As a process operator at a waste treatment plan, thanks for giving our awful, yet incredibly important service a spotlight. This all looks pretty good to my eye. You definitely have a bigger budget than my plant though, as horrifying as that might sound. And flushable wipes do a real number on septic tanks too!
We have a septic tank, and absolutely nothing goes down there but water, waste and septic safe detergents and paper. We hear flushable wipes horror stories from our maintenance company, too.
I work in Construction and it‘s really sad how most people react when you tell them you build sewer lines because they dont recognize without them they would need to poop in the woods
Jan: When I was a little boy I had just a couple of toys to play with. My favorite was a ( actual STEEL ) toy front loader. I would sit in the dirt or my sand box for hours digging and digging and digging. When asked by another little boy or girl, Mom or Dad, or another adult what I was doing, I would always proudly boast, "I'm digging a sewer line!" ( The sticks I buried represented the pipe. )
Interesting fact: Sewers are only modern in how we know them today. On the Isle of Crete nearly 4,000 years ago, the ancient Minoans had a very efficient, albeit primitive, sewer system. There is even evidence to suggest that they had properly functioning indoor plumbing. The sewers were a mixture of open-topped drains and clay pipes and the lavatories are actually thought to have been able to “flush” with the assistance of an overhead water reservoir. Additionally, the Minoans even utilized these plumping methods to carry fresh water into their city some 2,500-3,000 years before the Roman’s introduced and used their aqueducts.
We should all take a moment to appreciate the scientists and engineers who ended up going into wastewater treatment as a career. It's definitely not glamorous but it is so incredibly important.
@@nickryan3417 probably someone who goes to school for civil engineering and then ends up working for a city with a sewer system. On the flip side, people explicitly go into the business of septic tank service which probably involves a lot more direct contact with human waste. For jobs like that, and trash hauling, there is sometimes an above average opportunity for pay since as your comment implies, the job is unattractive for many people.
I remember someone representing the flushable wipe companies coming to WEFTEC several years back and trying to tell a room full of civil engineers that their wipes WERE flushable and it was our fault they were clogging pumps. He got booed off the stage. Glad people like you and Adam Ruins Everything are helping bring awareness to how bad those wipes are.
What amazes me is that anyone expects a material that holds its structural integrity while soaking wet to be a drop in replacement for one specifically designed to breakdown in water.
Municipalities should be able to sue these companies. "Flushable?" Yes technically. So are a lot of things. Safe to flush? Hell nah. Screw them for making that claim.
Yeah we need to pray for our technology and those who have the knowledge. Stop talking nonsense. Also most people would adapt quickly to "poop in the woods" and other post-apocaliptic stuff, what would you say then? That "most people take their life for granted"?
@@nadMoZzzg Are you ok dude? We're adaptable, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate what we have. I much prefer having indoor plumbing over your anti-social bs, thank you very much.
@@nadMoZzzg What's your problem, really? That all people should take gratidude in our glorious sewage systems, but aren't? Or, just me guessing, you bought a Tiny House on wheels, but regret it. Because, out of many problems UA-camrs skip, the black water isn't easy to get rid of on land you don't own. Not even on land you own, to be honest. When an outside toilet gets full, you have to spread that composted fecal matter somewhere, and you better have a good field, both in size and yield, to disperse your useless dung. Imagine 7.9 billion people leaving their manure without nutrition all over, as the sewer plants stops. Most people can adapt to shitting in a plastic bag, but then what? You, my friend "lilSnowflake", would need 14-15 able bodied men to patrol and work your 200 acre property (100 acre crop 25 acre firewood 75 acre split between 5 dirt poor families you employ.), and you would've think you won over modern society. But in fact, you lost all ability to take a plane to visit your old grandma, or you're young grandkids, none of your family can get medical help. You discarded your ability to take a student loan and become the next George Lucas. And don't even get me started on those so unlucky to not own or rent anything when all of this is happening (again). Hellooo porridge, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because emultion softly creeping Left it oats while I was sleeping And the vision that was plantet in my brain It still remains It's the sound, of porridge.
All Thanks to ancient Egypt... EU states dumb as cockroaches and reply on repetition. This civilization would have been further if supremacy mindset would have been capped.
Please PLEASE make this a series. I’ve always been fascinated with “water works” as they were called when I was growing up, and still love seeing how they work, how waste is processed, broken down, separated, etc.
My neighbor works for our city's waste treatment department. He was explaining to me, once, about how the waste is processed and how solids are removed. It was fascinating. I'd love to see you do a video on this topic. Thank you, Brady, for all of your great videos.
I'm a wastewater operator in California and I can't tell you how much I loath those dang "flushable" wipes. I wish more people understood how damaging they are from flush to treatment plant. Thank you for shedding some light on the subject.
Then there need to be regulations prohibiting companies from marketing them as "flushable" just to make money. Yet another evil of capitalism, destructive lies
As someone who inspects sewer on the opposite side of the US, flushable wipes are anything but flushable. We had a TV crew go out and check on a house that was backing up, since the homeowner had called a plumber and they ran a camera from their end. Reviewing our video, their connection was completely blocked by wipes caught on a combination of roots and the lip of the connection.
I would say that the oversizing of buried pipelines that are not expected to operate at full bore (such as sewers and other drains) is almost always the right economic decision. The costs of retrofitting buried infrastructure vastly outweigh the marginal cost of increased pipe diameters during initial construction.
All things are engineered oversize, this is the nature of uncertainty. The question is by how much and can you show non-arbitrary reasoning for that amount. 1.2x 2x 5x? Or estimated population and habit changes for the next 10 years 50 years 500 years? (And how much variation is inherent in those long term estimates?) If 50 years is a good target why not 40 or 60?
@@mytech6779 Luckily there are many models and methodologies to choose from. However, my experience (having worked on a lot of water projects - clean, foul and other effluents) is that the oversizing for futureproofing is often determined by budget constraints and ground conditions when it comes down to it.
@@csatterley this has been my experience as well, but I've also been out of that whole field for several years now. One big outlier was a city that had the chance to redo their system top to bottom and they planned it out brilliantly, even accounting for major future growth and expansion in coverage area. The dude in charge of that project was meticulous and smart as hell.
I just want to thank all the workers. These ppl should be appreciated and acknowledge...not celebrities or fake modern social stars. Thank you for the hard work.
Look at the smooth curves of the brickwork at 01:55. All of it laid by hand by skilled bricklayers 150 years ago. They would be so proud to see it still in perfect condition and still in use 150 years later!
That is a great point. Some of the very best masonry ever built will likely never be seen, but for the few people to venture into a sewer. Both piping and manholes. Often, multiple layers thick and still as reliable and effective as the day they were first used.
Not to detract from the quality of workmanship done by those brick layers but I would say that the "smoothness" of the brick work is almost certainly due in large part from the fact that the tunnels have been subjected to ~150 years of erosion from the waste water flowing through the system, rounding off every hard edge like stones in a river.
That brick work caught my eye aswell, it's nothing short of artistic. I really enjoy examining the trade works of earlier generations, vary difficult to reproduce.
Oval brick pipe was common in combined sewers which conveyed both sanitary and storm flows. The small diameter at the bottom maintained relative depth to promote cleaning velocity at low flows while the larger diameter provided capacity for the occasional much larger storm events.
Please don’t, haha. As a wastewater operator, my plant doesn’t like them. My wallet like the overtime, but pulling hundreds of pounds of rags a week from my aeration basins isn’t worth it
In the days following hurricane Ian, we were asked to avoid putting anything down the drain because there was no power to the lift stations. Of course, not everyone thought they needed to heed that, so sewer covers on some low streets had raw sewage bubbling out. Makes me appreciate the system and the work of the people who keep it working. Being able to flush is a blessing!
Yep, there's always a few... 🤦🏻♀️ Had the same problem here with my outside drains after big earthquake, when liquefaction silt completely blocked all onsite drainage (stormwater, greywater or blackwater) but abusive neighbour down the back just wouldn't stop flushing, using washing machine etc... Thankfully at least having raw sewage flowing down the back lawn finally induced the owner to move him out! (He left 7 of his 8 cats behind though, so then I had months of working with humane society to trap & rehome those...) TLDR: Sadly, some people with cognitive impairments just should NOT be living alone in the community; they really do need shared living facilities where they can have supportive supervision and won't endanger their neighbours, particularly in crisis situations...
There in fact are “sewer police,” at least at the larger systems. They won’t be able to figure out which house is flushing string mop heads (that happens) but if you are a metal plating shop that bypasses your pretreatment system that will be noticed.
In the right situation i'm sur÷ a household that flushes completely incorrect items too often (like someone who rips up and flushes every bit of trash and plastic (there are weird people out there) will leave evidence once the house line hits the main line. The water doesn't go backwards so it'll be debris free upstream, and there will probably be a buildup of trash right outside that homes tie in. I've heard of repeat diaper flushers causing non stop issues with apartments, and there have to be people like that on the public sewer too. Same with flushing ALL the cat litter down the drain. In the right situations all that will be visible as to who did it...
Surprised you didn't include anything about lift stations which are used when the sewage pipe hits a low point and needs to be pumped upwards to give itself more grade. As you said the worst products for jamming up these pumps are grease, wipes, tampons, pads and condoms. I am so happy flushable wipes weren't popular back when I worked there for a couple years.
