 Thank you for joining us today for another edition of Condo Insider that's put on by White Council of Community Associations. And today we're going to do part two with Sage Water. I'm kind of really excited to listen to hear what they have to say and to learn on the presentation because kind of interesting about replacing water pipes while the building is still being occupied and used is really kind of unique that they're able to have their little niche here in the holy market and not across the mainland that's their niche. And that's the only thing that they do. So without any further I'm going to turn it over to Jennifer Gara to start us off. Aloha. So today we're here to do actually a shortened version of an educational piece that we do for a lot of different buildings here in Hawaii. It's called How Do You Know It's Time to Repipe. And what we'll be talking about today is different things to help you identify and track different piping system issues. And a little bit about us if you want to change the screen, Chris. I am Jennifer Gara. I am the regional account executive for the Hawaii Division. You can see a little bit of information here about me. With me today is the vice president of operations, Miguel Rentus. Aloha. How's everybody doing? My name is Miguel Rentus. I've been here in Hawaii a little over 13 years now. Open up the office back in 2009, former U.S. Army Sergeant and licensed plumber here in the state of Hawaii. As Jennifer and Redding both said, we have a unique niche. What we do is multifamily occupied and repiped. That sounds a little intimidating when you hear it the first time and also kind of hard to believe when someone tells you you don't have to move out. We're going to change all your plumbing out and you can live throughout the entire process. A lot of people are like, that's not possible. I can't live through a renovation, let alone a repipe. How's that possible? So we're going to talk about that a little bit and I'll let Jennifer go into it. But we've got a couple of slides that we'd like to show and explain when you know your building is ready for a repipe prior to actually hiring a company like ours. All right. Can we go to the page? We revolutionized page three. So this is just a little bit about what both Raylene and Miguel were talking about. We are a turnkey pipe replacement company. It is very small niche. The three things that we promise our clients is that it's one contract, one point of accountability for all of the trades. All the trades are under sage water. We do end to end service from pipe to paint. We even have cleaners on our careers. And the third thing that we promise our clients is that every night when they come home, they will have a working commode, a working sink and a place to bathe, even if they're in the middle of a project with us. And next, let's look at page four. Here's a go for it, Miguel. So here's just a couple of projects that we've done so that way you can understand that it is possible. And we're not talking about just one or two that we've done here in Hawaii. We've done well over 35 of them. We couldn't list them all here. We do have a website, sagewaterhawaii.com. If you go to that website, you'll see a list of all the jobs that we've done. One to know that it's time for your building to get the pipes changed out. That's what's going to be key for you as a building manager and for you as a board as well. So if we can go to the next slide, we'll touch on some of those. So the first 10 years of regular building, you're not really too worried about the plumbing. First 10 years, you're more focused on construction defects that you have any identifying what's really going on with your building and familiarizing yourself with your building, not just as a building manager, but as a board. So we like to break it down into three phases. So the first 10 years is phase one, you're familiarizing yourself and making yourself aware and keeping track of any and all things that are going on. Phase two is going to be the 20 or 30-year mark. At this time, your building's 20 years old. You start thinking of reserves and increasing those reserves because it's just around the corner. 40 years comes pretty quick after 20. Unfortunately, I can tell you from experience. I was 20 last week, it felt like, and now I'm 40-something years old. So once you're in that 20-year mark, it's time for you to start really focusing and nailing down what's going on with your building. What's causing the leaks? Are they just from user error? A homeowner left the faucet running? The shower was going on? Or they didn't do any maintenance to their toilet. They left the toilet just run over and over and over again. So that's you want to make sure you can identify what it is that's causing all of your leaks and your potential problems. And part of that is Jennifer's got a great leak log system that will save you what it's come up with that you can get from us and helps you identify and write down and keep track of all of your leaks and what the causes were so you can start preparing and realizing what you need to put money in the reserves for. So there's a couple of systems that most buildings have and in this next slide we'll talk more about that. So your typical building has four major systems that supply