When was water pipes invented

You use your bathroom every day, but have you ever thought about the origins of plumbing and plumbing hardware? Since its most relevant and affects us all in one way or the other, it's worth knowing about the progression of material usage and innovations, over time.

Going back to the Roman Empire, piping constructed of lead and clay was the first reliable material used to deliver potable water to bathhouses, amphitheatres, and private residences all over the Empire. The very first system of pipes to carry water from one place to another was built in the Indus Valley Civilization.

Buildings here had wells and bathing areas with drains in the floors. They had bathrooms with septic tanks, very similar to modern-day bathrooms. His palace had separate bathrooms with elaborate drains as well as latrines with raised seats, connected to a covered sewer system. To irrigate the trees planted atop a 7 m high wall, Babylonians used a mechanical device called the Shaduf. A Shaduf used a fulcrum and wooden beam with a bucket at the end to raise the water for emptying to elevated troughs.

By this time, in places like China, hollow bamboo reeds were used as pipes to carry fresh water and natural gas to and from the ancient salt mines.

On the island of Crete, Minoan Kings had bathrooms with hot and cold running water. The earliest plumbing pipe was made of baked clay and straw while the Egyptians made the first copper pipes.

The Egyptian plumbing process was as formidable as their building expertise. In their search for water, Egyptians dug wells as deep as feet, and the water wheel was born here. The Greeks advanced the art and science of plumbing. Hot and cold running water and bathtubs were part of everyday life in ancient Greece.

The Greeks pioneered shower technology for athletes to bathe after the Olympic games where water moved through overhead pipes and came out through sculpted shower heads. More than years ago, the Romans built water channels that carried water from the mountains into the city, which distributed it through underground supply lines made of lead.

These lead pipes also carried water to the Roman Baths, supplied with hot water, heated by wood and furnaces. These baths had elaborate steam rooms accomplished by pumping hot air through channels beneath the floors. Wastewater ran into sewer pipes that emptied into the Tiber River.

The largest of sewer pipes carrying wastewater was the Cloaca Maxima, which had already been built half a century earlier. Public latrines had 20 seats or more arranged in a circular manner, where water constantly ran beneath them, to carry the waste into the nearest sewer.

Overcrowding in cities resulted in the production of excessive waste causing the outbreak of many diseases and thousands of people lost their lives to water-borne diseases caused by polluted drinking water as safe, sanitary practices and hygiene had never been considered till then. After the fall of the Roman and Greek empires, plumbing technology and its advances came to a standstill in Europe until many decades later. Traces of early sanitary practices existed in monasteries and castles of feudal lords in England.

Most castles in England had Garderobes, a Garderobe being a projection with a seat on which you sat, and the waste simply dropped into the soil, moat or river below. Menials were made to scrape and carry away this waste. For washing-up, every home had a washstand in the bedroom which a maid would bring up with a jug of hot water and a jug of cold water. After washing —up, emptying the water was a simple process of opening the window and tossing the waste water out into the street.

Renaissance brought in new independent thinking and thereby a new interest in hygiene, and so began a steady march towards indoor plumbing. Like everybody else in those times, Queen Elizabeth1 had a bath once a month. Before indoor plumbing, bathtubs were simply filled and emptied by hand. Using the toilet was another matter altogether. Historians and sources close to the Queen reveal that although enthusiastic about the flushing toilet, the queen was afraid to use it. She is believed to have said that the apparatus made scary sounds like thunderstorms with terrifying rushes of water every time it was used.

The concept of the shower began in ancient times with outdoor waterfalls and buckets of water. The first water system in America was built in Boston in the mids. The first valve-type flush toilet was introduced in by a man named J. Also in the year , Alexander Cumming, a Scottish watchmaker, and inventor became the first Englishman to patent design of the flush toilet.

The design still survives today and was the forerunner of the modern toilet. His creation is the prototype for closets aboard ships and boats. In , wooden pipelines were built to carry water for firefighting using hollow logs of wood. The firemen had to drill through the walls of these pipes and after they finished, plug the hole.

One of the earliest modern-style showers was the English Regency Shower that pumped water continually from a lower basin to a cistern directly above the bathers head using the same wastewater.

It was considered a novelty even among the aristocrats of those times. The city of Philadelphia was among the first to undertake a safe water supply as a governance issue. Egyptians developed copper pipes that were used to build elaborate bathrooms inside the pyramids and intricate irrigation and sewages systems.

One of the clauses of the code called for people to be put to death if a house that was not constructed properly fell and killed an owner. Rainwater cisterns were developed on the island of Crete which allowed for storage of rainwater until it was needed for drinking, washing, bathing and cooking uses. Archeologists discovered the remains of an ancient plumbing system at least 3, years old on the island of Crete at the site of an ancient palace of Knossos.

This ancient plumbing system included a bathtub made out of hard pottery that looked similar to the shape of a cast-iron bathtub of late 19 th -Century America. There was also evidence of a water closet with a seat and crude flushing device. The Romans were some of the most advanced in ancient plumbing systems. Out of the Roman Empire aqueducts were developed as well as underground sewer systems, public and private baths, lead and bronze water piping systems, and marble fixtures with gold and silver fittings.

The Romans utilized lead pipes, which at the time made vast improvements in sanitary conditions. For the first time, iron pipe was installed in Siegerland, Germany. German craftsmen had learned how to build fires hot enough to melt iron and pour it into castings to make hollow pipe. Sir John Harington, godson to Queen Elizabeth, invented the first flushing water closet. This was to carry water about 15 miles from a pumping station to the palace fountains and surrounding area.

The castles of the 17 th Century housed privies. Unfortunately, the plumbing systems dumped directly into the surrounding moats. The first underground sewer was installed in This came about after health officials in New York responded to complaints about the smell of open sewers. The first public water main was installed under New York streets in Numerous fires had demonstrated the need for an adequate and available supply of water for fire fighting.

Drainage piping systems were installed into buildings. These systems helped convey sewage away from the buildings to a suitable disposal terminal. The National Public Health Act was passed in Most of the world has adopted this model plumbing code.

Philadelphia was the first city that switched entirely to cast iron pipes to create their new system of water delivery. The English Regency shower was first introduced in A.

The water is plumbed through a nozzle and then sprayed at shoulder level. The water was then collected and pumped through the shower again. Tremont Hotel of Boston was the first hotel of its kind to feature indoor plumbing for guests.

Eight water closets were built by Isaiah Rogers. Until , indoor water closets were commonly found in the homes of the rich and luxury hotels. Soon, soap was introduced during bathing and catches on for hygiene purposes. The White House was first plumbed with running water on the main floor.

Upstairs plumbing was later introduced when President Franklin Pierce was in office. Image by McClatchy DC. Thomas Crapper patented his valve-and-siphon design, updating the modern toilet in the process. His work revolutionized the modern concept of plumbing. Flood was first founded in Washington, D. The company started serving Northern Virginia and Maryland as it grew. Image by John C.

The elevated water tank became the most contemporary closed toilet water tank and bowl that most people have in their bathrooms today.

Image by Buildipedia. Due to a shortage of copper after wartime requirements, non-metallic, and plastic piping systems were first introduced for toilets.