2 stacks can be used here for this entire 1240 sf dwelling unit, which is next level efficiency. Since this is in Switzerland, the single stack (Hauptentlüftung) will be used here as well - no vent piping except at the top floor!

You may laugh, but the ‘top 10k most blocked accounts’ list in Appendix B is very useful.

Cat with the tenant water meters in Shenzhen

Sewer NIMBYs persisted in the US, UK, France, Germany and other industrializing countries into the late 19th century because people were afraid that they spread disease. Cesspools were the alternative for water-based sanitation and they alone made the best case for doing literally anything else.

This was my childhood Wikipedia rabbit-hole.

the open building concept takes this a step further - pushing the plumbing infrastructure also into the installation/insulation layer. this can be achieved through a variety of means to accommodate - including a floating floor. this means no plumbing drops into apartment/condo below

Pipe penetrations through a mass timber slab.

Holiday reading material: Two more volumes of Sanitary Reform in Victorian Britain and Katharina Borsi’s new book on the Berlin tenement boom of the late 19th/early 20th century.

This is such a problem in Europe that special valves are sometimes used for the sanitary drain where it connects to the sewer to prevent rats from entering.

This is also an all-electric building. You can see the CO2 heat pump water heaters on the roof in this photo, which were prefabricated with the tanks and dropped into place. For every kW of electricity, 3 kW of heat is produced.

I received approval to eliminate the vents for the floor drains connecting into the sanitary stacks (a requirement in the plumbing code) on this project and the cost estimates showed eliminating vents for that one fixture alone saved tens of thousands of dollars.

"any slight rearrangement of plumbing...will not come too late to help the sick man [POTUS] and his watchers. It is almost impossible, however, that the White House should ever become a fit place of habitation."

Excited to add @sightline.org to this coalition letter declaring it "unacceptable that it costs up to five times more in the United States than in Europe to build and maintain an elevator" & advancing specific solutions. Your org should probably join too! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The Portland row-houses are a good example of what major gains in zoning reform produce without building code reform. It’s simultaneously a win for affordable urban housing and an indictment of our ability to produce multifamily housing comparable in quality and features to more urban countries.

For context, one of the major plumbing code issues that needed to get resolved for the NYC modification was the local requirement for a massive 4 inch vent for the sanitary drainage piping through the roof. This requirement was introduced in 1881 to prevent snow from blocking the opening.

TFW you’re granted a 50% discount on a €480 ($570 USD) pdf. Austrian Standards is the Gucci of building codes.

Wastewater treatment plants are incredible technological marvels but they really aren’t built for what we expect them to do. Natural unscented laundry and personal care products can address the issue at the source, but they’re often at a cost premium and less available, so actual usage is low.

19th century drainage pipe sealing technology and methods were lacking and sometimes allowed sewer gases to escape between the pipe joints. Miasma theory suggested incidents like the one depicted here were a primary source of disease spread.

A significant move Vancouver made this week was moving forward with enabling novel Single Egress & Space Efficient Stairs. Led by the great team in Development, Buildings & Licensing, supported closely by Vancouver Fire Rescue Service; and Planning this will be transformative for low-rise apartments

“When we consider the immense value of night soil as a manure, it is quite astounding that so little attention is paid to preserve it. The quantity is immense which is carried down by the drain in London to the River Thames, serving no other purpose than to pollute is waters.” Justus von Liebig 1842

Willamette River:

“no one was really sure what caused cholera until Robert Koch identified the cholera bacillus in 1883…even around the germ theory of disease which has often been posited as transformative for medical science, there was uneven acceptance: new ideas were usually accommodated within existing paradigms”

Grassytrams are an effective urban stormwater management strategy, converting impervious areas into a green zone that eliminates 50%-70% of runoff.

Plumbing in multifamily buildings encompasses a set of complex systems, with stunning qualities of materials and labor associated with the design and installation.

The first batch of homes are going to drop next year in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation).