water. Okay, you have your regular supply piping, that's the water that you drink every day, and that's the water that you bathe with and you brush your teeth with. You've got your hydronic piping, which is some buildings have what they call central air and they cool those systems. And so you have chiller lines that run throughout the building that have a tendency of leaking as well. Then you got your DWB, your drain waste event that takes all the wastewater out and all the bathwater out of your building that has a potential of leaking. And then you have your sprinkler system, which in the event of a fire it helps suppress the fire so that way help can come along. So those are your four major water supply component systems for your building and any one of those four systems can leak at any time. What we would like you to do as a board, as a building manager is to make it easier for yourself and to know what needs to be changed out is to keep track of these items with a leak log or just making sure you identify them accurately when you let your insurance company know should you have to file a claim or anything of that nature. Your typical life expectancy for most of these systems is on the next slide. So domestic water can last you anywhere from 30 to 50 years. When I say again domestic water I'm talking about the supply of water. So this feeds all your faucets, your washer dryer. It feeds your bathtub as well. So that's usually starting copper in some buildings as pecs. The average life expectancy of this though is still 30 to 50 years. Then you've got your drain waste and vent. Average life expectancy per drain waste and vent here on the island is proven to be about 40 to 50 years. At that point you need to start considering an alternative to change it out and getting it fixed and repaired immediately. Your next system is hydronic heating and cooling. That lasts typically anywhere from 30 to 50 years. And then lastly is your fire suppression system for most buildings. And that would typically last for the last 30 to 50 years. Jen, you can jump on the next slide. Okay. So the next slide, a couple other indicators that you will want to be aware of, signs that you've waited too long. I think we've all heard the horror stories. You have a pipe failure in a building, it takes out seven, 10, 11 units, right? It's a pretty good sign. Another one, your insurance deductible. And we see this all the time, people with deductibles not per event, but per unit of $25,000, $35,000, even $40,000 per unit. Frequent shutdowns to perform repairs if you have first onsite or one of the other remediation companies in front of your building on a regular basis. That's the sign. And when your board meetings seem to revolve around leaks, more leaks, how to pay for them, another great sign. And you will also in this day and age, most of us have social media. And you will see owners and renters venting on social media about your building. And all of these things will affect equity, which is an important thing to realize. So some of the risks of waiting too long are, and we have seen this, boards getting sued, being held legally responsible, even though board members individually usually aren't. We have seen suits against buildings because they've failed to take action for a number of years. And the other part is, is the longer your wait, the more expensive it's going to be. This is also a great picture here. If you look, it's a vent pipe. So we're talking about the drain waste and vent. This is a snap vent pipe in a high rise building. And it's also an indicator that most people don't know about. If you're having a lot of funny, like kind of disgusting smells in your building, it often could be due to a cracked vent pipe. They don't actually carry fluids in them, but the odors will come through those and people will smell those in their walls. Often that is an indicator of issues with the drain waste and vent. Can we go to the next slide? And so here's just a little bit about the drain waste and vent. We didn't really have time in this session to go over everything, but commonly is the big picture on the right was a 10 inch drain pipe. We actually took this picture in one of the buildings that we did recently. This muck in the pipe and see how thick it is. It's literally, you know, being pulled out in sheets. This is preventing the pipe from doing what it needs to do, blow these items out of your building. And this is, you know, the result of lack of maintenance over the years. This is a 10 inch pipe in there. It's a lot of stuff in there to impact something that large. We do occasionally see copper. It is much less common. We do occasionally see it in drain waste and vent systems here in the islands. And then the galvanized steel. We do see quite a bit of that actually kind of in a hybrid. See it in the vent systems. And you can see the picture in the middle here, the cracked vent. That's what it looks like when you get large cracks in your vent. And that's where those funny smells in your building will come from. So just to elaborate a little bit more on these materials. So unfortunately, the biggest question a lot of buildings have is, well, if you're going to take out the cast iron, what are you going to use back there? And it's, everyone wants to use