Innovation delivers value and labor savingsBrian Dwyer is a third-generation plumber. His grandfather, James, founded Dwyer Plumbing in 1949 with a focus on residential plumbing. In 1979, Dwyer’s father bought the business and set about expanding it and adding excavating services. Brian bought the business in turn in 2008.

Dwyer Plumbing has made a name for itself in hotel and restaurant work. Because of its excavating capabilities, Dwyer is often brought in during the earliest stages of projects to clear sites and do earthwork.

“I get a lot of coordination done for the people coming in to town,” Dwyer said. “I’ll hook them up with good contractors I like working with.”

Dwyer came to the Hilton Garden Hotel job in Erie, PA, through a previous relationship with the building’s owners.

“We did a water park for them and a few other hotels,” Dwyer said. “We bid the Hilton Garden Hotel and by utilizing newer products we were able to save them a lot of money.”

Among those new products was an innovative hot water recirculation system from Viega. The inside-lying recirculation system used the supply riser to insulate the internal recirculation piping. A 3⁄8" ViegaPEX™ Ultra return line is inside the riser and is insulated by warm water.

Water stays hotter longer, reducing energy consumption, and remains in constant motion, reducing the risk of Legionella and other waterborne pathogens. But for Dwyer Plumbing, the real savings was in labor. First, the system comes packaged as a kit, ready to install. Second, it saved on fittings, pipe cores, penetrations and caulking—basically everything involved in installing a riser.

“It’s a five-story hotel,” Dwyer explained. “Each hole for each riser had to be fire rated, each had to have a hanger system on it. So right out of the gate, you eliminate one-third of that.”

And third, the system is installed using the Viega ProPress® mechanical pipe joining system. The Viega ProPress system can make a watertight connection in as little as five seconds. Dwyer has been an advocate of the Viega ProPress system since first using it on a hotel job in 1999. In the years since, there have been no callbacks on the piping he installed.

Dwyer Plumbing and Excavation cleared the site and did the earthwork, which included a storm water retention system.

“It was 500 feet long with five rows of five-foot pipes underneath the ground,” Dwyer said.

Over the course of about a year Dwyer’s team of technicians installed the mechanical systems for the 87,000-square-foot, 136-room hotel,

The whole entryway was snowmelted, the porte-cochere. We did an in-slab PEX system of nearly 1,000 square feet with a dedicated boiler.

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CUSTOMER: Hilton Garden Hotel

APPLICATION: Hot water recirculation system

LOCATION: Erie, PA

CONTRACTOR: Dwyer Plumbing

©2014 Viega LLC

including water heaters and boilers, pumps and controls, as well as all the faucets, fixtures and toilets.

The crew ran 17 risers in the building, 1⁄2" to 3" Viega ProPress fittings and transitioned at each of the six floors using 1⁄2" ViegaPEX Ultra tubing. Capitalizing on the best properties of copper and PEX, Dwyer Plumbing was able to move quickly, completing one room in only 10 minutes time.

Additionally, “The whole entryway was snowmelted, the porte-cochere,” Dwyer said. “We did an in-slab PEX system of nearly 1,000 square feet with a dedicated boiler.”

All the work went smoothly and construction was completed on schedule. After a few weeks of tweaking to balance the system, everything has been working just as designed.

“It seems to be working great,” Dwyer said. “They have no issues at all.”

For more information on Viega products, visit www.Viega.us, or call toll free: 800-976-9819.