Warehouse and Industrial Plumbing in Phoenix

The first question on a multi-tenant warehouse is how many water services feed it. Phoenix City Code 37-144 requires a reduced pressure (RP) assembly on retail and industrial shell buildings when one service supplies more than one tenant. Mesa goes a step further and names shell buildings outright, along with any commercial or industrial building where one service connection feeds multiple tenants.

The logic is simple. The landlord can't see what a new tenant bolts onto the water line, whether that's a chemical dispenser, a pressure washer or a process tank, so the city protects the main at the property line. Every Phoenix assembly is tested at least once a year by a certified tester, results go to the city, and the records stay for three years. A failed test means repair or replacement and a retest, and a repair has to be done by a certified repairer following ASSE Standard 5130.

Tenants with their own hazards may need more protection inside the suite. Phoenix lists a long run of industrial uses on their own, from chemical and plating plants to metal fabrication. Here's RPZ vs double check and the full Phoenix Chapter 37 rules.

A floor drain in a truck bay is a sewer connection for whatever leaks off a vehicle. The 2024 International Plumbing Code, one of the two plumbing codes Phoenix lets designers use (the UPC is the other), requires an oil separator at repair garages with floor or trench drains and at factories producing oily or flammable liquid wastes. Areas used only for parking or storage don't need one. Separators can be listed and labeled, or designed to the code. A designed separator where vehicles are serviced or washed holds at least 6 cubic feet for the first 100 square feet drained, plus 1 cubic foot per additional 100 square feet.

Phoenix City Code 28-12 lets the city require interceptors at any facility handling oily, flammable or solid-laden wastes, and 28-15 sets the pumping rule: before contents reach 25 percent of the liquid volume, and at least every 12 months. Gilbert is stricter on the floor itself. Vehicle and equipment service facilities can have floor drains only when they tie into a pretreatment system, and parts washers can't connect to the sewer at all.

One more IPC detail: Section 1003.2 says wastes that don't need separation shall not go into a separator. Restroom lines stay out of the oil separator. See the Phoenix interceptor rule for who needs one.

Section 411 of the 2024 IPC covers emergency showers and eyewash stations. They must conform to ISEA Z358.1. Where both hot and cold water feed a station, only an ASSE 1071 temperature-actuated mixing valve may control the temperature, and a water heater feeding a station directly must comply with ASSE 1085. The code doesn't require a waste connection, though a floor drain nearby often makes testing less messy.

Which areas need a station is a workplace safety question for your safety officer. Getting tempered water to it is plumbing. That's the part we do.

Most warehouses discharge restroom and break-room waste and never hear from a pretreatment program. Manufacturing is different. Phoenix wants construction drawings for industrial manufacturing or industrial servicing facilities reviewed by its Industrial Pretreatment Program before they go to the Planning and Development Department. Class A permits go to federally regulated categorical processes, users averaging 25,000 gallons per day of process wastewater, and effluent that could affect the treatment plants. Read the Phoenix industrial wastewater permit before a new tenant moves in.

East Valley cities ask everyone. Gilbert requires every nonresidential user to file a wastewater discharge questionnaire each year with the business license. Chandler requires one from all non-residential users before they discharge, and bases the type of Industrial User Permit on the activities at the site. Chandler also lets its building official issue an annual permit for alterations to a previously approved premise instead of a permit for each one; see Chandler's annual facility permit.

We jet floor and trench drains with hydro jetting, camera and repair sewer lines, service oil separators and interceptor piping, install water heaters and tempered water lines, run gas lines, and replace backflow assemblies. Planning a tenant change? We can map shutoffs and set up a planned commercial water shutoff. We're available 24/7, and estimates are free.