 Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for this opportunity to chat with you about plumbing and Codes and things. I am not the biologist among us. That's not my job. I spend my life in hot water and I'm married and I have kids and I'm a guy For all those reasons So some of you many of you sent in some questions for me to look at an attempt to answer today If you would be Committee members, what is the one thing you want to make sure I try and cover today? I already put together a presentation, but to the extent I have it in there It'll be nice to know and if not it gives me time to think about it Any questions from anybody? Even if you sent them in to me, what was the one thing you want me to cover? Nothing. Oh good. We're good. We can go home now. Yes, sir Changed and ongoing It's a great question you want the answer you want to wait, okay good It's a great question any others that's it cool. We'll get started I'm sure others will come to you. I will do my best to manage them My rules for this so you can ask a clarifying question committee members as we're going through Questions that gonna go off on rabbit trails. We will hold till later Fair enough All right, so I want to make some acknowledgments I've had a few people that some of you and probably know that has assisted me in helping to put together this Presentation or in my thinking on this topic over the last decade and I just wanted to acknowledge them You are going to get the presentation. It'll be posted so we can move through it I've got a basic agenda of things. I want to cover with you and I will Let's start by scoping Some years ago I worked for the California Energy Commission and my job with them at that time was to help manage the connection between Water and energy for the state of California. I suspect a few of you have actually seen that report if you haven't seen that report You've probably seen this This image from the report It I will tell you that we had to get water folks and energy folks in the same room and get them to communicate We started the project the day after New Year's and we had to be finished by August 31st It took us three months to get this chart One month later we had public policy But it took three months to get people who were talking about the same thing from their point of view to communicate with each Other so we could talk together about the same thing Fascinating problem, but I believe it's relevant to this group There's different people with different perspectives sitting in this room and until we can all point to the same picture at the same thing and say I mean this it's going to be very very hard to get others to come along with So I think we have to think about how to do that, but I wanted you to see this image because of what we're not talking about We're not talking about everything in this blue dashed box. We're talking about what happens at the end user It's about premise plumbing systems. Is that right? So it's not the stuff that it's just it's at the gate. It's that pipe that matters or price that matter Okay, now clearly there are implications upstream and downstream by choices made on the end-use level at the building level the facility level right but That's secondary to this discussion today. So a few things on promised plumbing water use There's outdoor use There's indoor use and there's advanced systems I'm pretty sure we're talking about mostly indoor use in this room. Is that right? Okay, so there's some waffling here So you will handle questions about them But most of my discussion about codes is about indoor why most codes cover indoor things Okay, you asked me to focus on something and that that's the nature of it But one of the things that happens is the I described this codes define what happens between the city and the building Okay, and I don't take it's not always cities It's sort of organized at groups and what happens to the facility Building codes are about what happens generally in the building or on the premise of the construction of the building Key thing they end at the time your certificate of occupancy is signed. Yes, you can get it They're done 99% of all the stuff I work on stops the day you say please you can take over Okay, there's only a few things that go beyond that and that's a problem There's a whole bunch of work going on now about advanced systems and water use in buildings I suspect some of you are involved in various aspects of it. This is Unknown territory there be dragons there. We do not understand the Relationships between most of these advanced systems and other things going on in building and That's clearly a problem the people who develop most of the plumbing code related things in the United States focus almost entirely on what we would loosely call potable water and Treating wastewater that goes down the drain now. Here's a good one for you water that hits your roof is immediately called storm water Why don't you want to use it and capture it as rain water? Well, the code doesn't say that it says it's storm water and you have to manage storm water But it isn't storm water until it leaves all those other things in my opinion So we have to start to rethink how the codes are written in order to create space for some of these features here All right quickly water advanced systems gray water on site collection Reuse rainwater collection use so is it indoor outdoor? Is it collection or the use side? That's good dumb question rainwater collection and use people like the idea that they talk about it a lot I do a lot of work on high efficiency buildings these fancy things In fact, I have a builder who only builds potable water from rainwater home friend of mine central, Texas not where it rains a lot big tank Probable nightmare from our point of view No one died and no one seems to be getting sick. So what's he doing? It's different, right? He tests his water how often only once a year, but he tests it Choice not requirement. It's a choice he made so Which pipe are you talking about? Are you talking about the collection piping you're talking about the storage container Are you talking about the piping that comes out of the tank and goes into the building and Each piece needs to be