Those wipes must be causing lots of issues to pumping machines and "quiet" runs of pipe. I've seen the damage they can cause in home sewer pipes, let alone huge systems. Plus the people who manage to flush baby diapers. I'll be happy with my septic system :) i had nightmares of city sewer backing up into my old house.
I've seen 3 phase, 50kW+ pumps being braked by these so called "flushable" wipes. Multiple times a week. This would cause sewage overflows into the sea/fields and streets. I honestly don't know if it is possible for utility companies to sue manufacturers for damages until they remove the flushable writing from the packaging.
wastewater treatment was by far the hardest subject i remember taking in civil. Our prof was awful. I remember a design-build i worked on a decade ago where the contractor followed the slope of the road which was quite steep leading to self cleansing velocity well over 6m/s. Spent a lot of time looking at CCTV's with drainage engineers to see if pipe walls were degrading faster than normal.
I need to express how much I appreciate your wit, wisdom and skill at putting things into terms the layman can easily grasp! Thank you for all the effort you make!
Fake Poop really killed it on that feature, the track was mellowing out, then he just rushed it with some slick hot bars, 10/10 song, adding to playlist ASAP! Can’t wait to see how you guys collaborate next.
It’s the least appreciated yet probably one of the most important pieces of engineering in the modern world; clean water, waste management, and many other things.
One of my top five favorite college classes was a civil engineering water quality management course. It was so well taught by a professor that really enjoyed what he did. He would give choices for essay exam questions so you could pick and there was always the option for doing two or more all extra credit if you wanted to. Dr. Philips...thank you because you made a difference for me.
If you ever see tiny concrete houses in your neighborhood that are locked up, it's probably a lift station. As he said, plants rely on gravity to move influent so sometimes they need to pump it upwards to move it from homes lower in elevation. That's what's happening in those little houses
We have collector tanks at street level closed off by hatches in my city that contain those pumps and the controlling unit sits next to them in an equipment case closed off with a lock. The lift stations can be 10 meters deep and require special tools to hoist the pumps out of them should they be malfunctioning due to (for instance) flushable wipes.
"There are no wastewater police" oh I get to be the well technically nerd on the internet! If there is someone dumping a lot of high concentration waste someone at the wastewater plant will likely notice. If it's bad enough they can start popping manhole covers to track back to whoever is dumping. Of course that's most likely going to be at minimum thousands of gallons of waste to be noticeable enough to annoy someone into tracking down the culprit.
In the UK water companies do trace detectable illegal waste back up the system, where I work we can have to send samples from our waste plant for checking and can get random check visits to make sure we don't exceed our allowance of particles, oils etc.
@@Ja2808R yes, the system will branch and not just randomly flow around. You pull the samples at each branch, and pollutants will be far more concentrated in the direction of the source, letting you narrow it down pretty quickly.
We never think about this kinda thing when imagining the past, like the fact we can go to sports events with 70 000 people, yet still go to the bathroom in a relatively sanitary & private manner is pretty astounding. The history books don't mention it, but imagine going for a dump at a gladiator match at the Flavian amphitheater, it would be so damn nasty.
This is my exact thought when I imagine what it would be like to be in any kind of city or otherwise crowded area or event, before the invention of modern waste treatment. I suppose the areas in India that still do open defecation are kind of a modern example though. But in the past there was no guarantee for clean water, no antibiotics, and not even an understanding of bacteria, viruses and parasites. It must have just been so horrible and deadly to live in areas like that in the past.
@spikesya the romans did have sewage system and public toilets. The waste water flowed untreated into the next river, but still amazing. And a lot better than what was done in the middle ages, where there was a kind of canal in the middle of the road and rain water would take it away (Imagine living on the bottom end of the town, in the final curve…).
I am so grateful for your channel. The general public needs to know what are the underpinnings of our modern society. I have been a wastewater treatment plant operator and am currently a potable water plant operator. The fact that people expect clean tap water and sanitary disposal of waste, without much thought to how this is accomplished is a testament to our engineering genius.
My cousin was a sewer engineer. This gives me a great insight as to what he did for a living. As an engineer myself (different discipline) I still find this stuff interesting.
Seems like a shitty career. You go to work feeling like crap and come home pooped. You don’t even bother asking for a raise because you know the boss will refuse. Your life seems like a waste, and you’re always feeling down in the dumps. Your favorite sports team consistently comes in second, so you’ve become accustomed to screaming, “We’re number two!” I’ll pass.
Round here (Melbourne) a (retail) drain cleaning company charges double for clearing domestic stormwater pipes. Sewers are laid deep with swept bends and they get called out the moment they block. Tree roots love mortar jointed terracotta stormwater pipes.
I knew a guy that wouldn’t even flush down TP. He had a wastebasket next to the toilet for that. He never needed to have his septic tank pumped to my knowledge. I’m sure he wouldn’t have even allowed those “flushable” wipes through his door. Oh, he burned the used TP in case you were wondering. He also cut all the wood he burned for heat and hot water. Grew his own food (flora and fauna)and brewed his own beer. Now his son is carrying on in the same house, on the same land. He has all the modern luxuries. In fact I used to go up to his house for band practice. You can still enjoy all that modernity has to offer without becoming dependent on it.
How is the quality, clarity and length of these videos so consistently perfect? Every time I think I won’t be that interested in the niche topic on offer but I trust Grady and every time it’s excellent.
Having designed sewer rehabs and expansions as a junior engineer, Sanitary pump stations were used to convey effluent to other and hard to reach areas, including crossing of water bodies. The pump station would discharge into a gravity system or trunk force main. IN MY EXPERIENCE (emphasis added), Inverted siphons are banned by various Health Departments regulating the permitting of water mains, sewers, and pump stations.
I had the chance to take a guided tour of our city‘s sewage treatment plant couple of weeks back - really makes you appreciate the luxury and hygiene we take for granted!
I've designed a few replacement sewers, through an urban area, and trying to find a route that keeps the sewer line at the desired grade, and threading it between (i.e. over or under) intersecting stormwater lines, watermains, stream culverts, and anything else that might be in the way, was a real exercise in persistence, and a fair bit of trial and error. And I absolutely agree with Sir Joseph Bazalgette in 'oversizing' his sewers. Because, the cost of the sewer pipe is only a small fraction of the total cost of installation. And if in 30 years your successors find your sewer was too small and are forced to pay to do it all over again, they will find it an order of magnitude more difficult because the best (and possibly only practical) route is already occupied by the sewer you just put there! (The fights I've had with bean counters who assume a sewer is a portable replaceable asset like a truck or a photocopier...) In terms of capacity, our 'separate' sewers were generally designed for six times 'average dry weather flow' - and they would still overflow after a really heavy storm.
Mike Rowe went down into the sewers in one episode, and all the q-tips and flushable wipes were very distressing - it upsets me to see people either so ignorant or selfish that they abuse infrastructure that way. And there are nice people who come to your house every week to haul away trash like that.
Watch this video to ruin Mike Rowe for yourself: ua-cam.com/video/5iXUHFZogmI/v-deo.html As for the flushable wipes thing, we should be mad at the companies that advertised them as "flushable," with full knowledge that they should not be flushed. See also "no rub" contact solution and "sweat-proof" sunscreen.
@@alexpaxton1336 One problem is the inconsistency among brands - some "flushable" brands do seem to dissolve a lot better than others / conversely, some dissolve a lot worse than others.
I work at a water treatment facility and the things people flush is ridiculous! Condoms, tampons, applicators, diapers, wipes, rags, etc. It's just wrong
In my professional experience, you also only lay electrical wiring and gas lines once. And you only need to touch those if the building on a lot changes, which is once every two decades or even once a century.
Yes your right put a big conduit while your at it to run other line like electrical and internet. They all ready have to berry gas lines, sewer, and water lines why not do a big conduit tube for any thing else in the future.
@@JainZar1 my apartment development conduited everything in construction, and then 15 years later they added fibre optic to all the apartments through said conduit. Other similar developments have been turned down for upgrade due to the cost of digging.
@@RaymondDay While both electrical/data and gas are fairly blind to overdimension, it's not as easy as that for water and sewage. Fresh water is strictly controlled so as to not have problems with legionella or other contaminants that reproduce in stagnant water. Thus the fresh water pipe needs to be correctly dimensioned for the prospected development in the neighborhood. With sewage the main problem is, that there is not enough water, if there are too few people living there. Resulting in stench and clogged pipes, that requires extra maintenance in the form of rinsing via watertruck. If there are too many people on a sewage pipe, it can fill up the pipe to such an extent, that the flow pulls air into the system from the houses or backs up into houses. Both of those shouldn't result in any problems in modern sewage systems, but why risk it. Cleaning a sewage spill, you can essentially trow everything that came into contact with it away and even trow out the wall paint, etc. If it flowed under the floor screed, you can rip out the entire floor too.
Yeah. And tampons too. Heard a plumber call them “white mice” unless u like screwing things up and spending $ unnecessarily. Wrap it up and put it in the garbage. Along with anything else that isn’t TP
You could theoretically get around this issue by putting the burden of blockage on the property owners. You simply require everyone connected to a sewer system to have a screen in the pipe, and then the property owner needs to have a system that chews up the sewage until it can fit through the screen, but it would get gummed up if you put anything in there that a normal sewer system wouldn't handle. So, you have to deal with the inconvenience of the blockage, but it's your own fault, and you don't affect everyone else. I don't know how you would deal with grease though.
