Northport & Hauppauge Men Developing Cover For Plumbing Equipment

NORTHPORT, NY — Maintenance workers who have used a drain snake before might be familiar with the dripping that occurs after cleaning a pipe or toilet. Two men are developing a potential solution they're calling the "Snake Trap."

Robert Lauth, a Northport native and 15-year maintenance mechanic at Huntington Hospital, and Robert Dapaah, 49, of Hauppauge, are the men behind the project.

"The Snake Trap is PPE for plumbing equipment," is the project's slogan, Lauth, 43, told Patch.

The Snake Trap would cover plumbing tools used in hospitals, schools, nursing homes, hotels and houses. Once the drain snake has gone into a toilet or sink and the job is done, the tool would be sheathed into its trap. The Snake Trap, with the dirty snake inside, would then be taken back to its storage spot without dripping wastewater in elevators, on a staircase or in the halls.

"The current state of use is to use [the snakes], get them out of sight as soon as possible and don’t talk about them again until another toilet gets backed up," Lauth said. "En route to the closet where it sits and from the job itself, it drips potentially harmful, gross fecal matter through public spaces. Which, obviously, even pre-pandemic, is not ideal."

Lauth said the idea has been granted a patent, was successfully piloted at a few Northwell hospitals and received a $5,000 grant from the Stony Brook Small Business Development Center — the maximum amount it awards.

Robert Harrison, a business advisor at the Stony Brook Small Business Development Center, said he consulted with Lauth and Dapaah and suggested they apply under the Stony Brook Manufacturing Technology Resource Consortium's Research & Development Park, headed by Program Manager Cynthia Colon. The Feasibility Study, Prototype, and Process Improvement Grant (FPP) is meant to help entrepreneurs overcome initial development obstacles. FPP applications are evaluated based on the invention's potential benefits and need, according to Harrison.

"The Snake Trap represents a major step for environmental maintenance improvements in reducing waste materials dripping between the maintenance department and site of the cleanup," Harrison said via email. "Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) are a major reduction focus for the Joint Commission that evaluates hospital cleanliness procedures."

Lauth said he and Dapaah are trying to get a mandate passed that everything that makes direct contact with waste lines in public spaces needs to be covered or cared for in a certain way.

Roughly 500 surveys were filled out, according to Lauth.

"Almost uniformly, everyone agrees that these things should be covered," he said.