by William Rose
The Mysteries
of Plumbing Drains
Unveiled
Water runs downhill and Friday's
payday. That's all there is to plumbing.
Well, not quite. When you start
thinking of all that can go wrong in a
plumbing system, you realize that gravity
is a part, but not the whole story. A
residential plumbing system has three
components: water supply, fixtures,
and drain/waste/vent (DWV). The
water supply can leak, freeze, hammer,
and lose pressure. Fixtures can break,
clog, backflow, and drip. DWV can
leak, clog, gurgle, and stink. Plumbing
fixtures and water supply, however, are
pretty simple compared to DWV systems,
which can get pretty complicated.
This article hopes to shed some light on
the mysteries of DWV.
The science of plumbing is,