfy solutions under the
PCA has been published for public comment, the market
for vacuum toilets is set to expand beyond the confines of
planes, boats and correctional facilities.
Suppliers expect there to be a higher degree of
commercial take up as specifiers acknowledge the benefits
that vacuum technology presents. Some of these benefits
include, but are not limited to, the following:
∫ Allows for cheaper building re-use as drainage can go up
and around obstructions that may make traditional 1:60
drainage difficult.
∫ Toilets use less water: between 800ml-2L for a full flush
∫ Less blockages in environments where deliberate misuse
of a drainage system is likely or common such as shopping
centres, sports arenas, and correctional centres.
∫ Centralised plant on large campus sites where there might
normally be many pumped wet wells.
∫ The ability to take drainage up and therefore contain
all the services of a single floor within its floor space
and negating the need to service one floors drainage in
another floors ceiling. This is particularly advantageous