In this video, we discuss what a backflow preventer is, why it is important to have one, and why they need to be tested. If you are in need of backflow replacement or service, please reach out to a local plumber who specialized in this service. For those of you near Sarasota or Bradenton, Florida, Merit Plumbing would be happy to help.

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Video Transcript:
Good day everyone, this is JJ with Merit Plumbing from Sarasota Florida and I just wanted to do a quick video today talking about backflow preventers.

So right in front of me here, this is a backflow preventer. One of the common questions I get from customers is why do we have and why do we need a backflow preventer and this is something I feel that both plumbers and local water purveyors and local municipalities we have not done a good job educating the public as to the importance of why we need a backflow preventer.

So the reason why we have backflow preventers and what they are — a backflow preventer is a check valve or a series of check valves. This unit actually has two check valves and then a relief port that actually will empty the water. What the backflow does and what the check valves do is they allow water to only go one way. The water can go from the municipal water supply into your home but never back towards the municipal water supply.

The reason for this is we want to protect the municipal water supply to keep everyone healthy and safe. The biggest reasons we have backflow preventers are to protect one of two things back pressure so pressure pushing back from your home into the municipal water supply, which is pretty extremely rare, or back-siphonage which is a more common occurrence.

So what is back-siphonage and why do we need to be careful about it? If say you are somewhere in Florida, lots of people have pools. So let's say you're filling your pool and you've got your garden hose down inside your pool and maybe you've had to add some chemicals to shock it recently. Or another good example would be you have a pest control company come out and they need to mix their chemicals to spray your lawn for pests. So especially on a pest control side, if they aren't careful and they don't have the equipment properly set up and they don't know it, then if they stick their garden hose down inside of their bucket or their mixing tank and the water's running and they've got that hose in there and they're mixing the water and their chemicals. Then what happens is if there's a water main break on the municipal water supply out in the street or if the fire department has to open a water hydrant to flush the system or new construction is going on and they open the water fire hydrants to flush the water out that's going to create negative pressure so it's going to decrease the water pressure.

When that happens if you don't have a backflow preventer when someone's got their garden hose in their pool running or in that pesticide container mixing with chemicals if that water is running with that hose in that contaminated water at the same time that there's a water main break or a fire hydrant gets opened it's going to suck that contaminated and polluted water back from your home through to the municipal water supply and potentially get someone sick or people have even in rare cases died from that. So that is the importance of backflow prevention.

That's why we have them. That's why they also need to be tested on an annual basis to make sure that they're working properly because there's a series of springs and check valves in here and over time those springs can get stuck. And if they get stuck in the open position and when that happens if it's not been tested no one knows and so if they're stuck in the open position and we have a backflow scenario a back-siphonage occurs. The backflow preventer doesn't do any good and then people get sick. So thanks for taking a few minutes to watch this video. I hope you found it educational.

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