ZWS · NYSE Arca · United States
zurnelkay.comFinancials as of FY2025
Sells certified drinking fountains, backflow preventers, and pressure valves that can all be specified together for school and hospital plumbing systems.
Zurn Elkay Water Solutions holds dual NSF certifications — one for chemical extraction limits, one for lead content — across its entire line of drinking fountains, backflow preventers, and pressure reducing valves, which means a mechanical contractor can name a single supplier for every component that touches drinking water in a school or hospital. That matters because when wetted parts from different vendors meet at a pipe joint, liability for a contamination event becomes contested between suppliers, so specifiers writing construction submittals under EPA Lead and Copper Rule and Joint Commission requirements close that gap by putting one certified name on the whole submittal. Building that certification stack required running separate 12-to-18-month laboratory validation cycles for every brass alloy, elastomer, and coating in every product category, and no competitor can compress that sequence into a single bid cycle, which is what makes the position hard to replicate quickly. The same validation timeline, however, is the company's central vulnerability: if NSF revises its extraction or lead-content thresholds, every certified formulation across the entire product line enters re-validation simultaneously, and during those 12 to 18 months the single-source submittal that drives the business cannot be written.
How does this company make money?
The company earns money on each drinking fountain, backflow preventer, or pressure reducing valve it sells, moving most of that volume through plumbing wholesale distributors like Ferguson Enterprises. Custom-engineered assemblies — backflow preventer systems and pressure reducing valve stations designed to a specific building's pressure and contamination requirements — are sold directly to mechanical contractors and carry higher margins than standard catalog products.
What makes this company hard to replace?
When an existing backflow preventer needs replacing, a certified tester must verify the new installation, which creates a strong practical preference for matching the configuration already in place rather than introducing a different supplier's valve. Pressure reducing valve stations are wired into building automation systems through proprietary sensor interfaces that are difficult to retrofit with a competing product. And once a contractor's construction submittal names an NSF-certified supplier for a project, a replacement supplier must go through a requalification process to be accepted — adding time and cost that discourages switching mid-project.
What limits this company?
NSF lab testing for any change to a brass alloy, rubber seal, or coating takes 12 to 18 months and cannot be sped up by spending more money, because the protocol requires extraction tests to run in a fixed sequence over fixed time periods. If a regulation forces a material change — for example, if the EPA tightens the lead action level below 15 ppb — every affected product enters that queue at once, and nothing in it can be sold into regulated buildings until it comes out the other end.
What does this company depend on?
NSF International and UL must grant and maintain the potable water contact certifications without which no product can legally enter a regulated building. Lead-free brass alloy suppliers must meet Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act specifications or the raw material itself fails certification. ICC-ES must issue evaluation reports for plumbing code compliance. Ferguson Enterprises and other plumbing wholesaler networks must move product to contractors. And the company's own manufacturing facilities must maintain ISO 9001 quality systems to stay eligible for water safety applications.
Who depends on this company?
K-12 school districts rely on the company's ADA-compliant, lead-free drinking fountain units to run replacement programs that keep them out of violation of the EPA Lead and Copper Rule. Healthcare facilities depend on its backflow prevention assemblies to block potable water contamination and keep their Joint Commission accreditation. Commercial building owners in high-rise construction need its pressure reducing valve stations to meet local plumbing code requirements for managing water pressure across floors.
How does this company scale?
Once a product design clears NSF validation, the certified design and test data can be used across multiple manufacturing locations without running the certification process again, so production volume can grow without triggering new certification costs. Custom backflow preventer assemblies and pressure reducing valve stations, however, require experienced hydraulic engineers who understand the pressure profiles and contamination risks specific to each building — that engineering work cannot be automated and stays a constraint as the business grows.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
EPA revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule that push the lead action level below 15 ppb would force accelerated replacement of brass fixtures in schools and healthcare facilities — creating both new demand and a re-certification burden. State-level PFAS regulations in drinking water are creating demand for specialized filtration systems that sit outside the company's traditional mechanical water control products. Climate-driven water scarcity policies in drought-prone regions are pushing mandates for low-flow fixtures and pressure management systems, which could reshape product requirements.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
If NSF revises the extraction limits in NSF/ANSI 61 or the lead-content limits in NSF/ANSI 372, every certified brass alloy, rubber seal, and coating across all product lines would need re-validation at the same time. That triggers parallel 12-to-18-month queues for the entire portfolio simultaneously. During that window, products awaiting re-certification cannot be written into potable water submittals, the single-source specification advantage disappears, and competitors with smaller product lines face shorter re-certification queues — making it easier for them to step in.
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