discussed separately in order to get the right answer for what you're trying to do and Most people don't do that. They don't distinguish between they call it rainwater They're different Indoor water use Anything we're missing on the cold side. Look, there's lots of buildings and lots of things. I'm looking for the common elements You get me you asked me to look at codes codes and standards tend to look at things that are commonly found And they have a separate section for things that are uncommon. Yes, sir Great, I didn't put those in great. Thank you Great. Thank you So we're going to add to the list humidifiers out architectural water features indoor or outdoor. What else? Drinking fountains great Hot water. What are we missing? We're missing a lot of commercial equipment a lot of semi industrial equipment, right? again, those are special features and codes tend to Building codes plumbing codes tend to put those into a separate category and That separate category has its own rules, but the code inspectors tend to say where's the engineering stamp and they check it off It's not their job. Exactly And are there other end uses and we've just identified a few this is helpful and We could go on with a longer list But I will observe for you that every building I've been in recently has at least two things in common Toilets in a sink mirror. There's a place to go to the bathroom is a place to wash your hands Right The same devices occur in all building types Very different levels of use depending on which building you're in Okay Background plumbing fixture flow rates flush volumes and appliance volumes have been reduced every decade since the 1950s How much and he gets it? A little or a lot. Let's go for the obvious one a lot. So a lot means more than 10% is that right? How much more? Fourfold I hear a 75% reduction. Is that what fourfold would mean? Yeah, okay. Good. We'll come back to that Pipesizing rules have not been changed since they were first written down We have evidence that there's been one change To the pipesizing rules that home builders in the United States cares about in the 1970s It was like a two-word change. It didn't have anything to do with the pipe sizing itself Okay Buildings have gotten bigger homes in particular have grown. I just picked the year because I did some work on this a while back Here's the chart Your fourfold guests is right on the mark. Look at the last column These things occur in every building. Yeah. Wow So you wonder why there might be a problem in the plumbing Ta-da We're done. We can go home now. There's a problem. We have done enormous things to reduce flow rates Okay, since 1970 US average water withdrawals for use have gone flat Residential building stock typically has a lifetime of 50 to 75 years So you're talking about new construction I mean you previous No, so let's yes sort of here's the dilemma When your toilet breaks, you can't buy an old one. You can only buy a new one and so the rules for new toilets in the United States go back to 1996 that's 20 years guess what they're getting ready to be replaced Right under normal wear and tear the 20 year lifetime is about right maybe 25 years But in California that choice of 1.6 is disappeared a few years ago We're at one twos and then a lot of people looking at good working well working one GPM for flush toilets. So But back to the plumbing pipe sizes have not changed Okay, so it's that Interaction that's the problem Okay And by the way, my first observation about all of our work is that the probably bent the solutions will be found in the interstitial spaces between things My world they always are always Okay, I work on one topic and I find it a solution and a connection to another topic and I would observe that's probably true here So water use is almost flat Populations grown GDP. I don't care what you compare it to we have not had fewer people. We have more people In more spread out buildings using less water per person. That's what this means Water use is going down Clearly we've just seen evidence of it. Here's another way of looking at it It's based on this water residential induces of water survey There've been two big national studies of about a thousand homes each spread around the United States That one was 1999 one was 2015 16 The 1999 study had virtually no fixtures in it that met the current law Right the 96 law that went in fact EPAC and night by 20 By the night the 2015 study of more than half had to be So don't you don't have a choice based on where you get things the odd there in favor of it and the data for flow rates sort of show that but We're looking at a 40 gallon per person per day not a hundred gallon per person per day 70 gallons whatever these numbers show Okay Some places actually think about different occupancies having different sizing rules We don't I would observe that the plumbing rule the pipe sizing rules for the United States are based upon What we think happens during congested periods For and when it was written it was for five-story walk-up tenement buildings homes in In cities in the eastern part of the United States. Why that's where people live And there was no way to get water up five stories If you have a building that's taller than four stories three stories now the city provides you water at the first floor It's your job to bring it all the way up They don't provide pressure about above three stories in most places Maybe Pittsburgh where you've got hills you do but most of us I live in flatland out in California and no way it's gonna happen So we have to start thinking about what that might look like another way of looking at it if you look it in time Take the same gallons 200 get three person household of three 210 gallons per day 120 minutes one to two gallons a minute Those are pretty good estimates of what we think flow rates might look like and it's on the order of one to two hours a day Is what it looks like into the future So I have a dumb question for you. What's the most common? flow rate of Water in a building Zero it's in the 99 95th percentile It ain't moving very much this building Right Yeah It's huge, but you Yes, and this building because it's big gets built like big buildings get built, but