Save hours in labour and installation during your next home renovation project

It's a familiar phrase: "Time is money." But from where did it originate? The “time is money” aphorism can be found in "Advice to a Young Tradesman," a 1748 essay by Benjamin Franklin, who specifically wrote: "Remember that time is money."

Now widespread, the advice is spot-on when it comes to home-renovation projects: The longer it takes to complete a project, the more you pay for labor. Even a small delay can result in significant cost implications — especially a project that involves excavation.

One popular home-renovation example requiring excavation is adding a bathroom in a space lacking below-floor drainage. Your contractor lets you know that they will have to install new plumbing lines or recommends a sewage ejection system to make it happen. That requires digging through the concrete, a messy and time-consuming job with a high price tag.

Installing conventional plumbing involves several hazards

With conventional plumbing — likewise, with a sewage ejector system — you must jackhammer and dig up the floor to install plumbing lines. Then you have to re-cement it.

Besides all this work, breaking through concrete to install conventional plumbing can be unpredictable, involving several hazards. You don’t know how thick the floor is, or if there are unforeseen rocks or pipes. If you run into a ledge, you must reconfigure the new-bathroom layout — another time-consuming inconvenience.

Eliminate the need for a complicated concrete drilling project

Saniflo’s modern plumbing systems use above-floor, macerating/grinding technology to eliminate the need to break through a concrete floor to install drainage below, saving a significant amount of time and money.

Instead of routing effluent through below-floor drainage lines or to a sewage ejector, drainage moves through above-floor piping: either to a macerator or a grinder pump located behind the toilet. The pump’s purpose is to liquefy blackwater waste. Liquifying the solids and waste allows the pump to use pressure to quietly push the waste, to the home soil stack and then to a sewer line or septic tank, through small-diameter piping, above the floor.

or, in the case of gray water, to a drain pump under the sink. In either instance, the drainage discharges under pressure through small-diameter piping to the home soil stack and then to a sewer line or septic tank.

These systems require no special maintenance, and the macerator or grinder is sealed for life. Note: The system itself can be hidden behind the wall, as long as there is an in-wall access panel for easy servicing.

An above-floor plumbing system can be installed in as little as two days. The small-diameter discharge piping eases installation even in a tight space.

With Saniflo drain pumps, macerators and grinders, you can install a spare bath or sink anywhere you choose in your home — even below the sewage line — with no messy, time-consuming and therefore costly digging. The fixtures can be installed atop finished floors in a basement, attic, garage, or spare bedroom; even under a stairway or inside a closet.

This was the case for homeowners in Lesslie, South Carolina, who wished to convert their 1,300-square-foot, unfinished basement into a comfortable living space. They enlisted the help of Zachary Clark, who started as an odds-and-ends handyman and now owns Clark Home Solutions, a one-man professional design, remodeling, and repair business in nearby York. For this particular job, the homeowners sought a plumbing solution that would minimize the amount of concrete-busting to create a new bath.

Using Saniflo's Sanibest Pro grinding system, Clark was able to install a toilet and a vanity without breaking through the concrete floor. According to Clark, breaking through the concrete to install a traditional floor drainage would've added three to four days to the installation and doubled the homeowner's costs.

"But this Sanibest Pro system eliminated the need for all that hassle and expense," says Clark, who adds that the installation process was straightforward and took fewer than eight hours. Read more about this project here.

Opening a hole in the concrete can add not just hours, but days to a bathroom addition. With Saniflo, you can install the plumbing for an entire bathroom in as little as two days, saving you time and, ultimately, money.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Remember that time is money" when you plan your next home-renovation project.