My father had a rental property and the tennant reported a leaking pipe in the bathroom. So my dad and a plumber go into the house. In the bathroom, beside the toilet, is a neat pile of USED tampons. My dad and the plumber just look at each other, and the plumber says "well Bill, at least they aren't flushing them".
We call tampons “sewer rats”. They’re big and have a tail. I’ve pulled a few out of our sewer pumps, but them “flushable” wipes are definitely the worst!!
Before the Sydney city , (Australia)sewage was treated it was pumped out to sea, of course some of the "waste" floated back on to the beaches...They were called "Bondi cigars".
Down here in Melbourne we never sent our sewage out to sea, instead we piped it to a treatment plant and open air settling ponds at a place called Werribee, far beyond the boundaries of suburbia (as it was in the 1800s). Thus we got the phrase for someone in big trouble... 'He's in deeper shit than a Werribee duck'.
I'm an emergency service drain cleaner. It's awesome to see a deep explanation of these systems. I understood the bare basics, but this is great for understanding the reasons behind some of what I encounter.
Thank you for remind me why I'm pretty much still alive. Waste treatment and water treatment plants! I'm now going to send my local plant a thank you card with a $50 food card so the manager or whoever can take care of those employees who take care of us. It's all I can spend, but my appreciation and gratitude are immense for what they do to keep us safe from the plethora of disease's.
Update: I sent my local water reclamation plant a $75 gift card to The Pie Pizzeria with a thank you card. They sent me a letter back what was wonderful and got invited to take a tour. I haven't scheduled it yet but you better bet I'll be doing that soon and will take my best friends daughter along with us. Next generation of children need to know this stuff if not just for appreciation.
@@Anonymous-xd7bt I haven't taken the advantage of going on the educated tour. I'm waiting for my buddies kid to be available from school so we can bring her along. She's a good kid. Wish I could post this letter Central Valley Reclamation Facility sent back to me. Its very nice.
The amount of people who have no idea what happens after they flush the toilet is crazy. Since I’ve worked at the WWTP it has opened my eyes to how blind everyone is with wastewater.
@@hil449 although you are a very good example in that theory, no. A cardiac surgeon doesn't need to know how the engine in his car works to get him to the hospital that day. And the engineer who dedicated his life to making car engines doesn't need to know how the pacemaker inside him is installed, allowing him to contribute more to society. People who specialize in very specific things are much more important than swiss army knife knowledge of how things works but not how to actually put them in practice
A friend of mine works as an engineer at Hamburg Wasser, she told me that their sewage system was also upsized during the project phase but then it remained oversized as workload for it did not grow as much as anticipated. To make up for that, today, HW has to frequently pump an insane volume of perfectly drinkable water right at the ends of the sewage system so that waste doesnt accumulate. The "just make it bigger" is a risky approach.
This can also cause the sewer to go septic if it is relatively slow moving in long pipelines. It then produces hydrogen sulfide gas which stinks like rotten eggs and gets converted to sulfuric acid that corrodes concrete and steel pipes.
@@locrogin In my city, most of the sewage pipes are ceramic or plastic, sometimes even for the bigger parts of the system. That gas will almost always get formed by the way, because in a way, it's the decomposition of the material by bacteria that have that as their waste product.
@@Dutch3DMaster True but as far as I know the concentration increases when the flow rate is low. We also have a lot of PVC mains but I live in a very flat area and we've had problems with corrosion in old DICL rising mains, due to the long time it takes for sewage to flow through the gravity mains.
I do appreciate your time explaining the process, I always find it interesting what happens with waste water probably because I'm in the field of work clearing the lovely clogs that form within the first 75 feet of leaving the toilet surprisingly caused by the number one culprit is the infamous " flushable wipes " which has gained popularity in the years. Not forgetting the thirsty roots that find their way in for some all natural nutrients !
Hi Grady! Just another request for you to make a video on drain dynamics. Pipe sizing, venting or not venting, cheat vents, self-venting, traps. I know you would do an amazing job that no one else on UA-cam has yet done! Thank you for all of your amazing videos! This mechanical engineer has far more interest in civil engineering than I ever thought I would, and even more respect for it to boot!
in PA as a municipal Authority we can create a police force. Sure the jurisdiction would be property owned by us and the collection system. Or it would be the police force for the founding municipality or for us with 3 any police force that is part of our founding municipalities. I thought that was funny when I looked it up and talked to our chief.
@Scott Richard you can pin point to a 400 ft sections at the least fairly quickly. Then depending on the connection agreement you might have to get a warrant, but there is always things that you can put down in the pipes from a man hole and check each connection point. At that point you do have the ability to prosecute. We had Oil and gas trucks dumping in man holes with a witness that kicked them off the property, so ...
@Scott RichardHere are two examples. Like a medical waste company flushing radioactive materials down the pipes and contaminating the sewer lines and areas of the plant. That was detected by federal aerial over flights south of Cincinnati. It was fun doing the material characterizations (the "A" word) prior to demolishing a few of the older buildings that got contaminated with radiation. With us the last time we detected something was Nov 2018 and by noon we knew the two man holes it was between and detected it at 0830. A fuel smell and guess what was between the two man holes, one connection for a garage and two for homes. one home was vacant. It was the one home, the service station had a clean out and no smell. The guy with the home was working on a car and come to find out the drain in the home was connected to the sewer. He had no idea. Diesel is easy to track down, it stinks up the entire system. Other stuff you have to do tests and that can take a while.
Also interesting to note the cross sectional shape of Bazalgette's sewer pipes in London. They're egg shaped (inverted) rather than circular, so that there is still a high water velocity when the flow rate is low.
As a former waste water treatment operator working for a small city (10k people) I used to start every morning by scraping 30+ lbs of socks, "flushable" wipes and other misc. rags out of our intake system. all kinds of stuff goes down toilets (and somehow makes it through our grinders) cell phones, toys, watches. Anything cloth though gets turned into a giant conglomerated rope that will inevitably have to be cut out of equipment at some point.
we’ll know and aware of literally everything we had before, it’s common, something that isn’t significant in your daily life suddenly become important when you loss it and you shouldn’t feel sad because you took them for granted, that’s how we are
There are a couple of other knobs the civil engineer can turn (for a price, naturally). For instance, the sewer lines are not necessarily circular in cross section. A more-or-less egg-shaped cross section can keep velocity higher during low flows, when the flow is in the more-tightly-curved bottom of the egg. The selection of material for the lines is a factor both in longevity (pipes do wear out) and the friction experienced by the sewage on its way down hill to the treatment plant. I have happy memories of a tour of the big San Francisco wastewater project decades ago, where they were re-engineering their combined system to meet modern standards and still handle storm flows. This included some huge interceptor structures along the shoreline to pick up all the flows heading down to the water, and slow-and-settle storm runoff as much as possible to avoid sending sewer-lumps out to the bay or the ocean beaches.
@@Kineth1 Multiple kinds of gross. We posess assholes and are assholes at the same time. We're getting really good at dealing with it though, but maybe not quick enough.
I'm a licensed plumber, humans are gross barely scrapes the surface. Humans are gross is a fact. If you've ever been under a house to fix a sewer pipe, you'd never consider it philosophical.
This was great! I used to work for AECOM on the Aviation side, but we were co-located with the engineers who "dealt with poop". This was another exceptionally well done presentation! Thank you.
@Jeremy Ardley RE: "The name was later adopted to be the name of the combined excretion (and reproduction) organ of birds." Also of reptiles, amphibians, most fish, and monotremes.
I have lived in the town house I am in for 2.5 months now. During that time my townhouse backs up into my neighborhoods place. After three companies and complex owners spending 15k, we find out that it was flushable wipes that were causing it to back up. Flushable wipes AREN’T FLUSHABLE.
One thing that I find interesting is, where I live, the town puts pumps at certain points of the sewer line as it's very hilly and you cant get a pitch/slope over a long run. Got to replace one of those pumps. What a beast. The sewer system is so complex and so needed and yet totally unseen. Great video!
God i feel like i need shots just looking at this. Hats off to the guys and gals that go in there and keep the system working definitely deserve every penny yall make.
The air valve shown at 10:00 is a clear / clean water air valve, those designed for sewage typically have elongated (taller) bodies designed to keep it from clogging and releasing dirty water into the environment. Thank you for another fine video helping to make the complex subject simpler.
Another excellent segment. The stuck condom floating on the manhole cover at 3:18 just reinforces how important sewers are in the retention of their flows 😳
Love this channel! Thanks for shining a light on this chidden gem of an industry. Working on wastewater operations or collections is a rewarding career.
This is what I do for a living. I like to tell folks that plumbers have saved more lives with clean water and sewage relocation then any other career in all of history.
@@philipwebb960 Funny you should say that. In order for one of us to receive our Journeymen's license, we need to be able to design plumbing systems. We are the ones installing it, we need to be able to understand what the engineer/architect wants, and correct what needs to be corrected due to onsite conditions or bad design flaws.
@@javiervazquez9472 That's awesome! I always say that training should include one job up, and one job down in the chain of work. Works for me as a surveyor (which is fun, because we show up at two points in the same chain).
The transporting and cleaning of wastewater is the single most important aspect towards the development of a city. It is what separates 1st and 3rd world countries. Most people would say that 'clean water' is the most important thing. But, you can't have clean water without treating the wastewater. They are two sides of the same coin in importance.
