Bathroom trailer manufacturer chooses Saniflo above-floor macerating and grinder solutions for Super Bowl LV

Ameri-Can Engineering builds custom, ADA-compliant restroom trailers for temporary, but heavy use by the general public with the help of Saniflo’s easy-to-install and reliable Sanicompact, Sanibest Pro, and Saniaccess 3.

TAMPA, FLORIDA — Ameri-Can Engineering, a portable restroom and shower manufacturer, has a reputation for building high-quality trailers for their customers. The trailers are made-to-order and built entirely from the ground up at the company’s headquarters in Argos, Indiana. Once the portable restroom arrives at a customer’s site, all that’s needed is to hook the plumbing up to the water supply, and it is ready for use.

For 33 years, the team at Ameri-Can Engineering has been providing portable restroom facilities for large-scale events, such as concerts, festivals, sporting events; as well as relief efforts, such as natural disasters and homelessness crises. One of their most recent projects was supplying wheelchair-accessible pods for Super Bowl LV in Tampa in February 2021.

In addition, many customer requests include ADA compliance and wheelchair accessibility for the portable restroom trailers. This automatically eliminates many traditional plumbing solutions. Waste tanks must be located under the trailer, and this requirement either leaves no room for a wheelchair ramp, or it requires a significantly long one to access the trailer.Because of the mass crowds that the trailers are customized to accommodate, the Ameri-Can technicians who install plumbing products at HQ need a reliable and durable plumbing solution that can keep up with the heavy commercial usage. For reference, the 2021 Super Bowl — despite the restrictive conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic — still hosted approximately 22,000 fans.

Solution

To meet the needs of the large number of people using the portable trailers in a short period, Ameri-Can chief operating officer Keegan Campbell chose above-floor plumbing technology several years ago. Working with other above-floor macerators, the company experienced less-than-satisfactory results. Then Campbell happened upon Saniflo.

“There was a bit of skepticism before using Saniflo, because we had tried other macerator companies and had experienced either failures or just poor customer service,” he says. But after switching to Saniflo roughly five years ago, a recommendation from their preferred plumbing product distributor, Mid-City Supply Co., Inc., Ameri-Can Engineering has not looked back.

According to Campbell, “Saniflo products are the best solution for heavy commercial usage because they eliminate chances of clogging and pump failures.” Ameri-Can’s go-to plumbing solutions are the Sanibest Pro and the Saniaccess 3, because of their ideal fit into the trailers. However, the company has also worked with the Sanishower drain pump, the Sanicompact one-piece toilet with a built-in macerator, and the Sanicubic 1 and 2 grinder systems for heavy-duty applications.

The Sanibest Pro is a heavy-duty grinder engineered to quickly dispose of larger objects that might well clog a conventional toilet, especially in a public setting. The wastewater is picked up at the bottom, and the pump impeller mounted beneath the one-horsepower motor ejects the waste upward 25 feet and/or horizontally 150 feet. The Sanibest Pro can discharge not only black-water drainage from a toilet, but also gray water from the trailer’s sinks, making the system even more convenient.

Another major benefit of working with Saniflo? The use of the Saniaccess 3 and the Sanicompact macerators, in particular, means the portable bathrooms meet ADA compliance and are wheelchair-accessible.

“Because of the Saniflo products, we can drop the back end of the trailers and have the system pump up to the waste tank,” says lead plumber Shane Hardison. “Discharging uphill allows us to position the trailer lower to the ground and install an ADA-compliant ramp.”

Like the Sanibest Pro, the Saniaccess 3 macerates toilet waste while simultaneously handling gray water from two other sanitary fixtures, such as a sink. The wastewater from other fixtures is discharged into the Saniaccess 3 via a pair of two-inch inlets with built-in check valves on either side of the unit.

In addition, the Sanicompact, a dual-flush toilet system used to create a half-bathroom, macerates toilet waste water as well while also discharging  gray water from a sink. The self-contained unit with a built-in macerator is ideal for small spaces, such as trailers.

When building the custom portable pods for the 2021 Super Bowl, the company selected the Sanicompact through Mid-City Supply, adding one unit per pod. The pods containing the Sanicompact included ground level ramps, with just two inches between the ground and the doorway. Both connected systems tied into waste tanks through one-inch flex discharge pipes.

Assembly of the pods took two weeks. Once the pods arrived on site, setup was less than 15 minutes. The external waste tanks were serviced by a pumper truck company that emptied the tank after use.

Results

The time it takes to build the trailers from start to finish, installing everything on-site, is decreased through the use of the Sanibest Pro and the Saniaccess 3, according to Hardison.

“They’re a cleaner install, so it takes less time for us to make the surroundings and trim around the unit look nice,” he explains. “The units we used for the trailers shipped to the Super Bowl certainly took less time than expected to install, but that’s always the case.”

Campbell adds: “Saniflo units really hold their own when faced with high-volume usage in a large public gathering. Besides combining this benefit with ADA compliance, the company also offers a broad range of reliable options for us to meet customer needs. The customer service and warranty support are also outstanding.”

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ABOUT SANIFLO
SFA SANIFLO U.S.A. – whose parent company originated macerating plumbing technology — offers a complete line of waste and drainage pumping systems for residential and commercial applications. Saniflo developed its innovative, “above-floor plumbing” technology more than a half-century ago and has led its commercialization worldwide. Today, the company markets macerating technology through 24 subsidiaries in 50 countries and has sold more than seven million units worldwide since 1958. Saniflo markets through independent sales agents throughout North America, and the product line is currently available at distributor and dealer locations throughout the United States and Canada.

For more information, contact Saniflo at 1-800-571-8191. Or visit the Saniflo website at saniflo.com.

For editorial assistance, including photography, contact John O’Reilly c/o GreenHouse Digital + PR: 815-469-9100 or [email protected].

Super-Bowl Case Study