4 ms·

Out of curiosity, why would it be plumbing? There should be enough capacity to handle both fresh and black water, considering the high occupancy of typical offi

by jfim 4y ago

Out of curiosity, why would it be plumbing? There should be enough capacity to handle both fresh and black water, considering the high occupancy of typical office buildings.

grp000 4y ago
You need to run plumbing through the floors to every unit. The floors are structural.
- quickthrowman 4y ago
  You can drill dozens of 10” holes through a concrete floor in a commercial office tower. The structural part of the floor are the tensioned cables inside the concrete, as long as you dont’t sever those, you can drill a ton of holes without impacting the structural integrity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestressed_concrete https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestressed_concrete
  - grp000 4y ago
    I used to work in concrete construction, doing post tensioned and SOMD for elevated slab. Coring might be simpler for SOMD, but post tensioned has such a high density of cables that I don't think it would work.
    - loonster 4y ago
      Commercial buildings tend to have very high ceilings. Maybe build a raised floor and put the plumbing under there.
- tzs 4y ago
  Could you run vertical pipes on the outside in back of the building, and run horizontal pipes through space between adjacent apartments that you specifically leave for that purpose when converting the interior? If you need intermediate pumping stations or holding tanks due to the height of the building, those could be inside adjacent to the outside pipes.
wronglebowski 4y ago
I learned this when my company leased the floor of a big office building in Philly. You can do almost anything you want, except for with plumbing. Especially bathrooms. Despite having almost 150 desks there is a limit of 3 sinks, 6 stalls, 2 urinals, and 6 hand washing sinks. Full stop.
- jfim 4y ago
  Wow, thanks for sharing, I stand corrected. I wonder what causes these buildings to have such restrictions on plumbing. Maybe it's like elevator shafts where they eventually take up a lot of space if the building is very tall.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    It's more an issue of volume. People showing, doing laundry, cooking etc use significantly more water, so the pipes entering and leaving the building need to be sized differently. Conversely, adding more toilets, for example, may also pose a challenge. My dad helped design the plumbing system for a rebuild of a football stadium. One of the final tests was to have a bunch of volunteers go to every sink, toilet and urinal in the building and turn them on / flush them simultaneously to ensure that water pressure stayed high and the drain pipes didn't back up. Adding more toilets in a building not meant for them can be a big deal right after lunch / around "busy" times... Some may not be able to flush or overflow if the pipes can't handle the extra activity.
- johndoughy 4y ago
  > Despite having almost 150 desks there is a limit of 3 sinks, 6 stalls, 2 urinals, and 6 hand washing sinks. Full stop. Who instituted the limit? Was it in the lease terms, city ordinances, or something else?
  - zwkrt 4y ago
    I assume the pipe leading in and out of the building have a maximum capacity that was designed for office (i.e., no showers, washers, kitchens).
xeromal 4y ago
It's probably very expensive to retrofit a large office building to provide plumbing in every new unit. Most floors only have a handful of bathrooms and probably 1 or 0 showers.
danans 4y ago
Plumbing for both fresh and black water in many office buildings are limited to specific areas for high capacity restrooms, so you might have a large supply to one spot. That's not practical for housing, in which each unit needs its own plumbing. Retrofitting all that additional plumbing is expensive.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  But grey water is different, yes? Couldn't it be held in holding tanks and then allowed to flow out during off hours? Toilets are obviously a different story. But as long as no one is shitting in their kitchen or bathroom sink the water flow post-usage can in theory be managed.
  - danans 4y ago
    > Couldn't it be held in holding tanks and then allowed to flow out during off hours? I don't think it's a timing issue. The issue is that the fresh and wastewater plumbing simply doesn't exist in the places you'd expect in housing, so there can be a significant cost to adding it, beginning with just figuring out where you can run it through the existing spaces. A holding tank and whatever pipes then are used to empty it are still plumbing, and even more complex than regular plumbing, unless you are suggesting that people would haul their own waste out periodically. Also recall that wastewater pipes need to be at least slightly angled so that they drain properly using gravity, further constraining their potential paths. This can be quite difficult to design even when remodeling a regular house.
    - chiefalchemist 4y ago
      Not sure I agree. The other comments seem to say that office buildings are designed for a certain amount of water capacity. So even if you supplement (?) and add nodes (?) there's still a bottleneck of capacity. So, if water collected in tanks on each floor then it can be dripped out (so to speak) to not exceed capacity.
      - 4y ago
refurb 4y ago
Because most office buildings have plumbing run up a narrow corridor, rather than branching out on each floor, as you would need to serve plumbing to separate units.
dylan604 4y ago
It's all roses when you're living on the top floor. If you're on any other floor, waste water from other people's units will be flowing through your space. The lower your floor, the more of other people's waste will be flowing. I know this from experience of living in a building converted from commercial warehouse to residential. SSOL for those in Dallas
Ekaros 4y ago
I have also been thinking of this, but shouldn't they have quite a bit height? So you could easily install the needed plumbing in there.
pwinnski 4y ago
Many office buildings have a single bank of toilets per floor. If a given floor is subdivided into n apartments, n-1 of them are probably not proximal to the existing toilet plumbing, so it's an expense, at least.