it's water consumption approaches zero in Relative terms. There's not much going on here Okay Unintended consequences. Do we think it might take longer for hot water to arrive? Yep At least four times as long I Have evidence it might be closer to 20 times Who cares four times is bad enough. I don't have to make the case beyond that but More energy is lost when the pipes cool down Which they do You're gonna have the unhappy people Because they don't like to wait for hot water again I said most of my life is spent in the hot water case and I think we're creating potentially unsafe conditions in our piping networks All other things being equal were residence times up by a factor of four and we know it's probably higher than that The ideal hot water distribution system Has the least amount of water between the source of hot water and the fixture in question. Does that make sense to everybody? The ideal case would be zero, which means you heat it where you need it Right. We're not likely to get there exactly, but that's zero zero is a good number It's an allowable number in my world But you when you start to think about how you're gonna do that it gets much more complicated Does anybody ever heard of an instantaneous water heater? They're not Okay, federal law says that an instantaneous water heater is one in which you have at least 4,000 BTUs Per hour per gallon of water in this in the in the heater That has nothing to do with instantaneously. So it has to do with heat ray, but that's what the law says An instantaneous water heater is one in which when you turn on the tap what comes out of the water heater How what that's called a storage water heater? I? Don't know how big it is But it has stored water of a temperature you call hot, but there's a second feature about instantaneous It must be close to where you need it back to zero pipe And if you don't have those things two things being true you can't have instantaneous and hot water Everyone good with all that so far Okay, I know it sounds crazy, but that's the way it is. I have a challenge for you Figure out how to do it deliver hot water to every hot water outlet wasting no more energy than we currently waste running water down the drain and Wasting no more than one cup waiting for the hot water to arrive And I will stipulate that one cup is a small definable quantity that pretty much everyone knows what it is That fair I mean the one you bake with It's the cup you're holding there right in the middle. It's half of a standard u.s. Water bottle Okay We good. All right. How we only found five ways if you find six. I'm adding it to the list anybody Right heat it right where you need it by the way it could be gas or light doesn't matter But heat the hot water exact right where you need it Okay, what else anybody? Yes, it's the very short pipe piece. What else? Okay, so Recirculation is the new piece you've added here Recirculation is you run the pipe close to the fixtures where you need hot water That's what they did in this building. The problem is they're eight gazillion miles apart Bad choice I Can tell you the age of the engineer that designed this building Okay, you go back in time and you can figure out how they thought about what they did and We teach engineers to look at big buildings differently than small buildings But this building from a water point of view is close to zero gallons per day hotter coal based on the size of the building Okay, the men's and women's rooms are back-to-back here I haven't been in the women's room, but the men's room and the women's room faucets are on opposite walls from each other They can't be back to back They are in physical terms 50 feet of pipe apart and their rooms are right next to each other Oops They should have two water heaters one for each bathroom And by the way, there's all I've been in the men's room four times since I got here today Has anybody here actually gotten warm water come out of that tap? Men's or women's room. I'm sorry. I know it's connected. Where did the energy go got lost in the pipe This is brilliant. We're gonna warm up the bugs. They do not need our help All right, so how else would you do it? You could heat trace the pipe by the way That's another option and you could have clusters of water heaters close to fixtures But they all revolve around the answer to one question if you want to waste no more Than a cup. What's the maximum amount of water in the pipe that cannot be usefully hot? No, the rigs don't say anything In fact almost nowhere do they give you that low a number Okay, one cup is tiny All right But it turns out from our research that we've been doing for the last 20 years It takes one and a half to two and a half times the volume of water That's in a pipe before hot water of 105 or more comes out the other end You can pick whatever temperature you want on the other end But we picked 105 because people are willing to shower in it. That was our strategy for that number Okay Call it twice So if your target is wasting no more than a cup while waiting you can't have more than a half a cup in the pipe So my question for you is how many feet of pipe contains that much water? We'll go to one cup anybody know I need Four volunteers, please who thinks they might be the tallest person here today This won't take very long. I who thinks they might be anybody over six to there's got to be at least somebody in here It's close. I saw people standing up. You're close. Come on You don't have to say anything you just have to be a willing volunteer Who thinks they might be the shortest person here today anybody under five five? I know there's a couple of you Come on. I need a volunteer Come on Amy. I know you're close to this question All right, it's okay. You can leave them on it's all right And now I need someone who wants to be a water heater. I need a volunteer to be a water heater Come on, I need a volunteer if you don't start coming up I'm starting to pick In a corner because water heaters are always in a corner You laugh but it's true, right? You can face us. However, you do not have to be quite that crazy. I need two more volunteers, please come on Take one in goes far that way as you can please just walk straight over