Your heart races a little every morning when your husband leaves the house. Then you put that anxiousness to the back of your mind as you go about your day working from home in public relations and content. You go from Zoom to Zoom, thankful technology keeps you safe; you nag your five kids to do their remote learning 47 times in between editing content and following up on new web pages and answering questions from colleagues on Slack; by 2:30, you decide you should eat something for the day; you complain 100 times that this new normal is so very difficult.

Your husband does not have have that luxury of working from home. He is an essential worker. He walks into the clinics and hospitals unfazed. He answers health questions and gets his temperature taken multiple times a way. He uses his smile and professional charm to make the lives of the health care providers who depend on his skills easier and little bit lighter.

But he is not just essential to his job or his clients or to all of those patients having surgery. He is essential to you, his family. You need him. You need him home and healthy every night.

Your biggest hope is that everyone who can will please stay home to help ensure that your husband and the kids’ father gets home safe and healthy every night.

Finding a Way to Deal with the New Normal of Self Isolation and Social Distancing Is Not Easy

Behind the scenes of every family stuck at home, every worker who is still required to go into an office building or a hospital, is a complicated set of considerations that are being rethought. From the air exchange systems that are in older office buildings to the stainless steel sanitary valves that can help maintain the safety of new buildings being constructed, we live in a time when it is important that engineers and scientists make sure that when business does return to normal that the spaces where people work are safer and easier to maintain.

The world will likely never be the same. First and foremost, there are new air quality standards in place that will require buildings to have more frequent and more efficient air exchanges in an attempt to keep air born contagions at bay. Long used in places as diverse as hospitals and shooting ranges, these air exchange systems are available, but have not been used in standard work settings. In a time when the entire world is considering what the next steps might be, however, the use of these air exchanges, as well as sanitary pipe fittings are being installed in buildings that are used for a number of varied purposes.

The latest sanitary pipe fittings and stainless steel sanitary tubing systems, as well as the most efficient air exchange systems will play important roles when Americans finally get a chance to get back to their lives. From the hospitals that are in such high demand today to the school buildings that are sitting empty right now, there are facilities managers who are making the best use of the time they have to prepare today’s spaces for a better and safer tomorrow.

In a time of innovation and research, it is important to note that some of the most tried and true materials remain some of the best options when it comes to creating work places that are easier to maintain and more carefully sanitized. Stainless steel and non porous sanitary pipe fittings are but two examples of materials that have been used in the past and will likely continue to be a part of the spaces where people go to get medical care, education, and meet the commercial and entertainment needs of today’s consumers.

Under typical conditions stainless steel pipes can easily exceed a 100 year lifespan and the highest quality sanitary pipe fittings may as well, but everything is being reconsidered in these epic times. Fortunately, approximately 88% of the world’s steel is recycled. Further, two out of three tons of new steel come from old steel, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. Making better products from old materials will be key to America’s future.