The second tankless water heater installation on the 4th Street Market roof in Santa Ana, CA, proves a fan-favorite in Noritz’s annual bracket-style tournament promotion.
Earlier in 2021, while college basketball enthusiasts remained enthralled with NCAA’s March Madness tournament, Noritz devised an in-house championship to bring a similar hype to the industry. Using professional installations completed by various plumbing companies throughout the United States and Canada, the leader in tankless water heaters invented an exciting bracket-style competition of its own: an Install Bracket.
Professionals entered their best Noritz installation photo that involved any Noritz model of their choosing. The top installations were selected and entered into a bracket for voting. The public had the opportunity to vote on their favorite installations. Voting continued until two final installations remained. Noritz declared the best installation as the winner, and in this case, Crandall’s Plumbing’s 4th Street Market residential project in Santa Ana, CA, came out victorious.
Crandall’s Plumbing, owned and operated by Sam and Erica Crandall, began servicing the Orange County, CA, area in 2009. Since then, the husband and wife duo has grown the company to 40 employees, expanding their service area to surrounding areas, including Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire.
“We have built loyal relationships with our existing customers,” Sam Crandall explains, “As they acquire new properties and expand, they reach out to us, and I take care of my clients, regardless of location.”
JOB WELL DONE LEADS TO SECOND INSTALL
Crandall’s Plumbing is no stranger to projects at the 4th Street Market. In 2015, the company completed a large and innovative installation for this cutting-edge food emporium. It involved locating a rack of 22 tankless water heaters on the structure’s roof to provide domestic hot water to 22 separate, independent food-service tenants. The system allows tracking of fuel consumption usage by each tenant, so that utility billing can be kept separate as well.
According to Noritz District Sales Manager Gary Hernando, selecting Crandall’s Plumbing for the second installation was a no-brainer. “The clients at 4th Street were really happy with both the tankless performance and the subsequent service work that Crandall’s has done,” says Hernando. “Sam’s company then parlayed those successes into the installations for the actual living spaces.”
This second, more recent project for the 4th Street Market involved 24 additional tankless water heaters, Model No. NNC199ODNG2, to be installed on the roof that will feed into 24 residential units. With the success of the initial installation for the vendor units with no major issues after five years, the client’s engineer was confident in pursuing Noritz for another round of installs for the residences.
COMMUNICATION + COORDINATION = SUCCESS
The challenge for Crandall’s Plumbing lay in coordinating all the piping with the electrician and HVAC installer. The goal was to have all the piping fit on the rack and flow down through the main corridors of the second floor, where the residences are located. From the main corridors, the piping branches off to each residential unit. The building itself was in the shape of a rectangle with 12 units on each side.
Crandall and his team focused on visualizing the installation before work began and then coordinated with the other trades, while prioritizing the rooftop installation of the tankless water heaters. The team started from the bottom of the rack and worked their way up with 24 hot lines, 24 cold lines, and 24 gas lines.
Another challenge they faced was that some units had more piping than others among the three racks. Crandall and his team resolved the issue through trial and error by cutting pipe for each unit.
ATTENTION TO DETAIL VITAL TO COMPLETION
Crandall takes pride in his design-build approach to his projects. “Nothing is slapped together,” explains Crandall. “If it doesn’t look good, we cut it out and remake it, so it becomes a functional and efficient piece of art.”
After two months of creating his masterpiece, the 4th Street Market residential project was completed.
Crandall’s Plumbing proves that efficiency, reliability, and attention to detail not only deserve the notoriety as a fan-favorite, but also help establish long-standing relationships as a full-service plumbing, heating and ac company. Those relationships ultimately resulted in a first-place finish for Crandall’s — both with its client and with Noritz’s 2021 Install Bracket.