there. Yes. Come on. You're here Come on Josh. There you go, and you get this other end and walk with him. Keep going that way. Just keep go Just go Keep going. Yes until you stop. Yeah, that's good. So we have a problem here and let's turn off the lights You don't need the lights It's good All of these pipes contain exactly the same amount of water if they were each full of water. How much might that be? You sure How many think it might be a gallon in each pipe How many think it might be a half a gallon in each pipe? They're all different All right, what else how many think it might be a quart? No takers on a quart interesting how many think it might be a pint like the kind you drink with beer anybody or a bottle of water We're got a leader anybody think it might be a leader. Yeah, you're in the right. Yeah, you're depends which one you're looking at Okay, so all right. What else we got so how many think it might be a cup How many think it might be a cup I asked you about cups. Why would I ring quartz? So you've got the long skinny one over there, how many feet long does that look like to you say 25 25 good answer 25 feet long. It's quarter inch plastic tubing Okay Plumbing codes do not allow us to use that skinny a tube behind the wall We're allowed to use it in front of the wall, but not behind the wall. Why I've been testing down to eighth inch tubing It's perfectly adequate for the faucets in the public bathrooms on either side hot or cold Anywhere I wouldn't want 50 feet of it the pressure drops too much But for short dimensions, there is no physics reason not to use skinnier to that creates a different biofilm Okay, but it would be a higher velocity biofilm because it's skinnier pipe might be better might be worse. I don't know So but zero is better in a skinny one so when you turn it on it comes out faster. Ah, maybe By the way, no one's tested that skinny a tube yet. So when we do I'd like to talk with you about it So you've got the three eighths tubing Your it was accurate. How long does that look like to you? Yeah, very close 12 12 and a half contains one cup These could both be put in with a Research loop running over the ceiling for the bathrooms and coming down to the sinks for the angle stops for the sinks in the public restaurants But three eighths is also not typically used Okay, most plumbing codes don't have that as their minimum and the two of you over here have half inch tubing I'd be careful. They're a loose You are six three ish aren't you? Okay, you've got tall shoes on to them And you are five five or so and you took you took the shoes off. Thank you very much She did very very how I can tell because I saw her with the shoes before so this is five two ish In type L copper. This is six seven six eight and in one of the two plastics Okay They're all equal to one cup. This is the largest Sorry, this is the smallest diameter usually allowed for any part of a building plumbing system in the United States If you want to get three eighths, that's the next size smaller You have to fight for it. Even though some places it says you can use it in the code You have to fight for that we've started to test down to eighth inch Because we've got flow rates for which that would be viable from a physics point of view might be other Considerations we haven't seen yet, but we ought to start doing that analysis This is all it is so you when you ask the question about how tall you are the answer is on the height of one cup than a half It's diameter pipe and if you can't answer that question later, you weren't actually here this afternoon Thank you everybody very much put the pipes back on the table in the corner Very good. Just put them on the floor in the corner. They'll be fine They'll be fine. Thank you. Yeah, I just don't want to trip over Thank you We're coming out with an article that defines your your height based on your favorite beverage Um, you're going to give me back a screen, right? Yes. Just let it go Generally, it's better just to let it go to the lowest point because it will um See I told you it's going to go to the lowest point it always does All right, everyone got the idea. It's not very far So when you set up a plumbing code rule, we're going to discuss a couple of options First thing is you have to pick a dimension that's measurable And you you should always work. Sorry when I do this design work. I work on time to tap As my criteria and then I do the mathematics to convert it into feet of pipe and volume in the pipe So it makes sense everybody I start with time because consumers experience time. They do not know about volume Okay If you want to do this wasting no more energy, you can't waste more than you originally wasted We've been looking for a solution set that plays both water and energy efficient for 25 years. We found a few Okay This is a chart for you that shows the volume that's equal to one cup for a variety of pipe materials that are typically used in us plumbing And what I would point out to you is that if you reduce the length you reduce the volume reduce the time to tap and reduce the water age All new buildings should have this consideration in them We should stop digging a hole where we build buildings with dumb plumbing If we know that water age is a problem to us, then we should build buildings without so much water age. How do you do that? Reduce the feet Okay, we're going to come to those things landscape of codes and standards United states has 40 000 plus jurisdictions that can decide to set standards They have the authority to set standards By the way, the federal government for the nation is not one of them The federal government is for some of its own entities And each of those entities may have a choice I'm not counting those they're the above. This is for like us as the states It's a mess Okay Um, there are some codes and standards used in planning and implementation of the municipal side They're impactful, but they're not part of today's discussion the short version of this The people who design municipal water supply systems Are not required to use current flow rates and volumes of water use On a daily basis in planning their new systems They're allowed to use data that's 30 years old. In fact, I