Specifiers in gyms, hotels, spas and other high-use washrooms often have to accommodate shallow build-ups, hydraulic performance, easy cleaning and a clean visual finish. A careful balance must be struck to meet sustainability, customisation and wellness requirements, and compromises often creep in.
Architects are weighing aesthetics against drainage performance in many commercial projects, while keeping ongoing maintenance and building regulations in mind. This means they’re juggling many competing factors and often finding that compromises have to be made, leaving a project finished but ultimately underwhelming. These challenges can run counter to clients’ goals of facilities that are both sustainable and bespoke, while also promoting wellness to their own customers.
COUNTERING COMPROMISES
When design concessions must be made, the consequences can include slow or easily blocked drains, unpleasant odours, and additional costs where work is needed to rectify issues that are particularly serious. These problems can hamper the goals of wellness and sustainability, leaving clients and their customers disappointed.
In many commercial applications washrooms can experience fluctuations in hydraulic pressure, which can increase the likelihood and frequency of problems such as backflow or siphonage. In many cases, especially within retrofit applications, there are challenges specific to the site, such as low floor build up and a need for awkward or complicated pipe routing. This, again, can lower the overall quality of the final result.
To overcome these challenges, specifiers can look for shower drains that accommodate these conditions and still deliver optimal performance. It can help to delineate the main priorities of a project to help with product selection.
For many schemes, these will likely include adaptability, especially in installations in which low floor build is a significant hurdle, or where access to pipework may prove difficult. Low profile solutions with easily adaptable outlet orientations can help avoid the need to alter trap depth or falls. Keeping installers in mind, a solution that includes rotating or horizontal gully assemblies, modular channel elements and height-adjustable frames enables drainage to be aligned to the current substrate and membrane without bespoke onsite fabrication.
HIGH PERFORMANCE IS HIGH PRIORITY
Another common priority is hydraulic capacity. In these cases, make sure that specifications include channel and gully systems with proven discharge performance and trap designs. Including optimised trap positioning and anticipating the needed channel capacity will reduce incidents of standing water and the problems that come with it.
A third priority in many projects is serviceability, so surfaces that are easy to disinfect are a desirable feature, especially in high-use facilities. Specifiers can support serviceability by selecting gullies and traps that are accessible for routine cleaning and don’t require specialist tools. The layouts of components, and the components themselves, should be designed in such a way as to minimise the accumulation of debris.
SHOWER POWER
Marrying the competing requirements of many washroom projects is not easy, but specifiers who have clear familiarity with the latest solutions will be able to make informed decisions and lean on manufacturers’ knowledge to offer the best designs possible.
To support specifiers working on projects that involve washroom drainage – be it a gym, hotel or residential bathroom – ACO Building Drainage has developed the new ShowerDrain range.
From the earliest stages of the new range’s inception, the challenges of adaptability, hydraulic capacity and serviceability have been kept front-of-mind, meaning the solutions are particularly suitable for matching these three priorities.
ACO’s new shower drainage range is designed to give specifiers greater flexibility across complex and space-constrained hotel and leisure environments. It includes modular systems and low build solutions for continuous runs or irregular layouts, alongside improved gully designs that deliver higher flow rates, easier cleaning and greater installation flexibility.
The new range caters for different floor types and budgets, with options for premium, adaptable or cost effective tiled installations. Flagship products such as the new Passino gully are quick solutions and easy to install. Overall, the portfolio helps specifiers and installers achieve the right balance between performance, easy cleaning and aesthetics without the usual trade offs. www.aco.co.uk