Carlo Nicastro of Gama Services Inc. is a busy guy, and business is booming. Nicastro started his career
as a journeyman and took the leap to start his own company in 2017. He grew up in the trades as his
father worked in construction, and his grandfather and uncle were plumbers. We caught up with Carlo
as he and his crew worked on the second of three buildings for a large industrial food and beverage
facility outside of Toronto. The first building is completed and up in production; however, the deadline
to complete the second building is quickly approaching.
The facility is close to 1.5 million square feet, and for this project, the team is working on the full scope
of hot water, cool water, washrooms, processing equipment and compressed air, using all MegaPress®
and ProPress®. When we spoke with Carlo, he was finalizing plans to connect more than 500
MegaPress fittings in sizes ranging from 1" to 2 ½" to 3,000 feet of pipe in two days with a crew of 26.
“The only way I’ll be able to get that done is to use press,” he said. Once this project is complete, the
facility will undergo commissioning and testing before production begins.
Industrial projects come with a specific set of challenges. For example, Gama Services Inc. could not
make any repairs during the facility’s production time. Using Viega gave Nicastro and his team the tools
they needed to get the job done without worrying about hot work permits. “Companies are on tight
timelines, so for us, it means being able to get jobs done efficiently. Using Viega really helped me be
able to take on a lot of other jobs because my team could do in a couple of days with press what would
take others a couple of weeks to finish. It is a lot of investment upfront for the tools and fittings, but I
save so much money on labor costs,” said Nicastro. Nicastro estimated that they have been able to
turn around 15,000 feet of piping in this facility in just two months.
“I had heard a little bit about Viega when I first started my company but didn’t quite understand the
concept. A sales rep lent me a tool to try, and I knew it would change my business." Nicastro says that
his Viega sales rep has been a great resource for his business, and the expectations for jobs continue to
increase. “My business has grown from $28,000 in revenue my first year to a projected $20 million this
year. That’s exponential growth and absolutely worth the upfront costs.” On large-scale projects like
this, he says that working with the sales rep and local supply house has been vital to getting the
materials he needs to meet the project deadlines. Nicastro said, “This industry is built on trust. I didn’t
have a lot of capital when I started. But I started investing in tools and getting bigger jobs. Now, I’ve
been able to add quality manpower to my team because I have the work to support it.”