How do water towers work? Where does the water come from? How does it get in there? How much? WHY! What do we do with it? Why are they in such random places ???
In: Engineering
So I’m a controls engineer, and while I’ve never designed or programmed a water system, I’ve done some deep dives into their instrumentation and control schemes and therefore have a fair understanding of how they work.
Water towers are a way to pressurize a water system without constant use of mechanical means. The water generals comes from a well or reservoir, and if the municipality has a treatment plan then what is in the tower will be treated (chlorinated or filtered, other chemicals possibly to raise pH, etc.).
Towers are filled from pumps on the ground that take the water from whatever source and fill the tower. This saves money, because the pump only has to run until the tower is full. In a large city (I have some knowledge of the water system in the las Vegas valley), they use pumps to keep the mains pressurized because there is always demand. At lower demand times, the system can use less pumps but they always need pumps. Smaller towns don’t, so a tower allows them to keep the mains pressurized without a pump running. The tower also acts as a buffer so that the pumps don’t even have to be sized to keep up with instantaneous demand, the pump can be a smaller unit that fills the tank as it gets low.
I assume placement isn’t random, but that it is the best location for proximity to the water source and elevation to allow for the pressure needed to push water where it’s needed.
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