Appreciation and gratitude is needed for these engineers. Centuries ago, and even less, sewage was not a pretty picture. And I apologize for my disdain for engineering students at the U of Michigan years ago. Better late than never.
Fun fact: In Seattle (closest big city to the suburb I live in) they used to build their sewage pipes out of wood- and for a very long time it just drained directly into the sound. You can still walk by the corroded remains of the iron pipes they replaced the wooden ones with (after a fire burned down the whole place including the sewage lines) on Alki Beach
what about an episode on private septic fields, I would imagine they have their own set of issues when planning to install a septic system that is not connected to public sewage
rule of thumb is if you've got a waterwell, at least the septic tank is above the 7-10m radius. this thing is pretty common in 3rd world countries like mine
6:57 "You can also use trenchless excavation like tunneling, but that's another video." I'd love to watch that video--I've long wondered about how they do that! Will you add it to your upcoming video list?
9:42 two questions cross my mind: 1. Why don't you use bidets 2. Why aren't "flushable" unflushable wipes ILLEGAL for God's sake, they must have been lobbied on by plumbers fr
Hey Grady, longtime subscriber here. I just wanted to let you know that I've been seeing you do some expert interview segments on Engineering Catastrophes on the Sci channel! It was neat to see you in a context outside of your youtube videos. I've often thought some of your videos that explain disasters gave me the same vibe as the show, but it still took me by surprise to see you on there! You were great. Love your content!
“I will use this pink slime to represent poop to keep this video family friendly”…. How precious and removed from the realities of survival have we become that we are afraid that our children seeing a poop may scar them 😂
its probably to avoid the nature of UA-cam's automatic moderation systems, Which have proven time and again they will demonetize a video at the drop of a hat for anything that flips some certain algorithm.
I’m just a dumb plumber. I really enjoy your videos, familiar concepts at play on a massive, high stakes scale, interesting to see what may be going on downstream of my little sanitary systems.
It’s amazing how complex our society actually is when factoring how much infrastructure is taken for granted and therefore underfunded. Humanure is a great way to reduce the burden in our sewage systems. I don’t have the means to compost my solid wasted but I do compost my liquid wasted (I have a sizeable compost pile in my backyard
As a process operator at a waste treatment plan, thanks for giving our awful, yet incredibly important service a spotlight. This all looks pretty good to my eye. You definitely have a bigger budget than my plant though, as horrifying as that might sound. And flushable wipes do a real number on septic tanks too!
We have a septic tank, and absolutely nothing goes down there but water, waste and septic safe detergents and paper. We hear flushable wipes horror stories from our maintenance company, too.
Neeat! Thanks for the insider insight 👍
What's your grade?
@@ststst981 Two, though I'm not sure I've heard it called a grade before. We're pretty isolated from other districts.
@@gordonwiley2006 oh wow. I've heard level but over here west coast I think officially it's grade
I work in Construction and it‘s really sad how most people react when you tell them you build sewer lines because they dont recognize without them they would need to poop in the woods
Well based on what you wrote, you're sort of making an assumption about them.
@@jessicabellandy5687 what
@@Jan-bi3lk if you were to walk up to anyone and tell them "you don't recognize..."
You've made an assumption about them.
Jan: When I was a little boy I had just a couple of toys to play with. My favorite was a ( actual STEEL ) toy front loader. I would sit in the dirt or my sand box for hours digging and digging and digging. When asked by another little boy or girl, Mom or Dad, or another adult what I was doing, I would always proudly boast, "I'm digging a sewer line!" ( The sticks I buried represented the pipe. )
@@jessicabellandy5687 no. He described an actual series of reactions. No assumptions. Cop?
I remember when History, Discovery, and PBS filled this hole in the market.
Your channel is proof people do want educational content.
MODERN MARVELS!!!!!
Discovery still does great stuff especially in collaboration with people like Mark Rober.
Most of that stuff is behind a paywall now
What did PBS do?
Most of their shows are reality fake crap.
Interesting fact: Sewers are only modern in how we know them today. On the Isle of Crete nearly 4,000 years ago, the ancient Minoans had a very efficient, albeit primitive, sewer system. There is even evidence to suggest that they had properly functioning indoor plumbing. The sewers were a mixture of open-topped drains and clay pipes and the lavatories are actually thought to have been able to “flush” with the assistance of an overhead water reservoir. Additionally, the Minoans even utilized these plumping methods to carry fresh water into their city some 2,500-3,000 years before the Roman’s introduced and used their aqueducts.
No one cares
@@georgefloyd1453 With a name like yours…I’m not surprised that’s how you feel.
Awesome info
@@georgefloyd1453 I care, beat me!
@@georgefloyd1453
Amazing intellectual response, not.
We should all take a moment to appreciate the scientists and engineers who ended up going into wastewater treatment as a career. It's definitely not glamorous but it is so incredibly important.
I'm not belittling them or anything, but somebody has to do ut
@@FedJimSmith well somebody has to something, and That somebody deserves appreciation.
I have been a WWTP operator for 30 years. Not the most glamours job but rewarding knowing you are protecting the environment and public health
Sounds like a shit job………….
@@Andrew260RS Ah yes, we've got the fortune 500 CEO here to tell us what's a shit job and what's not
"We don't have to pay a gravity bill..."
STOP GIVING THEM IDEAS!
🤣
Hehe
Gravity tax; coming to governments near you.
@@subnatural5341 Punishment: suspended animation.
haven't they placed a sun tax somewhere in europe before?
this is just a little bit more ludicrous. or not at all. seriously, sun tax? omfg
"Synthetic Feces Designer" was definitely not presented as an option at Career Day.
Those career days really don't help themselves sometimes.
I do wonder sometimes though, at what point does someone decide to become a sewage engineer?
@@nickryan3417 probably someone who goes to school for civil engineering and then ends up working for a city with a sewer system. On the flip side, people explicitly go into the business of septic tank service which probably involves a lot more direct contact with human waste. For jobs like that, and trash hauling, there is sometimes an above average opportunity for pay since as your comment implies, the job is unattractive for many people.
@@MittyNuke1 True
With so much natural supply walking around everywhere, too!
The Japanese have elevated this to a high art.
I remember someone representing the flushable wipe companies coming to WEFTEC several years back and trying to tell a room full of civil engineers that their wipes WERE flushable and it was our fault they were clogging pumps. He got booed off the stage.
Glad people like you and Adam Ruins Everything are helping bring awareness to how bad those wipes are.
What amazes me is that anyone expects a material that holds its structural integrity while soaking wet to be a drop in replacement for one specifically designed to breakdown in water.
the flushable wipe pricks are some of the worst.
Technically they are flushable. Dissolvable in water, they are not, or at least take a longer amount of time to.
Municipalities should be able to sue these companies. "Flushable?" Yes technically. So are a lot of things. Safe to flush? Hell nah. Screw them for making that claim.
I thought what you mean by Adam Ruins Everything is Adam Something, apparently it's a different person
Amazing how there's so much infrastructure in society that makes life so easy that we just take for granted
Yeah we need to pray for our technology and those who have the knowledge. Stop talking nonsense.
Also most people would adapt quickly to "poop in the woods" and other post-apocaliptic stuff, what would you say then? That "most people take their life for granted"?
@@nadMoZzzg Are you ok dude? We're adaptable, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate what we have. I much prefer having indoor plumbing over your anti-social bs, thank you very much.
@@nadMoZzzg What's your problem, really? That all people should take gratidude in our glorious sewage systems, but aren't? Or, just me guessing, you bought a Tiny House on wheels, but regret it. Because, out of many problems UA-camrs skip, the black water isn't easy to get rid of on land you don't own. Not even on land you own, to be honest. When an outside toilet gets full, you have to spread that composted fecal matter somewhere, and you better have a good field, both in size and yield, to disperse your useless dung. Imagine 7.9 billion people leaving their manure without nutrition all over, as the sewer plants stops. Most people can adapt to shitting in a plastic bag, but then what? You, my friend "lilSnowflake", would need 14-15 able bodied men to patrol and work your 200 acre property (100 acre crop 25 acre firewood 75 acre split between 5 dirt poor families you employ.), and you would've think you won over modern society. But in fact, you lost all ability to take a plane to visit your old grandma, or you're young grandkids, none of your family can get medical help. You discarded your ability to take a student loan and become the next George Lucas. And don't even get me started on those so unlucky to not own or rent anything when all of this is happening (again).
Hellooo porridge, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because emultion softly creeping
Left it oats while I was sleeping
And the vision that was plantet in my brain
It still remains
It's the sound, of porridge.
All Thanks to ancient Egypt... EU states dumb as cockroaches and reply on repetition.
This civilization would have been further if supremacy mindset would have been capped.
@@nadMoZzzg let us be thankful. You’re gonna survive the apocalypse we get it.
Please PLEASE make this a series. I’ve always been fascinated with “water works” as they were called when I was growing up, and still love seeing how they work, how waste is processed, broken down, separated, etc.
I agree 100 percent
I just LOVE how he makes all these hidden wonders of engineering accessible to us
My neighbor works for our city's waste treatment department. He was explaining to me, once, about how the waste is processed and how solids are removed. It was fascinating. I'd love to see you do a video on this topic. Thank you, Brady, for all of your great videos.
water works? yeah I sure hope it does
i would love to see a series like that (though i gotta admit i hate the thought of the feces)＼(￣▽￣;)／
So the Golden Rule of Sewers: "Shit's about to go down"
except when it goes up, though the inverted siphon.
