Wash your worries down the drain.
Plumbing is an ancient trade passed down through one-on-one interaction for millennia. While archaeologists say that agriculture allowed people to live closer together, it was the first plumbing projects where irrigation to the fields permitted society to grow. In time, plumbing grew to provide fresh water and remove wastewater from habitation areas. And now, there are several different subsystems comprise what we call a “high-rise residential tower plumbing system” today.
High-rise residential tower plumbing systems: what do they do?
So, what does modern-day plumbing look like today? High-Rise Residential Tower Plumbers work on the following systems:
- Domestic Water (fresh hot and cold water to the taps):
This includes the piping from the wall to the fixture and the piping in the walls back to the mechanical room. This is where the water comes into the building and is split into a fire protection system, cold, then hot, which is heated and sent out in separate parallel piping systems. - Sanitary (drainage from fixtures to city sewer):
A fixture (such as a toilet or sink) combines Sanitary and Domestic systems. Sanitary systems run from a drain at a fixture to a stack, down to a sanitary building drain and then out to the city sewer system.
Sanitary is the most highly regulated system. Why? Remember when you were a kid and held your thumb on the top of a straw, and the water would suspend itself in the straw and not fall out? This is the problem we deal with every day. The solution is called venting, the inverse of the drainage system most people don’t know about. Even engineers don’t draw it in most of the time! (We’ll stop venting about that now) - Storm (conveying rainwater from rooftops and green spaces to city sewer):
This is one of the most straightforward systems. It runs from any roof drain, deck drain, or any outside space down to the city storm sewer. This often runs close to the sanitary system (but not always). - Hydronic Heating (using water to move heat from the source to a unit with a fan and heat exchangers to pull the heat from the water into the air):
There are many different strategies for hydronic heating, but essentially, there are heaters in a unit that pull heat from the water and deposit the heat into the air. Then pipes in the wall supply (to the unit) and return (to the mechanical room) to be heated again and cycled back. The mechanical room can be vast and complicated in large buildings. Heat reclamation has become the norm as we all strive to lower our energy usage. - Gas (providing natural gas to cooktops, BBQs, boilers and direct hot water heaters):
Most modern residential towers have high-end finishes, which include natural gas appliances such as gas cooktops and outdoor BBQ boxes. The system starts at a meter pad provided by the utility company and runs through stages of pressure reduction before making its way to each fixture. - Irrigation (providing water to planters and grass for maintenance):
Often, projects include multiple buildings in one large hole with a shared parkade. Between the structures, we create green spaces for people to enjoy as a community. With this, we need to provide water to the plants, which must be a separate system from the domestic water for safety reasons.
See our high-rise residential tower plumbing capabilities
“High-rise residential tower plumbers don’t just supply plumbing, heating and gas systems behind the wall of a home – they provide the framework that allows society to live together comfortably.” – Michael Anderson
What makes our high-rise residential tower plumbers different?
Besides being ticketed and seasoned professional tradespeople with wide and deep expertise, our high-rise residential tower plumbers also have an immense sense of pride in their work and take a forward-thinking approach to construction.
Their attention to detail and passion for making the industry goes beyond designing and installing high-rise residential tower plumbing systems. An entire department reviews drawings, finds issues and provides constructible solutions for all types of residential projects before boots even hit the ground.
Agriculture might have transitioned people from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to reside together in communities, but it was plumbing that made living together sanitary and comfortable. And when it comes to making people comfortable, the high-rise residential tower plumbers at True Mechanical are masters.