PVC. They figure plastics will last forever. It's not biodegradable typically, and it doesn't go well in the landfills and everything else. So if it doesn't work there, then it should work great with my waste pipe, right? Because it's going to just last forever and ever and ever. Unfortunately, that's not an accurate statement. And it's actually not capable to be used in every single situation. PVC doesn't have a fire rating. So in a lot of high rise buildings, you have to take into account the fire rating of the system that you're going to install. On top of that, if you have a building that has what's called plenums, where they're, again, just big holes in the middle of the building, the lack of a fire rating doesn't allow you by code to install the PVC in there. As Jen said, so the cast iron is usually the go to for these systems. And one of the things that most companies now that do what we do, they install cleanouts so that way you can actually maintain. So a lot of the deteriorating plumbing that's going on is because of lack of maintenance. So when you're in a building and you're like, well, when was the last time we actually snaked our lines? Probably never. And some of the old slides in the pictures, you can see where like the 10 inch line that they tried to snake that one. There's actually a snake caught in that line that the plumber lost it in the line, just decided to cut it out and leave it in the line that we found when we were changing out the plumbing. But maintenance is really difficult to do when you don't have cleanouts because there's not a lot of access points to get to the plumbing. So what do we do when we do a pipe replacement? We install cleanouts so you can maintain your building and extend the life of your building. So that way, hopefully that 40 to 50 year mark that we set for cast iron has actually been extended to hopefully 60 to 70 or possibly 80. The manufacturers of cast iron say that their pipe is made to last for 100 years. Well, we would all love to see the pipe last 100 years. What they don't take into account is the lack of maintenance and everything else to help deteriorate. So part of our talks with the boards and with the building managers when we're setting up these programs is making sure that we install these cleanouts for them. Of course, they need to choose it. We recommend it. And then if they choose to install them, some people decide not to. I don't know why I can't answer that question. If you want to ask me, I won't have an answer for you. What I can tell you is that it does become humbug for some of these buildings. And the reason why is because a cleanout is not aesthetically pleasing. It's usually either a disc that's on the wall or it's an access panel. And so people like, you know, I own a million dollar home. I don't want to see an access panel or a disc on my wall. Who cares about the plumbing? That's somebody else's problem, not mine. So that's where you run into a lot of times with the buildings and stuff like that. But you know, the main thing that people need to understand when you're dealing with these issues is really identifying which system it is that is failing. Is it really the DWB that's failing? Is it the supply that's failing? Is it the hydronic lines that might be failing? Some people don't realize that a hydronic line where they have AC lines, it could actually be leaking just from its sweating so much because the installation has failed on it. And not that it actually has a pinhole leak or anything. Just the condensation from an alone will actually look like it's a running faucet. So identifying these issues allows you to make sure that you are preparing for it properly and you're putting the right money in the reserves and making sure you're also picking the correct company to replace the correct system when you put it out to bid, et cetera. And Chris, if you could put up our last slide. This is some information if you'd like to contact us. This is a shortened version of different educational presentations that we do offer. We do have one about leak logs. We do have one about condo timelines, helping you through different parts of critical infrastructure work here. With that, really, Neil, questions? Well, yeah, you talked about drain cleanouts. So how often should boards really do their cleanouts twice a year, once a year? So that's a great question. And the problem is it's not an easy answer and the reason why I say that is because you know as I do a lot of these homes are third and fourth homes for some people. So with that being said, what we recommend to buildings and build property managers and building managers is how many people, what's your occupancy? Is it 20% occupancy, 30% occupancy, 60% occupancy? Take that into account that your first step would be what is the age of your plumbing. If your plumbing, if your building is two years old, then you probably don't need to drain clean it. I would say maybe camera it to see what the condition is, how much use it actually has. If your building is 30 years old and you can't find any record of it ever being clean, then I would try to get it clean immediately. The problem is is that sometimes when you wait that long, cleaning can actually cause more problems than anything because now you start breaking down