And when you have a pump in the system, shit's about to hit the fan! ;)
My mind read that wrong as the golden rule of showers.
@Auracle if your shower smells of popcorn, you are an actor in a german porn. 🤣
Shit just got real.
I'm a wastewater operator in California and I can't tell you how much I loath those dang "flushable" wipes. I wish more people understood how damaging they are from flush to treatment plant. Thank you for shedding some light on the subject.
Bidets should be highly pushed vs wipes
As a California resident, I thank you for your service. 👍
Then there need to be regulations prohibiting companies from marketing them as "flushable" just to make money. Yet another evil of capitalism, destructive lies
As someone who inspects sewer on the opposite side of the US, flushable wipes are anything but flushable.
We had a TV crew go out and check on a house that was backing up, since the homeowner had called a plumber and they ran a camera from their end. Reviewing our video, their connection was completely blocked by wipes caught on a combination of roots and the lip of the connection.
Just do as in other countries, your outlet pipe at 40mm, they don't even flush toilet paper lest a blockage
I was half expecting the transition: "Poop and sewers! Have you tried Hello Fresh?"
Or the ZuPoo ad… “do you know the average adult has 5 - 20 pounds of toxic poop in their system.”
Protect your behind today with NordVPooN
Hey I mean if your gonna use the sewer system. Might as well have high quality poop courtesy of Hello Fresh
Well... They are related.
Or do you want to make your own poop? Hello Fresh is here to help!
I would say that the oversizing of buried pipelines that are not expected to operate at full bore (such as sewers and other drains) is almost always the right economic decision. The costs of retrofitting buried infrastructure vastly outweigh the marginal cost of increased pipe diameters during initial construction.
All things are engineered oversize, this is the nature of uncertainty. The question is by how much and can you show non-arbitrary reasoning for that amount. 1.2x 2x 5x? Or estimated population and habit changes for the next 10 years 50 years 500 years? (And how much variation is inherent in those long term estimates?) If 50 years is a good target why not 40 or 60?
@@mytech6779 Luckily there are many models and methodologies to choose from. However, my experience (having worked on a lot of water projects - clean, foul and other effluents) is that the oversizing for futureproofing is often determined by budget constraints and ground conditions when it comes down to it.
@@csatterley this has been my experience as well, but I've also been out of that whole field for several years now. One big outlier was a city that had the chance to redo their system top to bottom and they planned it out brilliantly, even accounting for major future growth and expansion in coverage area. The dude in charge of that project was meticulous and smart as hell.
most of the cost is probably labour anyway I venture to guess
"We're only going to do this once" is simple, inelegant, but perfectly describes the situation.
"Flushable" is a dishonest marketing term. Anything is technically flushable, if it fits
As some one who foes work on the city side of the sewer I have to disagree
There have been new flushable wipes that were proven to break down in water equal to or even quicker than TP at least.
Mostly everything that fits will flush, it will just get stuck later
Should be banned. A totally _unnecessary_ item costing sewer authorities many millions of dollars in maintenance.
It's a bit of a mouthful tho to say "Flushable without causing major problems" every time
I just want to thank all the workers.
These ppl should be appreciated and acknowledge...not celebrities or fake modern social stars.
Thank you for the hard work.
Look at the smooth curves of the brickwork at 01:55. All of it laid by hand by skilled bricklayers 150 years ago. They would be so proud to see it still in perfect condition and still in use 150 years later!
That is a great point. Some of the very best masonry ever built will likely never be seen, but for the few people to venture into a sewer. Both piping and manholes. Often, multiple layers thick and still as reliable and effective as the day they were first used.
Not to detract from the quality of workmanship done by those brick layers but I would say that the "smoothness" of the brick work is almost certainly due in large part from the fact that the tunnels have been subjected to ~150 years of erosion from the waste water flowing through the system, rounding off every hard edge like stones in a river.
Real craftsman.
That brick work caught my eye aswell, it's nothing short of artistic. I really enjoy examining the trade works of earlier generations, vary difficult to reproduce.
Oval brick pipe was common in combined sewers which conveyed both sanitary and storm flows. The small diameter at the bottom maintained relative depth to promote cleaning velocity at low flows while the larger diameter provided capacity for the occasional much larger storm events.
My monthly gravity bill is going through the roof, and so am I since I can't afford to pay it.
You're getting scammed man, there's no such thing as gravity, the earth just sucks.
@@jessemurphy8871 lol if gravity gone then lava would not exist
the one caused by the "spirit of gravity"? lol
🤣🤣🤣
I dropped my gravity bill and the cost went up immediately
Keep flushing those “flushable” wipes. As a plumber, my wallet LOVES it.
Please don’t, haha. As a wastewater operator, my plant doesn’t like them. My wallet like the overtime, but pulling hundreds of pounds of rags a week from my aeration basins isn’t worth it
Maybe THAT is the true intention!
why are they able to be labelled flushable if they cause so many problems?
@@A129WOLFY because people might not buy them for toilet use if they knew they cannot flush them down the shithole
@@A129WOLFY Flushable Wipes - Do They Disintegrate? ua-cam.com/video/_iASfS9esVU/v-deo.html
In the days following hurricane Ian, we were asked to avoid putting anything down the drain because there was no power to the lift stations. Of course, not everyone thought they needed to heed that, so sewer covers on some low streets had raw sewage bubbling out. Makes me appreciate the system and the work of the people who keep it working. Being able to flush is a blessing!
Yep, there's always a few... 🤦🏻♀️ Had the same problem here with my outside drains after big earthquake, when liquefaction silt completely blocked all onsite drainage (stormwater, greywater or blackwater) but abusive neighbour down the back just wouldn't stop flushing, using washing machine etc...
Thankfully at least having raw sewage flowing down the back lawn finally induced the owner to move him out! (He left 7 of his 8 cats behind though, so then I had months of working with humane society to trap & rehome those...)
TLDR: Sadly, some people with cognitive impairments just should NOT be living alone in the community; they really do need shared living facilities where they can have supportive supervision and won't endanger their neighbours, particularly in crisis situations...
There in fact are “sewer police,” at least at the larger systems. They won’t be able to figure out which house is flushing string mop heads (that happens) but if you are a metal plating shop that bypasses your pretreatment system that will be noticed.
Yup, even basic households can be slapped with a increased wastewater bill for letting their gutters to drain into the sewer
In the right situation i'm sur÷ a household that flushes completely incorrect items too often (like someone who rips up and flushes every bit of trash and plastic (there are weird people out there) will leave evidence once the house line hits the main line. The water doesn't go backwards so it'll be debris free upstream, and there will probably be a buildup of trash right outside that homes tie in. I've heard of repeat diaper flushers causing non stop issues with apartments, and there have to be people like that on the public sewer too. Same with flushing ALL the cat litter down the drain. In the right situations all that will be visible as to who did it...
@@TheMiksi Hi Miksi. Roughly what location are you referring to? I've never heard of this.
@@roderickcampbell2105 Finland has this policy in a lot of places
@@TheMiksi Thanks Miksi. My best regards.
Surprised you didn't include anything about lift stations which are used when the sewage pipe hits a low point and needs to be pumped upwards to give itself more grade. As you said the worst products for jamming up these pumps are grease, wipes, tampons, pads and condoms. I am so happy flushable wipes weren't popular back when I worked there for a couple years.
Those wipes must be causing lots of issues to pumping machines and "quiet" runs of pipe. I've seen the damage they can cause in home sewer pipes, let alone huge systems. Plus the people who manage to flush baby diapers.
I'll be happy with my septic system :) i had nightmares of city sewer backing up into my old house.
People are not only kinda gross but grossly unpolite
I've seen 3 phase, 50kW+ pumps being braked by these so called "flushable" wipes. Multiple times a week. This would cause sewage overflows into the sea/fields and streets.
I honestly don't know if it is possible for utility companies to sue manufacturers for damages until they remove the flushable writing from the packaging.
@@volvo09 That's why they're called t-issues ...
I hope to learn more about lifting stations---always wondered how they work. Hopefully in a future episode.
I learned this the hard way renovating my house, sewage does not go uphill. :(
I get it! You're saying that shit rolls downhill
you don't need to wait until you renovate your house to get to know that...
damn did you need a pump system then? It sounds expensive to keep running. Is that even sometimes used for sewer lines?
You obviously haven’t lived in some of the places I have☹️
It only goes uphill when you don't want it to.
wastewater treatment was by far the hardest subject i remember taking in civil. Our prof was awful. I remember a design-build i worked on a decade ago where the contractor followed the slope of the road which was quite steep leading to self cleansing velocity well over 6m/s. Spent a lot of time looking at CCTV's with drainage engineers to see if pipe walls were degrading faster than normal.
6m/sec?! Wow!
@@411sponge72 yeah some were as high as 8m/s
I need to express how much I appreciate your wit, wisdom and skill at putting things into terms the layman can easily grasp! Thank you for all the effort you make!
Fake Poop really killed it on that feature, the track was mellowing out, then he just rushed it with some slick hot bars, 10/10 song, adding to playlist ASAP! Can’t wait to see how you guys collaborate next.
real shit 🔥💯
It’s the least appreciated yet probably one of the most important pieces of engineering in the modern world; clean water, waste management, and many other things.
