The History of Plumbing
A new day dawns. You cross the bedroom to relieve yourself of your morning's first pressure, which you have been holding for hours. When you are finally done, you wipe clean, flush the toilet and wash your hands with soap. Then you head to the kitchen where you prepare some coffee. The water temperature is just right because it has come from a water heater that is fed by hot water that flows into your house at all times. When it is time for breakfast, you open up your refrigerator and grab some milk. Plumbing makes sure that the milk stays cold—the same principle as applied when you used ice cubes in a cooler to keep your picnic food fresh on a sweltering summer afternoon. Unbeknownst to you, the water that fills up your toilet tank and makes its way into your coffee cup comes from a reservoir called Lake Michigan, which is hundreds of miles away. And yet it has been brought right to your doorstep through advanced infrastructure.
Plumbing has come a long way since humans started diverting water sources for their individual use. Through ingenuity and determination, we have developed systems capable of supplying our homes with clean, safe drinking water; draining wastewater; heating hot water; and more. This has not always been easy: engineers and scientists who pioneered the field had to overcome challenges such as muddy street-corner puddles (caused by horses that kicked up mud on rainy days) and unsanitary privy vaults (which were breeding grounds for cholera and other deadly diseases). Nevertheless, today, we take it for granted that water will flow out of our homes whenever we turn on the tap—and odds are, the water will be safe to drink. But how did plumbing evolve from simple hand-dug wells to complex municipal infrastructure? And how has it evolved over time in your own home?
Let's take a look at some of the milestones along the way.
Plumbing in Ancient Times
People have always needed water to survive, which is probably why early civilizations put so much effort into developing plumbing systems. Some of the earliest known examples of these can be found in Crete and Cyprus around 3600 BC, where aqueducts were used to transport water from sources outside of cities into residential areas. Around 300 AD, ancient Indian mathematics texts provided formulas for finding the volume of a sphere as well as the area of its curved surface—and that knowledge laid the foundation for building reservoirs to store large quantities of drinking water. But it wasn't until ancient Romans came up with new techniques for sinking deep wells and transporting their water through an underground network of pipes that plumbings systems became more evolved.
Roman lead pipe bearing the stamp of approval of the "quality control officer." ( CC BY 2.0 )
Evidence exists to show that Roman engineers knew how to work with lead—a fact demonstrated by remnants of their plumbing infrastructure uncovered in excavations throughout the world, including in Rome itself, where some 14,000 lead pipes were found when what was once Nero's palace was razed and rebuilt into what is now known as the Basilica di Massenzio. Lead does not corrode easily—and thus it was well suited for use in holding drinking water, which could then be distributed by smaller channels made out of clay or stone. However, although it is often true that "what is old is new again," lead has since been found to be too dangerous for use in plumbing, due to the fact that it can leach into drinking water (which would explain why people often refer to "lead poisoning").
Luckily, advances were made even during the Roman empire. One of these was the creation of extensive public baths and under-floor heating systems. As part of building projects undertaken by Emperor Caracalla between 212 and 216 AD, he commissioned vast baths that could accommodate around 1,600 bathers at a time. The bathing complex included marble floors decorated with intricate mosaic patterns; vaulted ceilings; and huge windows through which natural light streamed. There were also steam rooms—called sudatoria—as well as dressing rooms with lockers, or "apodyteria," in which patrons could store their clothes. In addition, a great hall for an exercise called a palaestra was outfitted with columns and statues of ancient heroes such as Achilles and Heracles.
The ancient Roman baths were so advanced that some of the design elements have been incorporated into modern-day structures—for instance, the hypocaust central heating system is thought to be the predecessor of the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems used today. Being able to control room temperature allowed people to bathe comfortably all year round—even during winter months when outside temperatures dropped below freezing. One can also surmise from extant texts that Roman bathers would have enjoyed hot, cold, and tepid rooms for their own sake—that is to say, not merely as a means of preparing the body for exercise. In other words, it seems that people went beyond taking advantage of bathing facilities simply as a way to ensure cleanliness.
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