For over eight decades clients throughout the five boroughs of New York City have relied on PAR Plumbing, a division of The PAR Group, for expert plumbing services – including the plumbing work for major construction projects.

When PAR was contracted to provide all of the plumbing for One Riverside Park, a 219 unit 32-story luxury condominium ground-up construction project on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, they knew that space inside the walls would be tight. Installing the sanitary piping, vent piping and piping for the hot and cold water systems in the available space would be a challenge. To solve this problem, PAR Plumbing turned to HOLDRITE, an industry leader in secondary pipe support and alignment bracket systems.

To incorporate the pipes into the walls in very confined spaces, PAR used a variety of HOLDRITE support systems.

“Without HOLDRITE’s pipe support systems we would have had to create custom metal supports,” explained Brendan McMonagle, vice president of New Construction at PAR Plumbing. “It would have taken hours of labor to cut and fabricate metal pieces in the field to equal what came out of the HOLDRITE box. HOLDRITE’s pipe support systems got the job done in much less space than metal. So construction went faster and we were able to easily solve the problem of tight space within the building’s walls.”

Project Supervisor Larry Frawley agreed.

Frwaley said, “The walls and roughing were so tight that it was hard to get things in the wall. HOLDRITE products not only helped plumbing fixtures fit, but locked them tight to the wall.”

Preventing flooding in a high-rise retrofit

The top 20 floors of a building located across the street from the World Trade Center were being converted from commercial space to high-end condominiums. PAR Plumbing was the plumbing contractor for this extensive retrofit build.

An issue that PAR Plumbing ran into on this project involved the piping on the tenth floor of the building. A major telecom company had all of their digital gear systems installed on the ninth floor. This organization wanted to be absolutely certain that the pipes PAR was installing would not come apart, flood the building and put their systems out of commission.

A cast iron no-hub waste and vent system that has not been properly fitted with restraints is likely to separate at the couplings if the system is subjected to significant thrust forces. Par Plumbing was aware of this likelihood, recalling what occurred in a similar situation at the Lucas Oil Stadium.

When the Lucas Oil Stadium was being built for the Indianapolis Colts in 2008, a long series of delays created pressure on the plumbing contractor to hurry and finish their installation so that the rest of the building could be outfitted.

During construction a major rainstorm hit the area just after millions of dollars’ worth of IT equipment had been moved into the stadium’s basement. Three of the rainwater leader system’s 15-inch cast iron downspouts failed – flooding the basement and ruining the equipment. Huge lawsuits and project delays ensued.

The building

To say that One Riverside Park was a high-profile project is an understatement. One Riverside Park is a very distinguished New York address that introduced a new level of luxury to waterfront living on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Its ultra-luxurious waterfront condominium residences range in size from 2,800 to 6,000 square feet and are priced from $8,000,000 to $25,000,000 – with spectacular Hudson River and New York City views.

The project involved several major players in the design and development industries, including Extell Development Company, Goldstein, Hill & West Architects, LLP and Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group.

The HOLDRITE #117 Series No-Hub Fitting Restraint Solution

To make things even more challenging, space inside the walls where the pipes were being installed was extremely tight. To address both the space constraints and the telecom company’s concerns about potential flooding, PAR made extensive use of the HOLDRITE #117 Series No-hub Fitting Restraints.

The HOLDRITE #117 No-hub Fitting Restraints are ideal for restraining hubless cast iron soil pipe joints against separation during high thrust conditions, and engineered to meet plumbing codes and no-hub cast iron pipe manufacturers’ installation instructions.

For this project, #117 No-hub Fitting Restraints were attached to the base stack sittings of the sanitary and storm lines. Given the fact that PAR installed hundreds of restraints on one floor alone, this was a significant time-saver when compared to the field-devised alternative: buying individual threaded rod pipe rests, custom cutting all the pieces, and assembling each one.

“The HOLDRITE No-hub Fitting Restraints installed very quickly in the tight space we were working in,” McMonagle noted. “They saved us a tremendous amount of labor, and saved us money on material costs as well. It was just a matter of pulling the restraint out of the box, putting it together with a ratchet gun and you were done in about 15 minutes a piece. This was the first time we used these restraints in such a mass quantity, and it was a big help for us. It drastically cut our labor impact while giving us the same security of not worrying about the plumbing coming apart and flooding the building.”

“HOLDRITE is the standard for us now,” McMonagle added. “We use their products in all of our jobs.”

The PAR Group, a fourth-generation, privately owned and operated company since 1928, is New York’s preeminent provider of plumbing, heating & air conditioning, fire protection and green solution services. Over the decades the company has played a vital role in New York City’s construction industry.

The company has four divisions – PAR Plumbing, PAR Heating & Air Conditioning, PAR Fire Protection and PAR Green Solutions. As construction projects have grown in scale and complexity, The PAR Group has increasingly been called upon to put its four units to work as a professionally managed, centrally coordinated team.

With a skilled staff of over 300, a fleet of 65 vehicles, a well-stocked warehouse and a state-of-the-art tracking and communications systems, the PAR Group is well-known for meeting and surpassing the most exacting standards on jobs large and small. For more information about Par Plumbing, visit www.parplumbing.com.

HOLDRITE has established a reputation as a leading manufacturer known for innovative products and services in such categories as pipe and equipment support systems, acoustical plumbing solutions, water heater accessories, DWV testing systems and water and firestop sleeving systems.

Hundreds of millions of HOLDRITE products have been installed into a wide variety of projects from single- and multi-family housing to hotel, government, military, health care, institutional and many other market sectors.

HOLDRITE has developed solutions that assist in establishing a “shop standard” for the collaborative efforts of developers, architects, engineers and contractors. Over the years, HOLDRITE has become the industry standard for, “Converting Makeshift Methods into Engineered Solutions.” For more information about HOLDRITE, visit www.holdrite.com.