Freshwater plumbing 99% complete

Many food trucks rely on both electricity and water being available onsite. We, however, do not, on both counts. Totally standalone. And seeing how our main products are water-based, plumbing is an integral requirement. The Ohio Revised Code has something to say about it, and along with our Portage County health department’s guidelines, here’s what we have done so far:

Wanting to be self-contained, we decided on a freshwater tank. It’s 40 gallons, more than enough for even the longest weekend of operation. It’s got three 1/2″ FNPT connections on one end, and a 1.5″ M hose connection as well (not shown above).

Since it’s not under pressure, we need a water pump. And since we need hot water, there’s also a water heater. ORC requires a hand washing sink, and a triple-sink setup for washing/rinsing/sanitizing. We also need cold water plumbed to our coffee brewer. I would ordinarily also say we need cold water to our espresso machine and milk cup rinser, but we decided last week that we’re going to omit the espresso machine in this iteration of our mobile coffee bar, and focus instead on cold brew as a basis for specialty drinks. Lots of thought went into that decision, and perhaps I’ll address it in a separate post at some point. For now, though, it makes things a bit simpler when it comes to plumbing fresh- and waste-water.

Here’s the business end of the fresh-water tank. Closest to the bottom of the picture is the floor drain connection, for when we want/need to drain the entire tank. There’s a valve underneath the trailer floor. Right above that vertically is the vent hose, which simply rises behind the front wall of the trailer and doesn’t terminate. It is needed when filling the tank (see the large connection at the very top? it’ll go via a large diameter hose to an inlet on the left trailer wall, where we’ll dump in clean water, 5 gallons at a time, from Clearwater Systems) in order to vent the air replaced by incoming water.

The last connection goes over and up to the water pump, where the water is then distributed to the rest of the plumbing system. Here’s a better view:

The SureFlow self-priming pump has a pressure switch that detects a faucet opening and automatically turns on, maintaining a constant pressure of up to 45 psi. It’s distributed directly to the coffee brewer (upper left feed), and the handwashing sink faucet and the wash sink faucet. It also supplies the Bosch 2.5 gallon insulated-tank water heater, which is only plumbed to the faucets. It may be sufficient to run once in the morning to supply our daily needs.

You can see the water inlets on the left side trailer wall. One for a connection to an external water source (which we won’t use – who wants to make coffee from water of unknown lineage ?) and a hose nozzle that will connect to our fresh-water tank (hose not shown).

We initially started with PVC/CPVC, but I was concerned that over time, glued connections might become, well, unglued, since there is little flex in the system. Being a mobile operation, hauling the trailer all over on roads of sometimes dubious quality, flex seemed to be needed. So I took apart what I started, and redid the system in PEX. More expensive (that crimp tool on the fresh-water tank was $79!), but it was a dream to install, and I’m confident it’ll be leak-free for the life of the trailer. Both the water heater and fresh-water tank are securely attached to the walls and floor.

And that’s the supply plumbing, 99% done.

Next job will be the waste plumbing, which includes framing the back cabinet, cutting holes in the lovely butcher-block counter Nancy has ready, and installing the sinks. Also, mounting the waste tank on the trailer tongue, and cutting a hole in the front wall to route sink waste into that tank.