Humanitarian organization Showering Love updates modular office to include half-bathroom for its employees

Saniflo’s Sanibest Pro grinder pump overcomes gravity challenge in staff washroom.

Problem

DAVIE, FLORIDA — Showering Love is a non-profit organization that provides mobile showers and other supportive services to Florida’s homeless community. The organization does this in collaboration with partners and volunteers to encourage a healthy lifestyle, foster community and inspire the desire for self-sufficiency.

Since 2016, Saniflo has supported Showering Love’s efforts to help provide the homeless community with access to personal hygiene. Saniflo’s previous product donations have helped convert two buses to self-contained mobile shower platforms equipped with private showers, restrooms, and a laundry facility. Read more about the Showering Love buses and their impact on the Florida homeless community here.

Critical to Showering Love’s success are its employees that serve behind the scenes. The 8 full-time staffers currently work within a 20-foot x 10-foot modular office space. According to Showering Love Founder Jeanne Albaugh, they have an existing powder bathroom, but it is designed for a gravity-type drainage system. “Unfortunately, we can’t tie the fixtures to the drain field due to elevation constraints,” she explains.

The Showering Love employees needed a new, creative solution, so they could continue working comfortably within the space.

Solution

As an additional donation to the organization, Saniflo contributed a Sanibest Pro unit to handle the effluent drainage and discharge of the office bathroom. Given Showering Love’s success with Saniflo products, Jeanne Albaugh was confident in installing the unit.

The renovation process has been seamless with the help of licensed plumber Robbie Abruscati, owner of Paramount Plumbing (Orlando). Abruscati was familiar with the product because he assisted in installing other Saniflo products on the two mobile buses. There was no issue with handling the installation himself.

Ideal for public facilities, such as office or warehouse restrooms, the heavy-duty Sanibest Pro grinder is engineered to quickly dispose of larger objects that might well clog a conventional toilet. Water and organic waste matter entering the chamber of the grinding unit are reduced to slurry by the cutting blades rotating at 3,600 RPM.

The reduced fluids and solids are 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. Once the water level inside the container goes down, a micro switch deactivates the system until the next flush. A normal operating cycle for the Sanibest Pro takes about 10 to 12 seconds, depending upon the discharge-pipe configuration.

The Sanibest Pro can not only discharge black-water from a toilet, but also handle gray water drainage from two other fixtures. In Showering Love’s application, the wastewater from the toilet and a lavatory drain into the Sanibest Pro grinder. The unit then pumps the wastewater into a 1.5-inch discharge pipe over 30 feet into a drain field.

“After we installed the pump, we tied the sink in to complete the bathroom,” notes Abruscati. “They’ve been in there using it daily and haven’t had an issue.”

Results

Thanks to Saniflo’s simple above-floor plumbing solution, the Sanibest Pro unit could withstand the elevation pressure and pump the effluent up and out to the drain field.

“The system has been running great for us in the office,” says Albaugh. “We are grateful for Saniflo’s support, generosity, and partnership.”

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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].