Plumbers in Kemah, Texas

Ice wells, sinks and where the water goes

An outdoor bar produces a surprising amount of water, and most of the problems we see come from drainage that was improvised at fit out.

Ice wells drain continuously. Melt runs all service, and it has to go to a proper drain rather than onto the deck or into a bucket somebody empties. An indirect connection with an air gap is the normal arrangement.

The hand sink is the fixture inspectors look for. Separate from the glass washing sink, reachable from behind the bar without walking away, with hot water at it. It is the most commonly missing item in an outdoor bar.

Warewashing outside still needs compartments. If glasses are washed at the bar rather than carried inside, the sink arrangement is the same as it would be indoors.

Patio drainage and bar drainage are different problems. A deck that ponds after rain is a surface question. What comes out of the bar is wastewater and it belongs in the sanitary system, not in a storm drain or over the edge of a bulkhead.

Salt, sun and the freeze that comes every few years

Anything on a waterfront patio ages faster than the same fitting indoors, and the failures are predictable enough to design out.

Salt air attacks fittings and fixings first. Dissimilar metals in contact corrode quickly this close to the bay, and a chrome tap chosen for looks will not last two seasons outside.

Sunlight degrades exposed plastic pipe. A supply run left visible under a bar top needs shielding or lagging, or it becomes brittle and splits at the worst moment.

Everything outside must be drainable. An isolation valve and a low point drain for the bar, so that when a freeze is forecast the whole thing can be emptied in a few minutes rather than wrapped in towels.

Write the freeze procedure down and keep it at the bar. Isolate, open the taps, drain the low point, disconnect hoses. Staff turn over and the person who knew how to do it is rarely on shift the night it matters.

Ice machines and remote condensers need their own attention. They fail in a freeze and they fail in a heatwave, and both failures arrive on the busiest day.

How a call plays out

Tell us whether the bar washes glasses, what drains it currently has, and whether you are fitting out or fixing something. Those three answers cover most of what we would need to look at.

Kemah, Seabrook, League City and the rest of the bay side of Galveston County are on our round. We use fittings that survive salt air rather than the cheapest that fits, we build in isolation and drain points so a freeze is a ten minute job, and we work around service hours.