Is the water always up there?
How does the water get up there? I assume pumps but it all just doesn’t compute in my brain.
In: 1075
Water towers are used for two main features –
1. The act as water-pressure batteries. You pump the water once and fill the tower and now all that water is up high. Ideally it’s higher than any toilet or sink in the whole area. This way when you flush your toilet the water naturally goes down from the tower, across town in pipes, and up to your toilet tank all from the potential energy stored by pumping the water up. A big problem for domestic water is keeping it safe to drink, they solve this by keeping a constant pressure outwards from the tower to the faucet. This way and leak or break in a pipe would push water out rather than sucking bad stuff in.
2. EDIT SEE BELOW – They are self refilling. You pump the tower once and then leave it’s “water-in” pipe connected to the reservoir. As the tower drains it creates a natural suction that will suck water up the water-in pipe like you suck soda up a straw. So you don’t need constantly fill them 24/7.
EDIT – I was totally wrong about # 2 and I’ll own that. I’ll leave it there so people know I said wrong and learn from it. Thanks for everyone who helped explain why what I thought was impossible, I clearly misremembered something from school.
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