One of my niche phobias is walking under one of these while it’s raining and have a large drop of water, richly infused with diverse colonies of bacteria and fungi, hit me in the face.

A 25 unit apartment building will house hundreds, maybe even thousands of people over its 50-100 year lifespan, which is why it’s insane that we let a small contingent of change-averse busybodies block new housing.

California, Washington, Minnesota, and Hawaii are some of the only places in the world that require these special devices to be installed on the drains from dishwashers. 🧵

i’ve always found the 2016 cooper union bathroom signage redesign, a result of successful advocacy by trans students, to be a brilliant, elegant solution. cooper.edu/about/restro...

Another example of the NYC Plumbing Code making the cost of a plumbing installation more expensive by requiring vent piping for bathroom fixtures with no benefit whatsoever. No evidence supporting the statement made that vent piping helps prevent blockages, despite the prevalence of this myth.

American public restrooms are so unpleasant and we really should adopt typical design approaches used elsewhere.

What’s going on at South Korean construction sites.

Sorry we didn’t have room for a lavatory in the “Master Roksn” because it needed two doors and a lot of empty wall space. Head over to the more spacious Powder Room next door to wash your hands in the micro toilet.

The plumbing installation in the lower left would be illegal in most eastern US cities but is permitted on the entire West Coast. Here's why. 🧵

‘No ceiling’ is going to reveal the poor MEP coordination and plumbing code violations for all to see.

The exorbitant hidden cost of in-unit washing machines can be significantly reduced with rational updates to plumbing codes.

Happy Tenement Tuesday to all who celebrate.

By increasing the diameter of the drainage stack for a kitchen sink from 2 inches to 3 inches, all of the vent piping can be eliminated. This isn’t however allowed in most major American cities. NYC adopted the International Plumbing Code but deleted sections 913 and 917 that would allow this.

Ventilation was one of the original public health measures featured in early building codes in London and New York City. While contaminated water supplies were the real cause of cholera and typhoid outbreaks, airborne disease spread and high CO2 levels continue to plague modern buildings today.

MIT’s 19th century single stack test rig. The German and Danish construction sector have benefited significantly from early American research in this area for well over 100 years yet most American plumbing engineers still aren’t familiar with the single stack today.

“The committee has collected a large number of plumbing codes, State laws, and local ordinances and given them careful study. The situation may be described as chaotic.” 1929

Your regular reminder that Joe Biden did not in fact rig the election to change the water consumption of dishwashers at McDonald’s. I can think of exactly one person that would do this.

so at tonight's single stair and code talk, @stephenjacobsmith.com brought the good stuff. people were floored. 'architects don't design buildings, codes do'

World Toilet Day is a good time to revisit some staggering statistics on sanitation: 3.4 billion people live without safely managed sanitation (WHO/UNICEF, 2025). 🧵

It's World Toilet Day, a United Nations reminder that toilets should be accessible to all. In honour of the day, here's a roundup of some of my recent posts on toilets: lloydalter.substack.com/p/bonus-post...

NIST’s report, which is a review of existing literature on the single stack, came 2 years after Alan Wise with the BRS went on an educational tour in the US, visiting various cities and publishing articles for the American audience on the single stack.

The urbanism of Edinburgh in 1861

The single stack (Fig 105) was always the most obvious solution for drainage, but the dual concern over siphonage and cleaning miasma from drainage pipes (to prevent contamination of the water in the traps) resulted in a much more complex configuration with vent piping installed at traps (Fig 107).

If NIST and HUD were properly funded, they would rebuild the drainage testing tower that they removed several decades ago, and build it as a single stack with clear drainage piping - then invite AHJs, plumbing code TC members, engineers, plumbers, architects, ect to see for themselves.

Sold out seats for the @thewaroncars.bsky.social book launch tour in Vancouver @uytaelee.bsky.social @brooklynspoke.bsky.social @sgoodyear.bsky.social