Learn about the intricacies of underground plumbing systems and the crucial differences between sanitary and stormwater pipes in this comprehensive article. Gain an understanding of the importance of keynotes and line weights on plumbing drawings, and how these elements relate to real-life applications.
Key Insights
- In underground plumbing systems, the two prominent types are sanitary and stormwater, differentiated by different line weights on the drawing; the thinner line represents the sanitary pipe, while the darker one denotes the stormwater pipe.
- Understanding plumbing drawings requires careful attention to detail, including following and tracing the actual plumbing lines, and the sizes and types of pipes denoted by certain line types and keynotes.
- Responsibilities are divided between the civil engineer, who handles the entire property's civil infrastructure, and the plumbing engineer, who takes care of the plumbing within the building itself, ensuring a comprehensive and efficient system.
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The first of the plumbing drawings we're going to review is the underground plumbing underneath the garage. We have a keynote legend and you'll be going back and forth with this. The two dominant types of underground plumbing systems are sanitary and stormwater.
The two pipes are differentiated by different line weights on the drawing. So as we zoom in, you'll notice that there's one that's darker and one that's thinner. The thinner is the sanitary, the darker is the stormwater.
So you can see here it says there's a six inch storm from above. So this is essentially a drain pipe that then feeds into the system. This is a clean out that we'll see from the drawings.
And these all go to a storm structure. So just think about it. When we get a big rain, you don't want to flood the sanitation system with the additional water coming on the roof of the building.
You want to have it be diverted somewhere else. So there's a storm structure that's referenced here. And you can see it says approximate location.
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And then up here we have another storm system where it's coming down and it goes to a storm structure. And this note is essentially saying confirm location. Now one thing we need to know is that the civil engineer is responsible for the civil infrastructure on the entire property.
The plumbing engineer is responsible for the plumbing within the building itself. We have right in through here, again, that's one of the storm locations we mentioned a minute ago. We have a sanitary pipe that comes across here, which eventually goes to the city's sewage treatment system.
So what this drawing is saying is confirm from the civil drawings the location of the manhole and we'll be dumping all of our sanitary waste into this manhole. If we look at the drawings in general, what you'll notice is that we have a certain line type that's detailing the kind of pipe that it is. There are keynotes that again are over on the right hand side.
You'll find at the end of all the lines there are clean outs. They are calling the size of the actual pipes. And you'll notice that they start off small and as more things come together the size gets larger.
And this is typical throughout. So all of this then feeds into this system, which eventually goes to the manhole. Over on the right hand side of the building, similar kind of thing.
Again, as we zoom in, you can see the storm lines, sanitary lines, and there we go. So again, a four-inch line feeding into a six-inch. These drawings require that you pay a lot of attention to following and tracing the actual plumbing lines.
But if you begin your review down here at the underground plumbing, you'll start to understand how things above work as an overall collective system. Let's go on to our next drawing.