think they're allowed to use any data their engineer says they should use I'm sorry. That's not obviously rational but if we The building piping size rather dramatically in ways that are odd I've lived in three homes in california since I moved to california in 1989 the first one was built 1978 um, this is about fire codes for those of you just joined us back on the On the phone. Um, we're asking about their application here And the first building had a three-quarter inch main and a half inch meter 1978 no one thought too much about two bathrooms laundromes kitchen Everything worked just fine. By the way, it was copper plumbing nice neat clean. No pretzels. It was pretty good shape. Look good Um Didn't know about legionella stuff back then so I just it was an observation Um, we lived there for about 10 years and then we moved to another house that was built new in 1999 No Yes, 99 it was brand new at that point. We were the first occupants It had now switched to plastic plumbing Because of price of copper if nothing else um And it was now three bathrooms along the room in the kitchen It was a bigger house, but two stories instead of one So the distance from the water heater to the furthest fixture had gone down not up actually But not all that different um Both had similar water heater technology and no fire sprinklers New house still doesn't have fire sprinklers Not required at the time the house was built this batch of codes I have to put fire sprinklers in in all new residential What's happened with the meter size is it went from three-quarter inch Biggest right to a one inch meter to a one and a half the meter size has gotten bigger Um, and if you have a fire sprinkler system, you're at a minimum of one and a half inch now going into the building And you still only have two bathrooms three bathrooms along in the kitchen. Do you understand that it won't matter How much water is coming out of your tub if there's a fire going on You're going to get out of the tub and it's not going to matter So we shouldn't be designing the plumbing system for a simultaneous of both loads One the emergency load should take over I don't think they're sized that way. I think they're sized additive at the moment and I think we should go back and check that Yes, sir Yeah, let's hold those for a little bit We are All right, so let's just keep going. We'll we'll continue. All right, so Okay, and i'm not getting anything ramy There we go International building code is the most widely used in the united states for building code International energy conservation code is adopted in many of the states that adopt That because there's not many states have their own authority to have an energy code Asher a 90.1 is used in a fair amount of engineering For commercial or not sort of non residential buildings simple residential and there's three main plumbing codes the international plumbing code three-year cycle Supporting organizations There's a map. We'll show you the map that you've got them later. We've sent that as documentation But the key point I want to make here is that in addition to the supporting organizations Most of the code proposals are made by manufacturers They have the time and money to show up in the room Year after year for a week at a time to get five minutes on the agenda We don't or we're not funded to do that It's hard. So this shows you the map. I'm going to move through it uniform plumbing code is a similar group Different organization the two organizations generally do not like each other very much There's some political issues that go back some years But there's two separate plumbing codes which Two big ones and again product manufacturers drive the code change proposals And here's the map of their adoption National standard plumbing code is really only in a few states and it was recently purchased by iatmo. The code business is all about selling code books Let's be clear what it is All right, and it's a revenue stream for the groups that organize it and they put up with the fact It has to get the support meetings to develop it. It's a pain The international code council is actually running its 2018 final action hearings this week in richmond california And i'm not there i'm here And I had items up for this session, but my being in the room will not help their their passage On the energy guy. I shouldn't show up in a plumbing code hearing Even if I have a rational proposal and I think one of mine actually won in a development hearing and there's a chance It'll win this week But it won't matter if i'm there or not Okay interactions among codes I've got five topics. I'd like to cover in the next 30 minutes. We have a lot to go so um We can date some of this back to 1989 When ashrine 90.1 established some guidance in its standard For lavatories in public facility restrooms and they meant high use facilities That's what they meant back in 1989. They established a variety of flow rates and they limited temperature and you can see the highlights everyone good the international plumbing code in 2006 Now has a requirement Of 85 to 110 for public handwashing in all cases Not necessarily the high use cases I will tell you there's no Studies about any of the impacts of this other than it sounded good I sit on some ashray committees. I know how it happens. Everyone's trying to catch a plane. Let's make a decision Sometimes it's a little better than that. I don't try to denigrate the people who work on the committees But hey, we need an answer Let's go for an answer that sounds okay And then it goes out for publication and it gets to adopt it sounds good without our soup And we we get follow the leader and dominoes going on So 2018 I want to bring you forward for this one some examples of temperature This is the new definition in 2018 for hot water, which probably goes back to 2006 You can chase the derivation of this. I didn't do that. But if They have tempered water for hand washing sinks at 110 then it would be a definition change at that point to define hot water Is the number bigger than that? And so it's 110 Which I would stipulate is not particularly useful for anything except growing pathogens But it's there and then they had this definition of private