all that gunk and all that gunk will actually probably take some of the plumbing with it and then you start ending up with holes. But what we tell people after we install a new system is you should routinely clean your system out and inspect your system once a year, clean your system out at least every two years. That's what we recommend. And not snaking, the misconception is I'm just going to run a snake down there. Snaking is not always the answer. Snaking is what most people do once you already have a problem to break all the gunk up and get it down the drain. It's called hydro jetting. So what you want to do is basically take a high pressurized hose and wash and clean the inside of the pipes out so that way it pushes everything down without causing any damage to the pipes itself. So as the building ages and of course as they start seeing some blockages coming about, that's also the big red flag that, especially blockages, that's a big red flag that needs immediate attention and the time to get someone proper plumber that has a camera, especially since it may just make sure not to snake it, but to really dig down into the camera to see what other issues are going on with those pipes. 100%. It's important to investigate as much as possible to see what's really going on. And it's funny because you're saying that a blockage is a red flag, it's red alert. We've actually installed brand new plumbing and had blockages almost immediately because people are like, well, there's brand new pipes when they start throwing diapers down there. I'm like, it's a brand new pipe. It's not a brand new incinerator. That's not how it looks. But yes, you're 100% correct. As soon as you have blockages, you should hire the proper company to come out. And most of the good companies on the island that do snaking also do camera in so they can actually give you that video report and let you know what your plumbing looks like on the inside. And we can help with some of that as well. I think the board should also start being a little proactive with, you know, maybe attach a little snippet like I had one that what you don't throw down the toilet, you know, even though they say they're flushable, I said, no, not necessary. They're not always, you know. So I usually make that my role is like wipes. No, they don't go down the toilet, you know, you know, I have a list that I kind of post in my rentals. And, you know, it's funny, the other thing is you want to, you want to identify your drainage system, you know, do you actually drain into the city sewer lines? Or do you have a cesspool or do you have a septic or anything like that? Because those are other things that people don't realize. So maybe your plumbing is just great and just fine. But what do you what chemicals are you throwing down your drain? So, you know, people go to Home Depot and they buy the drain or they get the work acid and they pour down the unclog the hair. Well, they don't realize that that stuff is plumber's nightmare. We actually hate that stuff because it actually deteriorates the plumbing. It shortens the life of pipe to include cast iron dramatically. And it's not the actual liquid itself. It's the gases that it produces that actually turn into bacteria that start eating and corroding the vent side of the pipe and going down into the sanitary pipe. So, you know, that's a great thing. And we tell buildings that as well, look, you should post on your website or in your bulletin board. Please do not flush. And then a list of all these items, you know, everyone thinks, oh, I have a garbage disposal. I can put anything down there. Pickin' bones, rice. I got it. No worries. That's not the case. It's not, it's not again, it's not an incinerator. It's not going to take everything out of the building. It'll actually cause more problems. So that that's, that's, you know, the first step is to educate yourself on what you're building is actually having issues with. Is it just the waste? Some, some buildings in computer supply, you know, they're getting a lot of leaks on the supply and, and maybe it's because the anchor stops starting to leak or the supply lines are starting to leak or they haven't been changed out in forever. So, you know, people are hiring a plumber to come out and he tweaks it one way and it's never been moved that way. And so now all of a sudden it's cracked and he doesn't notice that he leaves and that next thing you know, it starts leaking. So this leak lock that we have that we've created that we hand out to buildings is a great tool so you can document and form yourself and form the board and anyone that has questions because miscommunication is just as bad as anything else. Right. Last thing you want to do is have people saying, we need to change out our waste pipes, waste pipes, waste pipes, and all along those supply that was a problem the entire time. Or it was the kids that were up on the pool deck the entire time that kept on, you know, strong water over the side that actually that's where all the leaks were coming from. It wasn't even the plumbing itself. So we've got some stories for you. Well, have you guys ever, well, just as a reminder to all the condom boards that under I think 514, I think it's 138 where it's a high-risk component where there are some condos that