At Kay Plumbing, we understand that the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t change your responsibility to keep properties up and running for your residents. Property managers are facing some unique challenges during this time, largely because residents are already close together frequently in halls and common areas. It is important to keep all of your residents and visitors safe by keeping common areas and equipment sterilized and minimize exposure to others as much as possible.
This includes making sure that you have no-contact maintenance services to conduct plumbing repairs and upgrades as needed. Our plumbing technicians have been briefed on the best practices to avoid the spread of COVID-19 and meet the needs of all our customers.
Changes to How We Operate (On and Off Your Property)
While we are operating (mostly) as usual, we are taking some precautions to keep everyone safe while delivering our plumbing services. Our practices come from guidance from Center for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). There are three main areas that the CDC recommends for preventing the spread of coronavirus.
Prevent and Reduce Transmission Among Employees
We are preventing the spread of COVID-19 among our employees, contractors, and vendors by conducting screening as they arrive at our location. Everyone is screened for a fever, new or worsening cough, and asked questions to determine if they could have been exposed to COVID. Any employee or site visitor that does not pass the screening will not be allowed to remain or work.
Common areas and equipment will be sanitized frequently. Our employees and technicians do not share equipment often, but they have been instructed to clean and sanitize all shared tools and equipment before and after use.
Maintain Healthy Business Operations
As a plumbing service, maintaining healthy business operations doesn’t just include what goes on in our location, but also on the road or in your properties. To protect our customers and your residents, we will wear a mask while in the presence of others if it is requested. We will also use hand sanitizer before entering your home, and we will wear new gloves each time we enter your home. We also change booties so that we don’t track anything into your home.
Maintain a Healthy Work Environment
Our plumbing technicians’ work environment encompasses both our main location and our vehicles. We maintain a healthy work environment for our employees by cleaning and disinfecting everything touched in and on the vehicle between inhabitants using CDC best practices for disinfecting such vehicles. We also clean and sanitize surfaces, door handles, and restrooms that are frequently used by everyone.
We are disinfecting all shared company vehicles and attached equipment as recommended by the CDC. All surfaces that might be touched while in the vehicle will be cleaned and disinfected. If any of our technicians may have contracted or been exposed to COVID-19, we will take additional measures to protect other drivers and employees including using soap and water on non-porous surfaces and EPA approved disinfectants for porous and electronic surfaces.
Should You Contact Us for Plumbing Services?
Although we are open and happy to serve you and your residents, it is still best to limit contact with customers and the public at this time. We are available by appointment for all plumbing repairs, and our emergency services are still offered. We are also available for plumbing installations, such as new water heaters.
Before contacting us for an appointment, consider if your plumbing needs can be postponed for a week or two. If so, wait to contact us until demand for our services has decreased. Or, you can contact us to schedule a future appointment.
We should be able to accommodate more appointments and services in the near future. The number of new COVID-19 cases in South Carolina have plummeted since June 20th. It is important that we remain vigilant for now until it becomes clear if there will be a second wave. If not, we should be able to start offering expanded appointment and service options soon.
The Current State of the Pandemic
(updated July 12th 2020)
Since the beginning of July the State of South Carolina has seen an increase in confirmed cases. With Richland and Lexington Counties showing some of the highest numbers of infected in the state. Many cities are passing ordinances where face masks are mandatory within town limits, not just in buildings and businesses. Most recently, Governor McMaster stopped all alcohol sales at bars and restaurants after 11pm, statewide to help curb the spike in cases.
To help prevent the next wave of stay at home orders, it is important that we all work together to keep the spread of coronavirus to a minimum, and hopefully wipe it out altogether in our state. That means continuing to social distance, continuing to operate with as little contact as possible, and taking all reasonable precautions to prevent the spread of the virus.
CDC and OSHA Recommendations for Businesses
We are working to operate within the confines of CDC and OSHA recommendations for businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. Several of OSHA’s requirements for employers related to the work environment and risk of respiratory illness are being loosely applied to the COVID-19 pandemic practices.
The most basic CDC and OSHA recommendations for businesses involve screening employees, notifying employees of exposure, providing PPE (i.e. masks, gloves), and maintaining a safe distance and/or wearing a mask when within 6 feet of others. We are also encouraging sick employees or employees that have a sick household member to stay at home and away from our customers or their residents.
We are focusing on meeting these requirements by providing our employees with masks and gloves, although we are not requiring our employees to wear masks unless requested by the client or resident. We are also working to provide no-contact service, using sterile gloves while inside your property, refraining from hand shaking or other touch, and touching as few surfaces as possible.
We will also maintain distance from you and/or your residents as much as possible. To maintain social distancing, it may be best for your residents to wait in another room while plumbing services are being performed.
Why No Contact?
The novel coronavirus is spread through respiratory droplets sprayed by infected people when talking, coughing, etc. There is mixed evidence from multiple studies about how long the virus in these droplets remains on surfaces, depending on the type of surface. Luckily plumbing repairs and installations can generally be repaired by touching very little in the building.
There are two primary ways that the CDC is recommending people to protect themselves. First, minimize contact not just with people, but with the places and objects that they are most likely to touch or speak over. The other way is to minimize the spread by wearing a mask or cloth face covering so that if you are unknowingly a COVID carrier you will not spread the virus to others.
We respect your right to choose the best health and safety measures for you and your residents, and as such we will take measures above and beyond our primary pandemic rules if you or your residents request it. This includes wearing masks and staying in a different room from the residents. We can discuss your unique pandemic needs when you contact us for more information.
If you are in need of plumbing services for your property now, contact us today for an appointment or to discuss your ongoing plumbing needs
