Blue Line recently ran gas lines for an office complex with warehouses in American Fork, Utah, running MegaPressG lines to each of the 22 units. There is also a two-inch water main in ProPress, about 1,000 feet long with tees and ball valves, providing water to each unit.
Using Viega products made it all possible.
“With the economy in Utah being one of the top in the country, and projects lined up, we were in a time constraint and needed to save four or five days on this installation,” explained Bryce Mannek, President of Blue Line. “We figure that using Viega saved us at least two weeks, being able to just cut the pipe and press.”
Mannek said one of his workers, Carl Rich, who did the installation in the complex, has been plumbing since the 1970s, so he was very accustomed to threading each individual joint. He said Rich was skeptical about using Viega, but after about an hour of cutting and pressing, Rich was sold on the system.
Similarly, Mannek was sold on Viega last fall. He met with Viega District Manager Marty Ellis, who showed him the press guns and advantages to Viega technology.
“Basically, I first thought, ‘Wow, this looks so easy,’” Mannek said. “Time is of the essence in Salt Lake City, and Marty had come out to do a demo. I borrowed a press gun from him and got the materials; and on a project in Herriman that
I thought was going to take about a week, we did it in two days. It saved us a ton of time.”
That was all it took for Mannek to jump on board with Viega. He’s purchased several press guns, and his crew (about 15 workers) has been trained by Ellis. Mannek said, “Everything we do is some sort of press.” No more soldering, brazing or threading for the Blue Line crews.
When Mannek came onto the office complex project in American Fork, he pushed for the use of MegaPressG and ProPress.
“I approached the owner and let him know that I had a way of saving him some time to get the project done quicker,” he said. “We did some research, showed him some other projects, and got the mechanical engineer involved. He approved [using Viega], and we went and installed it.”
He estimated that there’s about a mile of one-inch pipe in the building, the first of three similar buildings in the same complex.
Mannek said that besides saving time and money using Viega, one of his favorite things is the simple, clean look of the product.
“It looks very professional,” he said. “You can plumb it straight and square. Especially with the copper, you have a clean joint and you don’t have to worry about flux runoff or getting the pipe too hot and discoloring it.
“I had more than 500 joints on this project [in American Fork], and there has not been a single issue with any of them,” he said. “It’s so much faster and so much better.”
