Every restaurant needs an ice machine to prepare their cocktails and drinks. You would think these restaurants get inspected by the health department so you should feel safe right?…
WRONG!
In this blog Evolve Mechanical Solutions will show you a bar in downtown Vancouver where they have passed Health Department but not plumbing inspection. The reason why they didn’t pass inspection is because they never hired a licensed trade, and no permits were applied for, hence no plumbing inspection from the city.
Below are photographs of an ice machine on the outside (left) and inside (right)
Upon close up view we can see black mold growing all over the inside of the ice machine. If the ice gets in contact with this mold it may get the patrons sick.
In the following photos Evolve will demonstrate why the installation is very dangerous and may cause severe illness if not corrected.
Every ice machine has a drain that connects to the building sewer system in order to remove any extra water. Below the photo on the left show the ice machine under counter. It drains by gravity to the photo on the right and connects to the kitchen sink sewer piping (black piping).
In the photos below we show two possibilities
1. The photo on the left demonstrates the proper flow of the sewer system indicating the direction of flow with blue arrows. i.e. no clogs downstream of the kitchen sink, the ice machine flows by gravity: all is good.
2. The photo on the right demonstrates that if there are any clogs downstream by this or any other tenants in the building sewage may back-up into the kitchen sink but even worse: it will back up into the ice machine contaminating the ice in the direction of the blue arrows!
To make matters worse if this sewage back up occurs and then is fixed when the restaurant is not open, the staff may not notice the contaminate ice and serve it to its customers!
So how do we stop this from happening? The solution is rather simple: do not connect the ice machine directly to the sewer system. Do what is called an ‘indirect’ connection where there is an air gap between the ice machine drain and the building sewer piping.
Why an air gap? How does this solve all our issues?
Well if there is a sewer back up, the sewer waste will spill up and over, below the kitchen sink and not enter the ice machine
The below photo shows where the air gap should be installed.
Lastly a photo of a correct ice machine air installation where you see the white piping hanging above a funnel floor drain producing an air gap. The white piping is connected to the ice machine and drain water away. It terminates above the building sewer via a funnel floor drain thus providing the necessary air gap to ensure no sewage enters the ice machine.
Full discloser: in this particular case the mold is not likely related to any sewage backup and is likely a maintenance issue.
As always I encourage people to be a DIY. However always have a peer review from a professional trade or engineer to help insure your installation will not hurt anyone.
