How do sewers in skyscrapers work?

918 views

When someone on the top floor flushes, does their poop plummet hundreds of feet down a pipe? And how do they make sure that a blockage on a bottom floor doesn’t make the building flood with poop water?

In: Engineering

11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I assume you’d have a ‘main stack’ as in a bigger pipe that runs up the whole building, and then the smaller pipes that would branch out to toilets, showers, etc from there. So once the waste got to main stack then yes it would just fall all the way down.

As for the other question, there are usually access points to reach pipes. So once a plumber determined the location of the clog they’d just fix it from the nearest available one.

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

As the more and more fixtures flow into the main stack, building code will require the stack diameter to increase to compensate for the extra gpm (gallons per minute) this reduces the chance of blockage.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Reading this while sitting – SITTING, careful spelling – on the 8th floor having some quiet time. Great question!

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

There seems to be a lot of BS here. Water/waste doesn’t fall down the middle of a pipe it runs down the sides of a pipe by a force I can’t remember the name of right now. It just continues to role down the edges and never comes close to “terminal velocity”.

Anonymous 0 Comments

How do they make the hot water so instantly hot, but at home i have to run it for 2 min before its hot?

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

Industrial maintenance here, highest building I worked in was 90m tall, shit pretty much falls straight down.

How do they make sure it doesn’t clog ? By hiring people like me and making sure it’ll flood the parking before flooding the building.

Note to you all, please stop throwing your tampons, news paper, lingerie, entire roll of paper and whatnot down the drain, thank you.

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]