Domestic Hot Water Re-Pipe

12 Tribes Omak Casino Hotel

:+: By Jess Wigley

We got dealt a difficult hand, but this critical hotel shutdown in Omak, WA was executed both seamlessly and successfully! Our INW Plumbing team, Construction Utility team, Service department, and Service Special Projects team worked together to complete this 4.5 day critical shutdown.

12 Tribes Omak Casino Hotel started experiencing hot water issues shortly after it was built in 2015. When we took over the maintenance contract in early 2019, we were made aware of the hot water inconsistency for the hotel. Through discussions, we determined that the best way to proceed was to have our plumbing engineer (Dennis Richards) and field lead (Bill Cuellar) perform an in-depth onsite survey of existing conditions. From that survey we produced a list of deficiencies, some from original installation and some from “patch repairs” over the years, that would need to be addressed for the hotel to get consistent hot water. After presenting our findings to the Tribe, they decided to have MacDonald-Miller perform most of those items in one project – the Domestic Hot Water Re-Pipe.

Despite equipment delays that required us to rescheduled this shutdown multiple times, our INW Plumbing team was incredibly flexible and positive, keeping their primary focus on the customer. The initial schedule was tight and didn’t allow for a lot of prep time, but our team recognized the opportunity this gave them to do prefab, pre-layout and establish installation points.

Another challenge was the remote location in Omak and lack of resources for material orders and deliveries. Again, our crew recognized this as an opportunity to spend time breaking down every part of the new DHW system to identify and draft the material buy-out.

What began as a domestic hot water re-pipe during a 4.5 day hotel shutdown at 12 Tribes evolved into an entire hotel facelift! 12 Tribes management team took advantage of the shutdown time to deep clean, repaint and repair damages in all the rooms. Included in this, 12 Tribes contracted MacMiller to replace all the hotel faucets. Due to the time crunch we were under, there was hesitation to committing to this task, but our team came up with an efficient work plan, assembled a team, and went to work! When our team got on site, the customer-provided faucets weren’t there. The delivery was delayed until midday, BUT that didn’t stop us from getting started. In order to keep the project moving forward, our team was quick to re-strategize and began demo on the existing faucets from the top floor down. When the faucets arrived, despite being a different model than what was planned for, our plumbers again shifted gears and tackled the added scope. The entire project was completed on time and under budget!

Kudos to the teams:

DHW Repipe Crew – Ryne Harris, Craig Sharpe, Gavin Leach, Jarrod Longmire

Faucet Replacement Crew – Bill Cuellar, Kevin Barnes, Jesse Bird

Learn more about our work in the Inland Northwest!