this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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Explain Like I'm Five

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How can there be functioning bathrooms in high rises? (self.explainlikeimfive)
submitted 4 months ago by krowbear to c/explainlikeimfive
28 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It seems like such a huge amount of water and would require so much energy to get it that high, plus there's the waste to deal with

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[–] jqubed 45 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I’m no expert, but I’ve looked at this in the past. Most large buildings have their own water tanks inside them. If you think of an image of a New York skyline away from the skyscrapers you might picture small water towers on top of most of the buildings. Those are the tanks that supply water for the building. Skyscrapers will have multiple tanks inside the building itself, maybe one every 5 or 10 floors up. There will always be one at the top of the building but it might not be as obvious looking as a small water tower. Each tank will serve just the floors in between it and the next tank below. When the tank needs to be refilled it just draws from the tank below it. This way the building doesn’t pump all the water it needs all the way to the top floor; it only pumps water as high as it needs to go. Keeping water in a tank means it still works like a traditional gravity-fed system and should function for a while even in the event of a power outage.

Handling wastewater is relatively easier, it still just needs to flow down. The pipes just drain into one or more pipes going down to the bottom of the building.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

It still has to pump it the elevation though?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

Yes.

Take New York for example. It is my understanding that New York's municipal water system has enough pressure to pump water 5 stories high, so many of the relatively smaller buildings have large wooden water tanks on their roofs to keep that building's water pressure relatively constant even during peak demand times. Larger buildings are responsible for pumping their own water hundreds of feet into the air.

[–] jqubed 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yes, but multiple tanks throughout the building means they don’t have to pump all the water all the way to the top. They only need to pump the water for the highest floors to the top.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Ah, thanks for the clarification. That makes a lot of sense.