and public And there are two wordy definitions of public and private Now the other plumbing code the the uniform plumbing code Also has a definition of hot water. They picked 120 And their public and private use it's really clear private is defined public says it's not private So the first one has a laundry list that you have to make sure you're one of or not And if you're not then you're not either of them So you should never have definitions that leave holes in the universe It's a or b the map shall be defined Okay, it's a simple rule worth following Um, here's another one for you. These are 2018 provisions in the international plumbing code and the international residential code slash plumbing There's a special code for one and two dwelling units Do you understand the plumbing can't read it doesn't know what building it's in? And all of what we discuss is the same in all buildings Okay So here's a bunch of them. Um, it goes on Okay, I'm going to keep moving if you wanted some examples, you're going to want to study these i'm sure Great question. It comes here Your timing is excellent So I brought public and private because it says This is the one that goes back to 2006, but it's in the most recent version Water having a temperature range between 85 and 110 degrees is tempered water Tempered water for public hand washing facilities shall be delivered From laboratories and group wash facility fixtures located in public toilet facilities provided for customers patrons and visitors Obviously, it's not in the public facilities provided for the people who work there Okay, tempered water shall be delivered Through a fixture that limits the temperature That's an end-use device Now I know some people who like those end-use mixing valves and or other people who tear them out the moment they find them Something's wrong here. There should be we should find something that works in all cases Right, we shouldn't be one person coming in and one putting them in one taking them out That doesn't make any sense to me. The problem is that this is a relatively recent provision. It's only from 2006 And it requires that we provide water that's in the range of growing pathogens And we wonder why there's a problem I'm sorry. I get confused by stuff like that All right, so what about temperatures that are near the bottom of the following water heaters What's the temperature in a electric water heater this one here Below the bottom element It's some number between the temperature of the water coming in ambient and the temperature here where the element is There's a gradient Somewhere in that gradient. You want to know what the temperature is 85 to 110 Oh good. How many hours a day does it sit there 23 hours a day at that number Guess where the sediments live bottom of the tank Do you think they might We're creating conditions that are likely to cause us a problem when we wonder why there's a problem What's the temperature here at the bottom of the gas water heater? Yeah, this one actually gets hot Okay, what about in the bottom of these? This is a heat pump electric water heater This is the future of electric water heating in the united states and this is a Oh, that's the wrong one There's top. Well, this is the wrong one, but what's the temperature below the bottom of the coil down at the bottom there Yeah, I well ideal is the I like that word ideal And this is ideal So we're creating systems which create ideal conditions for the growth of the thing. We're trying to prevent And we wonder why it shows up Here's some more you're going to love this one. What about branch piping? So one of the rules this is the This is basically the ashray 188 rule guideline 12 rule which says thou shalt circulate water continuously 24 7 shall leave by at least 140 which means you're supposed to put a mixing valve on it and draw that and you have to circulate it And it can't be any lower than 124 f. Did I get that right? Great What's the temperature on the branches? No They are sucking heat out of they're acting like fins off of a big heat source And there's a pipe that goes off sideways and down sideways and up up or down I don't care. It just goes off that pipe the water is conductive copper is conductive And there's heat moving in that pipe even if water is not moving in that pipe Some distance down the pipe into the ideal growth range temperature 85 to 110 at some distance for some hours of the day gets how many hours a lot Doesn't matter water itself is conductive Okay, it changes it by a few feet In distance, but it doesn't change the fundamental principle. It just still happens Okay You're going to love this which pipe is going to cool down more quickly uninsulated copper or plastic No plastic I'll cover that later That one requires drinks that are not related to coffee Okay But we've got tests that prove it's true. And if you insulate it They both act the same. So we have to think about those Look, we're designing new plumbing systems without data All of the work I did for the first 40 years of my career was based on less than five houses worth of data for our water consumption Hey, it's better than none Okay, so here's heat trace What if I was to use electric heat trace to maintain 124 degrees all the way to the angle stops or the valves Sorry, we've got now we've got the whole distribution systems now 124 or more And I can have branch lines of any length or diameter that I choose So my plumbing configurations don't have to change much But guess what I now have a temperature gradient from the angle stop To the fixture that's now in exactly the ideal growth range I've shortened up the distance of it. I've put it in the complicated bits and pieces I'm not sure I made a big difference. I've just moved it But I covered the plumbing material requirements There are two groups of material requirements in the two plumbing codes And they tell you about, you know, things that might be of interest the lead content of what's allowed in the plumbing Basically, everything is this no lead low lead rule It's not quite zero But that's had its interesting consequences And then they each have a table about what materials are allowed to be used for plumbing. Remember I mentioned manufacturers