Vented building traps are mandatory in NYC at the building connection to the sewer, which can force vent piping into to some awkward locations. The pink box encasing the vent piping restricts access to the door in an otherwise open space. (photo from by @stephenjacobsmith.com)

It’s actually a pretty good tell about whether a building was built pre- or post-1881. A lot of buildings in NYC are a lot older than you’d think (and certainly older than city records claim). You can see examples of them here, older ones especially downthread: bsky.app/profile/pipe...

Huh so strange I wonder why they pushed out so many people at NIST actually doing work intended to lead to evidence-based building codes. 🤔

It’s always funny to me when plumbing codes in different regions not only have completely different requirements but will actually prohibit what is explicitly required in another code. Case in point: US vs German requirements on the minimum allowable drop in height between trap and stack/vent.

The sheer amount of these signs suggest a critical design flaw in urban spaces.

Despite being a really good overall floor plan, the bathroom is going to be such a nuisance. The orientation of the bathtub means the shower valve will be on the wall opening to the rest of the unit, turning the corridor into a sound cannon when the shower is running.

The real mystery re: Canadian grocery stores is how are there more Trader Joe’s tote bags per capita here than anywhere else on the planet but zero Trader Joe’s. 🤔

America, where the expensive soap wrapped in a manifesto is cheapest. $8.66 USD = £6.49 GBP 🇬🇧 $5.86 USD = $7.99 CAD 🇨🇦 $5.59 USD 🇺🇸

I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post with Allie Cannington – at The Kelsey, a disability-forward affordable housing developer – about how America's elevator accessibility rules backfire for small buildings, and about how a clarification from HUD could fix it www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

World Plumbing Day, established in Beijing on March 11 in 2010 by the World Plumbing Council, is dedicated to highlighting the impact of plumbing on public health, water resources, inequality.

Speaking of circular sanitation, La Bistoquette in Geneva completed construction several weeks ago. This mass timber cooperative has over 100 homes and every WC flush is directed to an earthworm composter onsite, where the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium can be returned to the soil.

10 million people live in Tehran.

“Can we have high speed rail?” “No, we have a cornfield at home.”

NIMBYs trying to get people enraged by using an image of beaming rays of sunshine on a tower in a dense urban landscape filled with trees.

This Kitsilano McMansion is 90% painted ornamentation. @katewagner.wehwalt.net

Me peering through the fence of every construction site I pass by.

Oh hey, I designed the plumbing for this building.

A single stack spotted, possibly for a washing machine or a floor drain. 👀 I had to submit an AMMR to do this on a project in Portland.

Incredible that this is just a short walk from one of the densest neighborhoods in North America.

Someone had the audacity to try to patent the concept of venting traps which resulted in a lawsuit shortly after NYC started requiring trap venting in 1881. An article in The Sanitary Engineer covers the trial, where evidence is given to past installations with trap venting.

This water closet featured in the 1770 book ‘L'Art Menuisier’ by the Parisian carpenter André Roubo has a bidet seat with side controls. This predates Alexander Cumming’s WC by 5 years, which is widely considered to be the first modern WC.

Concern over sewer gases was great enough in the 19th century that manufacturers were selling traps for plumbing fixtures with mercury in them (1881 advertisement).

The Sanitary Engineer (1885) shows how water is supplied to high-rises without overpressurizing the lower floors. The intermediate tank solution is used here in the New York Tribune Building, which receives water from the roof tank. The roof tank has an express riser fed by the pump.

Just like CECOT, the documents Social Circle shared shows they’re planning for a wastewater treatment plant on-site as well as a large water storage tank that will fill during off-peak hours (because it would otherwise depressurize the water for the rest of the town).

Dumping recycling and garbage into a TrashMasher™️ while yelling about not being responsible for the fate of the planet with the backdrop of stars and stripes is just too on the nose for the 1970s.

Supertalls like 432 Park Ave actually do have water tanks and they’re an important part of keeping pressures from exceeding the pressure rating of the piping system.

We need Whimsy Mandates

This is a big problem, especially in Denmark - a nation of LEGO abundance. Lavatories often do not have a ‘LEGO P-trap catcher’ and get sent straight to the floor drain below the grate. 💀

“is there a technology that the left is excited about?” Yes, but this kind of smart, energy efficient, all-electric, heat generating machine is illegal in the US and Canada.

missed this but it's right up my alley. gary klein talking about how better floorplans deliver better performance, on passive house accelerator systems based thinking leads to better efficiency (and happier residents) youtu.be/lr8dbP8LdMA

The Garchey makes an appearance in @holsmith.bsky.social’s new book on residential towers in Britain. 👀

China’s ‘双碳’ (Dual Carbon) national decarbonization strategy of hitting peak carbon emissions in 2030 and net zero carbon by 2060 is ahead of schedule.

If you are an architect, developer, or contractor who works on high-rise buildings in the US and has some very vague familiarity with the costs and complexity of high-rise systems (fire command centers, stair pressurization, generators, etc.), could you email me? [email protected]

Dog restrooms are increasingly being added as an amenity to apartment buildings. Rooftop locations however pose an exceptional risk, particularly where cast-iron drainage piping is installed (required in many areas). Urine is corrosive to cast-iron and will leak through into penthouse unit ceilings.

The extent that public spaces are essentially giant dog latrines is really unfortunate.

A plumbing engineer friend and colleague in Detroit just dug this up for me, which contains some information on the ‘Detroit single stack’. This is a single stack configuration but prohibits WC connections.

Social housing has led to some incredible innovations in the past. Watch this space!

folks! 'Seattle Council unanimously approved ILA between City of Seattle & Seattle Social Housing, which will transfer approx. $115 million in funds this year to acquire & build permanently affordable & publicly owned housing for hundreds of working Seattleites.' wilson.seattle.gov/2026/02/11/m...

February but over 50°F (10°C) and sunny in Vancouver. 😌

Update

There’s a method for remotely tracking disease spread without ever accessing a site. Sewage contains troves of information and a water sample collected from a city owned manhole downstream of a building or neighborhood can be analyzed to determine levels of bacteria, viruses, and pharmaceuticals. 🧵

inadequate food inadequate ventilation inadequate privacy inadequate restrooms they are warehousing people in inhumane conditions

European cities became what they are today by doing the inverse of this. “OUR city isn’t [insert name of American sprawling suburb here].” *proceeds to rip up pavement and put trees, beautiful apartment buildings, cafes on quiet streets, protected bike lanes and 15 minute cities everywhere*

Milan Winter Olympics kicked off on a stage shaped like a giant centrifugal pump, the primary pump type used for pressurizing water systems today. The centrifugal pump was invented by Italian engineer Francesco di Giorgio Martini in 1475.

The 2 inch shower drain requirement is staggeringly excessive and the NYC Plumbing Code goes out of the way to deviate from the adopted model code to maintain this traditional requirement.

Headed back to the UK for the World Plumbing Conference in June!

My clothes washing machine sings me this (characteristic feature of Samsung models)

American sanitation practices are primarily based on striking the British with shame, even if we end up looking like weirdos in process

Very comprehensive Vox article on building code research and reform efforts across the country, fearing John Zeanah’s report for the Center for Building on low-rise multifamily housing and Michael Eriksen’s academic work on building code costs www.vox.com/future-perfe... (gift link)

Immigrants are good, actually. Instead of terrorizing them, we should—as a nation of immigrants—welcome them and aspire to be more like them.