Lakee911
I&C Engineer (mostly WWTP)
I posted this the other day in another thread and I'm surprised I didn't get any comments, so thought I'd post it imore appropriately in its own thread.
"I was in India in November. At the time, I had been doing a lot of plumbing work on my new house (remod of bathroom, new laundry tub, new HWH, etc). With that and my usual curiousity, I noticed the plumbing in India, Mumbai (Bombay) to be exact.
Where there was plumbing and not open trenches w/ raw sewage, the plumbing is run on the outside of the building. Obviously freezing isn't an issue there. I noticed mostly apartments, or flats, and there would be one trap for multiple fixtures. Usually one per floor. I didn't notice, or can't remember, if there was one at each fixture though. It appeared that hubbed cast iron was still common there and morter (probably among other things) was common to make the connection at the hubs.
Another interesting thing is a lot of the Indian style bathrooms have no shower pan. In the nicer places, marble is affordable. Walls and floor are all marble (large slabs) and there is a drain in the floor. One of those hand shower units are attached to the wall and water just gets everywhere. (Servants are available to clean up in the richer). Some of the more westernized homes will employ a shower curtain or door, but usually no curb.
As NG is uncommon, LP is available and used commonly for cooking and transportation, not water heating. From what I saw, electric was always used for heating hot water. They call the HWH a Geiser (they pronounce it geezer), as in Old Faithful in Yellowstone. Tankless is common as the temperature rise only needs to be a few degrees. I took many a 'cold showers' not even realizing that the Geiser was not turned on. With both systems, tank and tankless, the system needs to be turned on a few minutes before the shower is used and I was told that it would rupture if not turned off. I doubt it, but didn't want to try it!
My aunt recently got her bathroom remodeled--decided to go the tile route instead of marble. I asked her about how they put it in. Gutted the old bathroom and installed tile right on the concrete without any regard to sloping towardsthe drain. She told me getting a job done right is difficult, but getting it done is easy. Poured concrete and block is the construction method of choice there for high rises, so at least rot and leaking won't be an issue. Some water can get through the cracks in the concrete, but there isn't much one can do about it if your neighbors shower is leaking into your living room--as I saw on one occasion.
Electric service was interesting too, but thats another story. I wish I had some photos of some plumbing to share w/ you all.
My stories are of the nicer areas in India. There are still many places w/o utilities and w/o running water, but those I did not visit.
Jason
"
"I was in India in November. At the time, I had been doing a lot of plumbing work on my new house (remod of bathroom, new laundry tub, new HWH, etc). With that and my usual curiousity, I noticed the plumbing in India, Mumbai (Bombay) to be exact.
Where there was plumbing and not open trenches w/ raw sewage, the plumbing is run on the outside of the building. Obviously freezing isn't an issue there. I noticed mostly apartments, or flats, and there would be one trap for multiple fixtures. Usually one per floor. I didn't notice, or can't remember, if there was one at each fixture though. It appeared that hubbed cast iron was still common there and morter (probably among other things) was common to make the connection at the hubs.
Another interesting thing is a lot of the Indian style bathrooms have no shower pan. In the nicer places, marble is affordable. Walls and floor are all marble (large slabs) and there is a drain in the floor. One of those hand shower units are attached to the wall and water just gets everywhere. (Servants are available to clean up in the richer). Some of the more westernized homes will employ a shower curtain or door, but usually no curb.
As NG is uncommon, LP is available and used commonly for cooking and transportation, not water heating. From what I saw, electric was always used for heating hot water. They call the HWH a Geiser (they pronounce it geezer), as in Old Faithful in Yellowstone. Tankless is common as the temperature rise only needs to be a few degrees. I took many a 'cold showers' not even realizing that the Geiser was not turned on. With both systems, tank and tankless, the system needs to be turned on a few minutes before the shower is used and I was told that it would rupture if not turned off. I doubt it, but didn't want to try it!
My aunt recently got her bathroom remodeled--decided to go the tile route instead of marble. I asked her about how they put it in. Gutted the old bathroom and installed tile right on the concrete without any regard to sloping towardsthe drain. She told me getting a job done right is difficult, but getting it done is easy. Poured concrete and block is the construction method of choice there for high rises, so at least rot and leaking won't be an issue. Some water can get through the cracks in the concrete, but there isn't much one can do about it if your neighbors shower is leaking into your living room--as I saw on one occasion.
Electric service was interesting too, but thats another story. I wish I had some photos of some plumbing to share w/ you all.
My stories are of the nicer areas in India. There are still many places w/o utilities and w/o running water, but those I did not visit.
Jason
"
