Mainline Backflow Products “Our Plumbers Story” Looking back on 25 years of expanding products, services and entering new markets By Nerissa McNaughton with photos from Rebecca Lippiatt
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ainline Backflow Products Inc. is celebrating 25 years in business. Although well known for their proprietary and innovative backwater valves, and leading the way for helping to make important changes to valve regulation across North America, the agile company has expanded over the years in both scope and products. Gabe and Jordan Coscarella are happy to share the story of where Mainline has been, and where it is going. One day Gabe, a plumber by trade, sat at his dinner table and drew a sketch of a backwater valve concept. Gabe and his friend, Vitto Chiodo, then went to work in the garage making the first prototype. “The model was crude, made of Tupperware and plexiglass,” says Gabe. “It was installed and tested in my own house. To this day that model sits in our trophy case – fully sanitized of course! This is how the Mainline Fullport Backwater valve was born.” Gabe Coscarella and Jordan Coscarella
The “normally-open” valve revolutionized and changed the National Plumbing Code, opening the doors for mainline protection in Canada. The mainline valve continues to be the flagship of the company, protecting over a million homes across North America and is a part of nearly every install in Canada.
With this early success and the birth of the company, the founders were ready for the next steps… but, those next steps were not quite ready for them.
Jordan says with pride, “The Mainline valve is trusted by insurance companies, plumbers and engineers as a key part in many cities’ flood prevention programs across North America.”
Gabe explains, “Thinking we hit a gold mine, we launched the product at a tradeshow in Vegas. We quickly learned that the valve wouldn’t work for their slab-on-grade markets.”
Mainline Backflow || 25 years 59