"Out of sight, out of mind", right?
One of my top five favorite college classes was a civil engineering water quality management course. It was so well taught by a professor that really enjoyed what he did. He would give choices for essay exam questions so you could pick and there was always the option for doing two or more all extra credit if you wanted to. Dr. Philips...thank you because you made a difference for me.
If you ever see tiny concrete houses in your neighborhood that are locked up, it's probably a lift station. As he said, plants rely on gravity to move influent so sometimes they need to pump it upwards to move it from homes lower in elevation. That's what's happening in those little houses
Lift stations are an unsung hero in every community. Electric Lift Pumps do the work that gravity can't.
We have collector tanks at street level closed off by hatches in my city that contain those pumps and the controlling unit sits next to them in an equipment case closed off with a lock.
The lift stations can be 10 meters deep and require special tools to hoist the pumps out of them should they be malfunctioning due to (for instance) flushable wipes.
See Jim Thorpe PA
I've learned to appreciate the bar screens & muffin monsters more than the pumps...
Until they go down.
"There are no wastewater police" oh I get to be the well technically nerd on the internet!
If there is someone dumping a lot of high concentration waste someone at the wastewater plant will likely notice. If it's bad enough they can start popping manhole covers to track back to whoever is dumping. Of course that's most likely going to be at minimum thousands of gallons of waste to be noticeable enough to annoy someone into tracking down the culprit.
I’ve heard of dentists getting fined as the “mercury police” followed their effluent upstream to their offices.
In the UK water companies do trace detectable illegal waste back up the system, where I work we can have to send samples from our waste plant for checking and can get random check visits to make sure we don't exceed our allowance of particles, oils etc.
I wonder how they would know what direction to start looking first. Maybe the system is subdivided? Then narrow down from there.
@@Ja2808R yes, the system will branch and not just randomly flow around. You pull the samples at each branch, and pollutants will be far more concentrated in the direction of the source, letting you narrow it down pretty quickly.
poopy police gonna come for you
We never think about this kinda thing when imagining the past, like the fact we can go to sports events with 70 000 people, yet still go to the bathroom in a relatively sanitary & private manner is pretty astounding.
The history books don't mention it, but imagine going for a dump at a gladiator match at the Flavian amphitheater, it would be so damn nasty.
This is my exact thought when I imagine what it would be like to be in any kind of city or otherwise crowded area or event, before the invention of modern waste treatment. I suppose the areas in India that still do open defecation are kind of a modern example though. But in the past there was no guarantee for clean water, no antibiotics, and not even an understanding of bacteria, viruses and parasites. It must have just been so horrible and deadly to live in areas like that in the past.
@spikesya the romans did have sewage system and public toilets. The waste water flowed untreated into the next river, but still amazing. And a lot better than what was done in the middle ages, where there was a kind of canal in the middle of the road and rain water would take it away (Imagine living on the bottom end of the town, in the final curve…).
Im studying electrical engineering, but there is something so satisfying about actually seeing stuff flow down the tubes you build.
I am so grateful for your channel. The general public needs to know what are the underpinnings of our modern society. I have been a wastewater treatment plant operator and am currently a potable water plant operator. The fact that people expect clean tap water and sanitary disposal of waste, without much thought to how this is accomplished is a testament to our engineering genius.
My cousin was a sewer engineer. This gives me a great insight as to what he did for a living. As an engineer myself (different discipline) I still find this stuff interesting.
Seems like a shitty career. You go to work feeling like crap and come home pooped. You don’t even bother asking for a raise because you know the boss will refuse. Your life seems like a waste, and you’re always feeling down in the dumps. Your favorite sports team consistently comes in second, so you’ve become accustomed to screaming, “We’re number two!”
I’ll pass.
@@jiujitsustudent604 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😆😆😆😆
Boss (civil construction): We have a sewer repair to do.
Me: Sanitary?
Boss: No...storm.
Me: Thank God.
I help build those, the storm ones of course😅😂
That doesn’t seem to be such a shitty repair
I work for water distribution I’m happy if it’s anything but clean ole drinkin water
Boss:
Me:
Boss: ..NOT!
Round here (Melbourne) a (retail) drain cleaning company charges double for clearing domestic stormwater pipes. Sewers are laid deep with swept bends and they get called out the moment they block. Tree roots love mortar jointed terracotta stormwater pipes.
I knew a guy that wouldn’t even flush down TP. He had a wastebasket next to the toilet for that. He never needed to have his septic tank pumped to my knowledge. I’m sure he wouldn’t have even allowed those “flushable” wipes through his door. Oh, he burned the used TP in case you were wondering. He also cut all the wood he burned for heat and hot water. Grew his own food (flora and fauna)and brewed his own beer. Now his son is carrying on in the same house, on the same land. He has all the modern luxuries. In fact I used to go up to his house for band practice. You can still enjoy all that modernity has to offer without becoming dependent on it.
How is the quality, clarity and length of these videos so consistently perfect? Every time I think I won’t be that interested in the niche topic on offer but I trust Grady and every time it’s excellent.
Having designed sewer rehabs and expansions as a junior engineer, Sanitary pump stations were used to convey effluent to other and hard to reach areas, including crossing of water bodies.
The pump station would discharge into a gravity system or trunk force main.
IN MY EXPERIENCE (emphasis added), Inverted siphons are banned by various Health Departments regulating the permitting of water mains, sewers, and pump stations.
Yeah, much less hassle in the long term to just put in a lifting station and pump the stuff under the water body (easier to lay the pipes too).
Nothing like replacing a riverside ARV that has been eroded around.
I had the chance to take a guided tour of our city‘s sewage treatment plant couple of weeks back - really makes you appreciate the luxury and hygiene we take for granted!
I've designed a few replacement sewers, through an urban area, and trying to find a route that keeps the sewer line at the desired grade, and threading it between (i.e. over or under) intersecting stormwater lines, watermains, stream culverts, and anything else that might be in the way, was a real exercise in persistence, and a fair bit of trial and error.
And I absolutely agree with Sir Joseph Bazalgette in 'oversizing' his sewers. Because, the cost of the sewer pipe is only a small fraction of the total cost of installation. And if in 30 years your successors find your sewer was too small and are forced to pay to do it all over again, they will find it an order of magnitude more difficult because the best (and possibly only practical) route is already occupied by the sewer you just put there!
(The fights I've had with bean counters who assume a sewer is a portable replaceable asset like a truck or a photocopier...)
In terms of capacity, our 'separate' sewers were generally designed for six times 'average dry weather flow' - and they would still overflow after a really heavy storm.
Mike Rowe went down into the sewers in one episode, and all the q-tips and flushable wipes were very distressing - it upsets me to see people either so ignorant or selfish that they abuse infrastructure that way. And there are nice people who come to your house every week to haul away trash like that.
Watch this video to ruin Mike Rowe for yourself: ua-cam.com/video/5iXUHFZogmI/v-deo.html
As for the flushable wipes thing, we should be mad at the companies that advertised them as "flushable," with full knowledge that they should not be flushed. See also "no rub" contact solution and "sweat-proof" sunscreen.
@@alexpaxton1336 One problem is the inconsistency among brands - some "flushable" brands do seem to dissolve a lot better than others / conversely, some dissolve a lot worse than others.
we should ban plastic q tips
I work at a water treatment facility and the things people flush is ridiculous! Condoms, tampons, applicators, diapers, wipes, rags, etc. It's just wrong
@@zacbass1636 how the fuck does one flush a diaper.
3:16 looks like someone flushed more than just their bodily waste there on the left opening of that manhole cover lol
scrolled down to see if someone mentioned it lol
@@aleks138 lol same
Hey man, let the Jimmy Hat be, he ain't hurt anyone
"Humans are kinda gross." You can say that again, brother.
Not "KINDA" we ARE gross.
Gross
THIS.
Xander is definitely right.
We are gross
The human body is pretty disgusting
Your production value and the time you put into creating these videos should not go unnoticed. This is one of my favorite channels on YT.
Me too. His content is second to none.
"we only going to do this once"
subways, underground electrical wiring, gas lines, internet: aww shiet, here wo go agien!
In my professional experience, you also only lay electrical wiring and gas lines once. And you only need to touch those if the building on a lot changes, which is once every two decades or even once a century.
Yes your right put a big conduit while your at it to run other line like electrical and internet. They all ready have to berry gas lines, sewer, and water lines why not do a big conduit tube for any thing else in the future.
@@JainZar1 my apartment development conduited everything in construction, and then 15 years later they added fibre optic to all the apartments through said conduit. Other similar developments have been turned down for upgrade due to the cost of digging.
@@RaymondDay While both electrical/data and gas are fairly blind to overdimension, it's not as easy as that for water and sewage. Fresh water is strictly controlled so as to not have problems with legionella or other contaminants that reproduce in stagnant water. Thus the fresh water pipe needs to be correctly dimensioned for the prospected development in the neighborhood.
With sewage the main problem is, that there is not enough water, if there are too few people living there. Resulting in stench and clogged pipes, that requires extra maintenance in the form of rinsing via watertruck. If there are too many people on a sewage pipe, it can fill up the pipe to such an extent, that the flow pulls air into the system from the houses or backs up into houses. Both of those shouldn't result in any problems in modern sewage systems, but why risk it. Cleaning a sewage spill, you can essentially trow everything that came into contact with it away and even trow out the wall paint, etc. If it flowed under the floor screed, you can rip out the entire floor too.
Yeah. And tampons too. Heard a plumber call them “white mice” unless u like screwing things up and spending $ unnecessarily. Wrap it up and put it in the garbage. Along with anything else that isn’t TP
You could theoretically get around this issue by putting the burden of blockage on the property owners. You simply require everyone connected to a sewer system to have a screen in the pipe, and then the property owner needs to have a system that chews up the sewage until it can fit through the screen, but it would get gummed up if you put anything in there that a normal sewer system wouldn't handle. So, you have to deal with the inconvenience of the blockage, but it's your own fault, and you don't affect everyone else. I don't know how you would deal with grease though.
My father had a rental property and the tennant reported a leaking pipe in the bathroom.
So my dad and a plumber go into the house. In the bathroom, beside the toilet, is a neat pile of USED tampons.
My dad and the plumber just look at each other, and the plumber says "well Bill, at least they aren't flushing them".
@@perrybrown4985 In The Netherlands, all female bathrooms have a special, seperate bin for tampons and pads to stop people flushing those things.
We call tampons “sewer rats”. They’re big and have a tail. I’ve pulled a few out of our sewer pumps, but them “flushable” wipes are definitely the worst!!
Anything that isn't TP?
Instructions unclear. Just wrapped up my turd for the trash
Before the Sydney city , (Australia)sewage was treated it was pumped out to sea, of course some of the "waste" floated back on to the beaches...They were called "Bondi cigars".
Hahahaha bondi cigars love it
Down here in Melbourne we never sent our sewage out to sea, instead we piped it to a treatment plant and open air settling ponds at a place called Werribee, far beyond the boundaries of suburbia (as it was in the 1800s). Thus we got the phrase for someone in big trouble... 'He's in deeper shit than a Werribee duck'.
We used to call them brown trout.
Eww
I’ve heard of that happening in the USA and we also used to call them cigars.
I'm an emergency service drain cleaner. It's awesome to see a deep explanation of these systems. I understood the bare basics, but this is great for understanding the reasons behind some of what I encounter.
Thank you for remind me why I'm pretty much still alive. Waste treatment and water treatment plants!
I'm now going to send my local plant a thank you card with a $50 food card so the manager or whoever can take care of those employees who take care of us.
It's all I can spend, but my appreciation and gratitude are immense for what they do to keep us safe from the plethora of disease's.
Update: I sent my local water reclamation plant a $75 gift card to The Pie Pizzeria with a thank you card. They sent me a letter back what was wonderful and got invited to take a tour. I haven't scheduled it yet but you better bet I'll be doing that soon and will take my best friends daughter along with us. Next generation of children need to know this stuff if not just for appreciation.
@@Mersipher Awesome!
@@Mersipher You are a hero, sir. This is a fantastic idea. I'll do the same.
@@Mersipher any updates?
@@Anonymous-xd7bt I haven't taken the advantage of going on the educated tour. I'm waiting for my buddies kid to be available from school so we can bring her along. She's a good kid. Wish I could post this letter Central Valley Reclamation Facility sent back to me. Its very nice.
"It may be poop to you, but it's my bread and butter" -- anonymous treatment plant operator
So it's not Nutella?
Well it was bread and butter
@@eddiew2325 remind me not to have lunch at his house
Sounds like a crappy meal haha
Yum
The amount of people who have no idea what happens after they flush the toilet is crazy. Since I’ve worked at the WWTP it has opened my eyes to how blind everyone is with wastewater.
You could exclude "after they flush the toilet" and it would still make perfect sense.
you could say that about every single industry. That's the whole entire point of a modern society.
There are still people who think electricity comes from the outlets. Have literally met them and they weren’t joking around.
@@randylahey2242 so the point of modern society is having ignorant and blind people?
@@hil449 although you are a very good example in that theory, no. A cardiac surgeon doesn't need to know how the engine in his car works to get him to the hospital that day. And the engineer who dedicated his life to making car engines doesn't need to know how the pacemaker inside him is installed, allowing him to contribute more to society. People who specialize in very specific things are much more important than swiss army knife knowledge of how things works but not how to actually put them in practice
Engineers: "Gravity is entirely free."
Governments: "How can we tax that gravity thing?"
next thing u know we have a jumping and falling tax
A friend of mine works as an engineer at Hamburg Wasser, she told me that their sewage system was also upsized during the project phase but then it remained oversized as workload for it did not grow as much as anticipated. To make up for that, today, HW has to frequently pump an insane volume of perfectly drinkable water right at the ends of the sewage system so that waste doesnt accumulate. The "just make it bigger" is a risky approach.
This can also cause the sewer to go septic if it is relatively slow moving in long pipelines. It then produces hydrogen sulfide gas which stinks like rotten eggs and gets converted to sulfuric acid that corrodes concrete and steel pipes.
You know, there are a lot of Germans in this comment section… Something something German engineering
@@locrogin In my city, most of the sewage pipes are ceramic or plastic, sometimes even for the bigger parts of the system. That gas will almost always get formed by the way, because in a way, it's the decomposition of the material by bacteria that have that as their waste product.
Saku .... if they had installed 2 smaller pipes it would have solved the problem of keeping the flow rate up while maintaining room for growth.
@@Dutch3DMaster True but as far as I know the concentration increases when the flow rate is low. We also have a lot of PVC mains but I live in a very flat area and we've had problems with corrosion in old DICL rising mains, due to the long time it takes for sewage to flow through the gravity mains.
Another great vid. Always appreciate the custom flumes and models you make - make it so easy to visualise what's being said!
I'll never get tired of the opening tune!🎵🎵🎵
Anyone know what it is? I’ve been curious about it for awhile
@@irespect264 it's called 'Tonic and Energy' by Elexive
@@irespect264 ua-cam.com/video/U6fBPdu8w9U/v-deo.html
•finger snap• •finger snap• •finger snap• …
I also really like the one at the 1:00 mark. Any idea who wrote it?
I do appreciate your time explaining the process, I always find it interesting what happens with waste water probably because I'm in the field of work clearing the lovely clogs that form within the first 75 feet of leaving the toilet surprisingly caused by the number one culprit is the infamous " flushable wipes " which has gained popularity in the years. Not forgetting the thirsty roots that find their way in for some all natural nutrients !
Hi Grady! Just another request for you to make a video on drain dynamics. Pipe sizing, venting or not venting, cheat vents, self-venting, traps. I know you would do an amazing job that no one else on UA-cam has yet done! Thank you for all of your amazing videos! This mechanical engineer has far more interest in civil engineering than I ever thought I would, and even more respect for it to boot!
Imagine if Twitter had a waste disposal system like this
immediate overflow
Poop can't dispose itself.
Just blacklist the entire site with your ad blocker.
You mean the delete button?
@@oofmanoofman6065 its funny because its true
"There aren't sewer police watching what you flush down the drain."
Me, a police officer for my local sewer plant: Wanna take that bet?
this guy:
!bet
in PA as a municipal Authority we can create a police force. Sure the jurisdiction would be property owned by us and the collection system. Or it would be the police force for the founding municipality or for us with 3 any police force that is part of our founding municipalities. I thought that was funny when I looked it up and talked to our chief.
@@brett76544 nice. Now explain that to me like I’m a 6 year old.
@Scott Richard you can pin point to a 400 ft sections at the least fairly quickly. Then depending on the connection agreement you might have to get a warrant, but there is always things that you can put down in the pipes from a man hole and check each connection point. At that point you do have the ability to prosecute. We had Oil and gas trucks dumping in man holes with a witness that kicked them off the property, so ...
@Scott RichardHere are two examples. Like a medical waste company flushing radioactive materials down the pipes and contaminating the sewer lines and areas of the plant. That was detected by federal aerial over flights south of Cincinnati. It was fun doing the material characterizations (the "A" word) prior to demolishing a few of the older buildings that got contaminated with radiation. With us the last time we detected something was Nov 2018 and by noon we knew the two man holes it was between and detected it at 0830. A fuel smell and guess what was between the two man holes, one connection for a garage and two for homes. one home was vacant. It was the one home, the service station had a clean out and no smell. The guy with the home was working on a car and come to find out the drain in the home was connected to the sewer. He had no idea. Diesel is easy to track down, it stinks up the entire system. Other stuff you have to do tests and that can take a while.
Also interesting to note the cross sectional shape of Bazalgette's sewer pipes in London. They're egg shaped (inverted) rather than circular, so that there is still a high water velocity when the flow rate is low.
As a former waste water treatment operator working for a small city (10k people) I used to start every morning by scraping 30+ lbs of socks, "flushable" wipes and other misc. rags out of our intake system.
all kinds of stuff goes down toilets (and somehow makes it through our grinders) cell phones, toys, watches. Anything cloth though gets turned into a giant conglomerated rope that will inevitably have to be cut out of equipment at some point.
Thanks for what you did, ppl in that field are highly unappreciated
0:35 he’s absolutely right. Until the end of the world strikes only then we will know how nice having a toilet was
we’ll know and aware of literally everything we had before, it’s common, something that isn’t significant in your daily life suddenly become important when you loss it and you shouldn’t feel sad because you took them for granted, that’s how we are
It would be interesting for you to cover vacuum sewers, something used in very flat areas in the UK
a few vacuum sewers were a few built in VA as well...
Is that that hyperloop thing Elon Musk is on about?
@@TheBayru Both are full of shit, but at least the vacuum sewers work >:P
@@TheBayru No, vacuum sewers actually work.
There are a couple of other knobs the civil engineer can turn (for a price, naturally). For instance, the sewer lines are not necessarily circular in cross section. A more-or-less egg-shaped cross section can keep velocity higher during low flows, when the flow is in the more-tightly-curved bottom of the egg. The selection of material for the lines is a factor both in longevity (pipes do wear out) and the friction experienced by the sewage on its way down hill to the treatment plant.
I have happy memories of a tour of the big San Francisco wastewater project decades ago, where they were re-engineering their combined system to meet modern standards and still handle storm flows. This included some huge interceptor structures along the shoreline to pick up all the flows heading down to the water, and slow-and-settle storm runoff as much as possible to avoid sending sewer-lumps out to the bay or the ocean beaches.
"Humans are kinda gross"
I thought we were doing engineering, not philosophy!
... You're right, though.
Yes, humans are kinda gross, the question is: What kind of gross?
@@Kineth1 Multiple kinds of gross.
We posess assholes and are assholes at the same time.
We're getting really good at dealing with it though, but maybe not quick enough.
Humans are filthy
He is! Humans *are* gross, from an engineering perspective, too. :P
I'm a licensed plumber, humans are gross barely scrapes the surface. Humans are gross is a fact. If you've ever been under a house to fix a sewer pipe, you'd never consider it philosophical.
The true definition of the meter: minimum distance you must flow poop per second
Shouldn't have watched this right after pouring a coffee.
...It's a bit nutty.
I'd just made myself a sandwich. Powered through, but yeah, not the best topic to view while eating
@@IstasPumaNevada *horrified disgusted faces*
@@IstasPumaNevada damn you
Same XD
This was great! I used to work for AECOM on the Aviation side, but we were co-located with the engineers who "dealt with poop". This was another exceptionally well done presentation! Thank you.
The Cloaca was the sewer under Rome. The name was later adopted to be the name of the combined excretion (and reproduction) organ of birds,
It's also the origin word for sewer in danish - and probably other languages. Kloak in danish.
Cloaca is still one of the names for sewers in Spanish too.
"Klo" is also used for "toilet" in German
Cloaca maxima #SPQR
@Jeremy Ardley
RE: "The name was later adopted to be the name of the combined excretion (and reproduction) organ of birds."
Also of reptiles, amphibians, most fish, and monotremes.
"Most sanitary systems are separated from storm drains"
London: *Laughs in combined sewer overflow*
That pink poo must come from the same people that bleed blue into their sanitary napkins.
I have lived in the town house I am in for 2.5 months now. During that time my townhouse backs up into my neighborhoods place. After three companies and complex owners spending 15k, we find out that it was flushable wipes that were causing it to back up.
Flushable wipes AREN’T FLUSHABLE.
I've always been facinated with sewer systems and any other underground system. They have made such a positive impact on society.
I agree, fascinates me very much that we can maintain these tiny pipes that we can’t even fit in most of the time
One thing that I find interesting is, where I live, the town puts pumps at certain points of the sewer line as it's very hilly and you cant get a pitch/slope over a long run.
Got to replace one of those pumps. What a beast. The sewer system is so complex and so needed and yet totally unseen.
Great video!
God i feel like i need shots just looking at this. Hats off to the guys and gals that go in there and keep the system working definitely deserve every penny yall make.
The air valve shown at 10:00 is a clear / clean water air valve, those designed for sewage typically have elongated (taller) bodies designed to keep it from clogging and releasing dirty water into the environment. Thank you for another fine video helping to make the complex subject simpler.
"sewers are lawless places by nature" i'm getting a tattoo
So what about Minneapolis now?
Do it
Another excellent segment. The stuck condom floating on the manhole cover at 3:18 just reinforces how important sewers are in the retention of their flows 😳
ewww gross the water coming out of the sewers when they are backed up is also pushing out used condoms
Lmfao, sorry this is just too funny. I didn't even notice the used Jimmy Hat
“Im Grady, this is sewers, and today we’re talking about practical engineering.”
Hahahaha lool benny booboo bear
Hey Michael, vsauce here
More suitable would be "I'm Grady, this is sewers, and today we are going to be talking about shit!"
Hey sewers, sewage here.
Love this channel! Thanks for shining a light on this chidden gem of an industry. Working on wastewater operations or collections is a rewarding career.
This is what I do for a living. I like to tell folks that plumbers have saved more lives with clean water and sewage relocation then any other career in all of history.
If plumbers actually designed and installed the sewer systems, you might have a point.
@@philipwebb960 Funny you should say that. In order for one of us to receive our Journeymen's license, we need to be able to design plumbing systems. We are the ones installing it, we need to be able to understand what the engineer/architect wants, and correct what needs to be corrected due to onsite conditions or bad design flaws.
@@javiervazquez9472 That's awesome! I always say that training should include one job up, and one job down in the chain of work. Works for me as a surveyor (which is fun, because we show up at two points in the same chain).
@@cf453 Another surveyor here, have you had a situation where you've had to tell the guys to dig up the line because the gradient is wrong?
The transporting and cleaning of wastewater is the single most important aspect towards the development of a city. It is what separates 1st and 3rd world countries. Most people would say that 'clean water' is the most important thing. But, you can't have clean water without treating the wastewater. They are two sides of the same coin in importance.
I really thought he was going to say “but like most free things, it comes with a cost.”
"Humans are kinda gross."
I'm glad someone said it.
Mostly city people where they all live on top of each other and can hear and smell each others farts.
@@mikeznel6048 I'm glad I don't live in a city now
@@mikeznel6048 not really sure what this is but when i visited a city, there was steam coming out of the sewers, it stunk
@@spiyder somebody ass was on fire lmao
Appreciation and gratitude is needed for these engineers. Centuries ago, and even less, sewage was not a pretty picture. And I apologize for my disdain for engineering students at the U of Michigan years ago. Better late than never.
IF i wanted to explain 'You need a S-System, its good, build one, heres how' to a mediaval king, WHAT do i tell him?
This video should be part of the school curriculum for many reasons. Well done.
Fun fact: In Seattle (closest big city to the suburb I live in) they used to build their sewage pipes out of wood- and for a very long time it just drained directly into the sound. You can still walk by the corroded remains of the iron pipes they replaced the wooden ones with (after a fire burned down the whole place including the sewage lines) on Alki Beach
🤢
I had a piece of the old wooden pipe from Alderbrook for years ,it was in decay and hard to keep tho.
That’s what those pipes are 😭 I had no idea
what about an episode on private septic fields, I would imagine they have their own set of issues when planning to install a septic system that is not connected to public sewage
rule of thumb is if you've got a waterwell, at least the septic tank is above the 7-10m radius. this thing is pretty common in 3rd world countries like mine
Any and everybody who works in waste mgmt is a real life superhero! Thank you all for all y'all contributions to society 🙏
6:57 "You can also use trenchless excavation like tunneling, but that's another video."
I'd love to watch that video--I've long wondered about how they do that! Will you add it to your upcoming video list?
I concur!
Grady, only you can make a moving stream of shit interesting and deserving of our awe.
6:15 Family friendly? What kid doesn't enjoy laughing and or being grossed out by a turd? :P
I STILL LOL at poop jokes!
Honestly, I think he was more referring to UA-cam's desperate attempts to keep some kind of moral high ground in flagging content as inappropriate...
I don't think such a creature exists
Brady must be a great father. What a positive and delightful human being. Thanks for the amazing content. Learn so much from every video!
A friend who’s a life long carpenter once told me that we can thank plumbers for stopping plagues.
This ended up being WAY more interesting than I thought it would be.
How Delicate Euphemisms Work.
Interesting, nevertheless.
_""Solids""_
did you just call human excrements delicate?
9:42 two questions cross my mind:
1. Why don't you use bidets
2. Why aren't "flushable" unflushable wipes ILLEGAL for God's sake, they must have been lobbied on by plumbers fr
Hey Grady, longtime subscriber here. I just wanted to let you know that I've been seeing you do some expert interview segments on Engineering Catastrophes on the Sci channel! It was neat to see you in a context outside of your youtube videos. I've often thought some of your videos that explain disasters gave me the same vibe as the show, but it still took me by surprise to see you on there! You were great. Love your content!
“I will use this pink slime to represent poop to keep this video family friendly”….
How precious and removed from the realities of survival have we become that we are afraid that our children seeing a poop may scar them 😂
dude children don't poop.. everyone knows this.
i think it's more we'd rather not see highkey shit on our screens
"Hi-dee-ho!"
its probably to avoid the nature of UA-cam's automatic moderation systems, Which have proven time and again they will demonetize a video at the drop of a hat for anything that flips some certain algorithm.
Youd be surprise with the amount of young kids that are afraid of poop
I’m just a dumb plumber. I really enjoy your videos, familiar concepts at play on a massive, high stakes scale, interesting to see what may be going on downstream of my little sanitary systems.
It’s amazing how complex our society actually is when factoring how much infrastructure is taken for granted and therefore underfunded.
Humanure is a great way to reduce the burden in our sewage systems. I don’t have the means to compost my solid wasted but I do compost my liquid wasted (I have a sizeable compost pile in my backyard