actually once a year will go in and do a high-risk component. They will check all the angle valves, the supply lines. I know a lot of them now are recommending that on the hot water heater there's a shutoff, you know, and they check the p-traps all that kind of stuff and they have attached with it a priceless from some of the plumbers of what it would cost to do the repair. But that's always been a really useful thing. I remember one time I was like, I looked, I touched underneath the p-track and I went, oh my god, there's a hole. It took my finger to make the hole. That's how good it was, you know, but it's just stuff that you don't even realize, you know. Yeah, you bring up great points and high-risk components, you know, a lot of insurance companies now or they will actually they incentivize you as a building if you do your high-risk component inspections that they will lower some of your cost and premium and so on depending on how frequently you do it. But yeah, it's one of the things you should always check and to add to that list of high-risk components, why not schedule maintenance for the plumbing as well, you know, at minimum running camera just to see where you're at and if you even need to do it and if you're good now, well then check it again in six months. The cost of doing the inspections is minimal compared to cost the damages will happen later on if you're not doing it, you know. Vented maintenance is always cute. Just like you don't wait till your vehicle runs out of oil and overheats before you get the oil changed. No, you do it every 3,000 miles. Well, same thing with the building. That's a 3,000 miles, I'm just kidding. It got a little further now. My truck says 7,500 miles. Sometimes I tell some people I said put a small bucket underneath your a p-trap in your sink because, you know, and just check it every once if it's wet then you have a problem, right? So I tell my go, at least you're not ruining the bottom part of your cabinet and then, you know, push a brand new cabinet and it gets more because all that water damage, you know, and I could just ruin something brand new and so I always try to put a bucket underneath a small bucket to catch the water in case at least you have some protection there. Yeah, you know, it's funny, my grandmother used to buy, you know, those big sheet pads that they use for baking and she would get those and she would keep it underneath there because it's only about an inch thick so you can still use it and it would protect the bottom but it would catch whatever's in there and then she would just line it with paper towels, keep all her stuff in there and if the paper towels got wet she knew something was going on and of course, me home, I need you to come fix it now. But you know, whether best makes a lighter underneath the cabinet, kitchen bath cabinet. Yeah, I mean, there's so many tricks to the trade, you two have got a bunch of tricks to the trade. So again, knowledge is key and knowledge is power, right? So the more you can do to prevent it and prepare for it the better it is. And one of the things that we do is help educate people as much as possible so that way you're not spending unnecessary dollars or something you don't need. Okay, great. So we're nearing our time. So I really want to thank Miguel and Jen. And it's so funny because Jen realized that we have a connection from the past through this whole process, but which is great to connect. So I want to thank you both. This is really, this is great, this is really educational. I'm going to be sending out a email blast. And Jen, if you could remember, I don't know if you sent me that, that week thing that you guys talked about the chart, the leak load. Yeah, the leak log. You want me to send you one so you can send it? Yeah, I can attach it with my if you don't mind, I can attach it with our no blast. Okay, that'd be awesome. Yeah. And then so we hope that this is going to be a very good educational experience for a lot of boards. I know some of them are teetering between this concrete placement, either they line it, you know, and I've heard some conversation about the lining. I'm not sure if I'm totally sold on it yet, but you know, but at least our white community of condos have some known alternatives now that and it's proven alternatives that has worked and has, along the way, you know, we've got down like 35 projects and we probably saved them millions and millions and millions of dollars. And one added feature that I want to remind everybody is there, I want to say almost full service because when they come in and start breaking down walls and they also have the person on their staff to replace that wall, right? Yeah, do the cleanup of the mess. So they're not like, oh, we're waiting for the other guy to come and finish this part of the job. It's not like that. It's all very controlled. So you're going to get a complete start and finish, you know, and not like, oh, we gotta wait for the other guy to come out. Why don't we put the tile guy to come back? No. So I really think that that's been added over that night top notch feature to those services. So thank you again. Have a great weekend and look forward to talking to you guys again soon. Thank you, Rayleigh. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys.