Standard Plumbing Engineering Design

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PLUMBING ENGINEERING

HISTORY OF PLUMBING The history of plumbing has special significance to all who arc involved in the design and installation of plumbing systems. It provides depth of knowledge, broad objectivity, helpful guidance, needed cautions, and informative records of plumbing performance and adverse experiences. Recognition of past mistakes and learning from them provides an elevated basis for plumbing system design and installation. The progressive development of sanitary standards in America evolved from very primitive and rude beginnings. Intolerable health conditions and epidemics of waterborne diseases caused strong health protection measures to be adopted in highly populated metropolitan areas. Extcnsive disastrous tires in congested city rcgions led to construction of large public waterworks sy~lems used for both fire-fighting purposes and for potable water supply to buildings. Introduction of plumbing systems in buildings brought with it unique problems related to public health, personal hygiene, building design, plumbing- materials, advanced techniques, and governmental regulations. As these problems evolved during a revolutionary period of industry, the solutions den'loped were intimately related to new materials, methods, standards, and standardization. HislOry provides a clear record of many mi~lakes, bad practices, shoddy materials, and insanitary installations which were made in the introduction of plumbing systems into buildings. In each case, appropriale corrections had to be made and precautions prescribed for the future. Performance required of building plumbing systems gradually became a recognized subject, and a long list of plumbing principle~ was developed and published. The broad performance objective is to provide

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STANDARD PLUMBING ENGINEERING DESIGN

reasonable safeguards for sanitation in and adjacent to buildings to protect the public heahh, safety, and welfare against the hazards of inadequate or insanitary plumbing installations.

ANCIENT PLUMBING In ancient tImes, plumbing and sanitation wen: not alwavs pnmltive. Human beings elevated them to significant levels in past ages. HislOry reveals that one of lhe hmdamental diHerences between civilization and barbarism is related tu the imtallation of piping systems for providing an adequate, pressurized supply of safe drinking water, sanitary disposal of sewag-e, and efficient, unobjectionahle disposal of storm water. This is evidenced by the fad that those peoples who enjoyed high ('ivili/.ations in the past had developed plumbing- systems for protening healrh. Confirmation un this matter is provided in the reports of discoveries by archeologists while dig-g-ing in various parts of the world where ancient civilizations were known to have Hourished. For example, the ruim of a plumhing svstem estimated to be from 3000 to {iOOO years old were {(lUnd in excavations in the Indus River valley in India. In Egypt, sections of copper waler pipe estimated to he about .1500 years old were unearthed along with palace apartments in which each bedroom apparently bad btTH provided with a !>;lthroom. In the ancient empire of Balwlonia, a nation centered in lhe general area between the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers, the science ofhydraulie engineering- seems to have had its beginning. A nctwork of canals, all skillfully planncd