They're the ones who show up every cycle with new materials to get them allowable in the plumbing code They don't move that fast. It's their job to get them in their trade organizations have to put them there Otherwise, you can't sell them in a jurisdiction So in order to get easy adoption across lots of jurisdictions, remember the 40 000 of them You get it in the model plumbing codes device requirements minimum numbers of things required for each occupancy each Plumbing code has a table that's similar but different Do you understand that the physics ought to be the same sort of no matter what or where? right Um thermal mixing valves. They are not some of them are required This is the international plumbing code more than anything else at the beginning of the distribution system You're used to seeing a valve that says 1017 on it Okay, that's would be at the 140 degree point Okay, um, but I'm I'm part of a process that's trying to develop a standard for water heaters That can control their output temperature And if a water heater could control its output temperature at least as well as a mixing valve could why couldn't that be used for the same purpose? There will be a standard so there is a standard for that. It'll be adopted. We hope this by 2021 That's what the or the ASSE 1082 is about or 1080 4 and 85 Then you have mixing valves near the end points and there's required in the international plumbing code for uh public lavatory faucets They're not required In the uniform plumbing code By the way, that's probably a good thing Okay, and then faucets showers and tub fillers Um So the emergency stations have their own rules Right fine. They have whatever they are they are and then faucets showers and tub fillers Um, you wanted that you all asked me a question about low flow versus lower flow And the industry that does this likes to call things that are below the law Lower flow rates than the law high efficiency So i'm proposing we use those words because they prefer it that way um California is by definition a high efficiency state for fixture flow rates Title 20 in california requires that we use no more than 1.2 gallons per minute for private labs No more than 1.2 for flushing toilets No more than 1.8 for showers or 1.8 for kitchen sinks federal law is higher than that for everybody else So by definition, we're a lower one the problem of residual pressure needs to be identified Shower valves to protect you that 1016 valve that's here for showers Require they most of them operate on a difference in pressure And if you drop pressure on one side it rebalances That's to prevent the shower dance Remember it used to admit your your siblings managed you by flushing the toilet When they were in the shower it caused all sorts of oh dear me screams about so that's gone It's a good thing But they require residual operating pressure currently on the order of 20 psi And so if you only have 40 psi at the entrance to the building And you have to have 20 at the highest point for that shower valve far away You only have 20 to lose in all of the plumbing and you have to pay attention to that question I would observe that we should start encouraging manufacturers to come up with shower valves that work down to 10 psi residual pressure Why finds us a lot of room? Hand hot and cold mixed flow rates. I want to discuss this with you those mixing valves those shower valves that we just talked about If you turn them on full hot you do not get full flow In fact, you get approximately 70 percent of full flow I've got limited test data where it varies from 63 to 76, but just call it about 70 percent Oh There's no requirement to actually have a rated pressure for the measuring of the flow rate for the mixed temperature of a tub spout filler why Because it's going to be whatever this pressure gives you And so if you've only got 40 psi You're only going to get a certain amount of flow through that hole because it's only got 40 psi to push through the hole If you have 80 it's going to push through almost twice as much Okay, so this is pressure flow curve. We'll see in a minute But the key that I wanted to point out here is that mixed temperature flow is the full flow of the device That the pressure will give you at that point available pressure gives you and Some devices you get less when you try to go all hot So if we want time to tap questions, not only is it the volume you have to figure out You have to figure out the actual flow rate of the device that's attached to it and it's not likely to be the rated flow Faucets it's all about the feel Right not the pressure of the flow rate Anybody recognize those three faucet streams Champagne bubbles on the top clear column of water in the middle and the one on the bottom looks like a mini shower head Any preferences how many vote for the the champagne bubbles How many vote for the one in the middle You all pay too much time to lesionella. What about the one that looks like the mini shower head? Okay, you're not normal compared to the rest of the population. You should recognize this none of us are I'd personally like the one in the middle because it feels more watered to me But in any given group I get votes across all three of them Okay Fixed versus variable orifice Fixed orifice devices are a hole with pressure behind them The entire plumbing code was built on the presumption of fixed orifice devices Pressure compensating aerators are new and they come in showers and in uh faucets Okay, almost all us Shower heads and most european have an insert made by one company called neopurl neopurl They're a swiss-based firm their u.s. Offices are in connecticut. They're worth a visit. They know their stuff Okay, they make the insert that is pressure compensating Why do manufacturers of shower heads put that in? Because they were getting calls from unhappy customers when the pressure when that person was taking a shower was only 20 psi At shower heads are rated at 40 at at 80 psi at 40 psi. You're only getting point seven of the flow So if you were at two you're now at 1.4 Whoops I am not happy at 1.4. I didn't like the two because I remember the fives Okay, so we have a real problem The key is this pressure compensating aerators follow