by jfim 4y ago

Out of curiosity, why would it be plumbing? There should be enough capacity to handle both fresh and black water, considering the high occupancy of typical office buildings.

grp000 4y ago

You need to run plumbing through the floors to every unit. The floors are structural.

quickthrowman 4y ago
You can drill dozens of 10” holes through a concrete floor in a commercial office tower. The structural part of the floor are the tensioned cables inside the concrete, as long as you dont’t sever those, you can drill a ton of holes without impacting the structural integrity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestressed_concrete https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestressed_concrete
- grp000 4y ago
  I used to work in concrete construction, doing post tensioned and SOMD for elevated slab. Coring might be simpler for SOMD, but post tensioned has such a high density of cables that I don't think it would work.
  - loonster 4y ago
    Commercial buildings tend to have very high ceilings. Maybe build a raised floor and put the plumbing under there.
tzs 4y ago
Could you run vertical pipes on the outside in back of the building, and run horizontal pipes through space between adjacent apartments that you specifically leave for that purpose when converting the interior? If you need intermediate pumping stations or holding tanks due to the height of the building, those could be inside adjacent to the outside pipes.

wronglebowski 4y ago

I learned this when my company leased the floor of a big office building in Philly. You can do almost anything you want, except for with plumbing. Especially bathrooms. Despite having almost 150 desks there is a limit of 3 sinks, 6 stalls, 2 urinals, and 6 hand washing sinks. Full stop.

jfim 4y ago
Wow, thanks for sharing, I stand corrected. I wonder what causes these buildings to have such restrictions on plumbing. Maybe it's like elevator shafts where they eventually take up a lot of space if the building is very tall.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  It's more an issue of volume. People showing, doing laundry, cooking etc use significantly more water, so the pipes entering and leaving the building need to be sized differently. Conversely, adding more toilets, for example, may also pose a challenge. My dad helped design the plumbing system for a rebuild of a football stadium. One of the final tests was to have a bunch of volunteers go to every sink, toilet and urinal in the building and turn them on / flush them simultaneously to ensure that water pressure stayed high and the drain pipes didn't back up. Adding more toilets in a building not meant for them can be a big deal right after lunch / around "busy" times... Some may not be able to flush or overflow if the pipes can't handle the extra activity.
johndoughy 4y ago
> Despite having almost 150 desks there is a limit of 3 sinks, 6 stalls, 2 urinals, and 6 hand washing sinks. Full stop. Who instituted the limit? Was it in the lease terms, city ordinances, or something else?
- zwkrt 4y ago
  I assume the pipe leading in and out of the building have a maximum capacity that was designed for office (i.e., no showers, washers, kitchens).

xeromal 4y ago

It's probably very expensive to retrofit a large office building to provide plumbing in every new unit. Most floors only have a handful of bathrooms and probably 1 or 0 showers.

danans 4y ago

Plumbing for both fresh and black water in many office buildings are limited to specific areas for high capacity restrooms, so you might have a large supply to one spot. That's not practical for housing, in which each unit needs its own plumbing. Retrofitting all that additional plumbing is expensive.

chiefalchemist 4y ago
But grey water is different, yes? Couldn't it be held in holding tanks and then allowed to flow out during off hours? Toilets are obviously a different story. But as long as no one is shitting in their kitchen or bathroom sink the water flow post-usage can in theory be managed.
- danans 4y ago
  > Couldn't it be held in holding tanks and then allowed to flow out during off hours? I don't think it's a timing issue. The issue is that the fresh and wastewater plumbing simply doesn't exist in the places you'd expect in housing, so there can be a significant cost to adding it, beginning with just figuring out where you can run it through the existing spaces. A holding tank and whatever pipes then are used to empty it are still plumbing, and even more complex than regular plumbing, unless you are suggesting that people would haul their own waste out periodically. Also recall that wastewater pipes need to be at least slightly angled so that they drain properly using gravity, further constraining their potential paths. This can be quite difficult to design even when remodeling a regular house.
  - chiefalchemist 4y ago
    Not sure I agree. The other comments seem to say that office buildings are designed for a certain amount of water capacity. So even if you supplement (?) and add nodes (?) there's still a bottleneck of capacity. So, if water collected in tanks on each floor then it can be dripped out (so to speak) to not exceed capacity.
    - 4y ago

refurb 4y ago

Because most office buildings have plumbing run up a narrow corridor, rather than branching out on each floor, as you would need to serve plumbing to separate units.

dylan604 4y ago

It's all roses when you're living on the top floor. If you're on any other floor, waste water from other people's units will be flowing through your space. The lower your floor, the more of other people's waste will be flowing. I know this from experience of living in a building converted from commercial warehouse to residential. SSOL for those in Dallas

Ekaros 4y ago

I have also been thinking of this, but shouldn't they have quite a bit height? So you could easily install the needed plumbing in there.

pwinnski 4y ago

Many office buildings have a single bank of toilets per floor. If a given floor is subdivided into n apartments, n-1 of them are probably not proximal to the existing toilet plumbing, so it's an expense, at least.