the green line Normal aerators fixed orifice follow the blue line And you get these different flow rates the key is that if you cut the flow rate the pressure in half The green line gives you a lot more available flow Customers like getting what they thought they paid for And if you tell them it's a 2.0 you better be close to 2.0 Okay And basically they have a neoprene o-ring that moves that squishes Or relaxes. It's a very clever technology. They're not the only ones that make them, but they certainly make the bulk of them piping requirements Pipe sizing you asked about pipe size The international plumbing code has two places to find stuff about pipe size that I've found so far And the uniform plumbing code has one two three four five places six places six places Okay, I'll come back to those in a minute. We've done some testing of water flow in pipe Particularly hot water. This is at southern california gas companies lab in downy If any of you want to come visit we can organize a visit Basically it took a classroom. We made a wet room out of it. There's water heaters in there There's carts with fixtures and faucets and things like that on them. We can play around Um We're going to do an experiment of plumbing So we have a t1 And p1 at the entrance to our plumbing system when we turn on the tap water flows that way goes through the flow meter We measure flow rate measure t1 and p1 Where the water comes out the other end of the pipe through t2 and p2 and we discharge it through a faucet That's our flow control device Okay, we could do fancier than that, but that's what we do to teach So this is three quarter inch peck 75 feet long. I'll tell you it's about a half one and a half gallons of water in the pipe Okay, and if the flow was one and a half gallons a minute, how long would it take for the hot water to show up Before today you would have said one minute Right gallon and a half gallon and a half a minute be about a minute, right? Yeah, yeah, it takes the mixing but most of us don't know that right Certainly most plumbers. I know don't know that most plumbing engineers don't know that So here's the kicker It's really about 1.3 gallons and 1.3 gallons a minute and at 60 seconds We would have predicted hot water to arrive and in fact it's only risen a degree or two It took another 30 seconds to hit 110 Why one and a half you've got mixing it's the mixing of the water in the pipe as much as it is the heating of the pipe By the way, it doesn't matter if it's plastic or copper. You still have to heat the mass And so we try to fix it by making a shorter pipe the skinnier diameter about 10 feet long Because that's a plausible buildable number in california buildings home particularly and same flow rate 10th of a gallon it should have taken five seconds and it took 10 So it's a lot less water But the percentage is still big of extra above and beyond what's in the pipe We must account for it and I guess that's the single biggest point I wanted to share with you is that part of what we have to explain to people viscosity and flow regime What's the viscosity of 70 degree water? I don't know. It's on the chart here What's the viscosity of 140 degree water half? Now when you turn on the tap to get hot water through any one of those pipes The water in the pipe is about 70 degrees the water entering it is 120 to 140 degrees And I'm going to suggest to you there are actually two separate fluids They have very different viscosities And our evidence is that they're acting like they're two separate fluids inside the pipe Okay, we have lots of research data on that the best Author to read is carl hillar h i l l er with a c for carl So we looked at some of these ranges And we've got a graph that I want to share with you there's three of them And I'm just going to zip through them This is 70 degree water and let's pick the flow at a gallon a minute Which I'll stipulate is about where we're at for an awful lot of stuff But we got to go here and we see the color coding and we see the viscosity now the Reynolds numbers And what diameter pipe do you want? I don't know three quarter inch We are not in the turbulent range Now we're in a big building here, right? How many feet of pipe on the hot water system do you think are three quarter inch or smaller? Lots of them, but not the big ones The big trunk lines could be two inches Or bigger So look at our Reynolds numbers now The water's crawling Okay, even if it's moving by the way, it's not moving 90 of the time, but if it's moving it's crawling So here's 120 degrees and here's 140 And I'm not going to go through them in any detail now, but I wanted you to have them We need to look at the the flow of water in Trunks and branches differently than in what we I would call a twig the plumbing code calls them fixture branches The pipe that serves one fixture hot or cold water is different And should be sized differently than what happens in the trunks and the branches Okay This is another way of looking at it. This is flow rate versus velocity I know you all care about velocity a bunch. So I put the tables in so you can look at them We're not going to study them now Basically skinnier pipe has higher velocity problem with higher velocity is you get greater pressure drop and if you don't have enough You can't do it This is a set of simultaneous equations that have to be solved How long should we wait? I don't know But we need to pick Codes ultimately have to make a choice A guidance the standards a guidance document can say make these kinds of choices and it's all it's up to you to make a decision A code is going to make a decision It's going to say this is the target. This is what we have to aim for Again, I work from time and then work backwards to length and volume But we'll tell you whatever you think it is. You have to cut the volume and have to actually get the time and pay in the chart The American Society of Plumbing Engineers specifies acceptable is less than 10 seconds Which is great if you're taking a five minute shower, but not if you're rinsing your hands for five seconds Right if you want warm water, it's got to be there sooner Volume from the source of hot water to the use. That's one of the codes. We're interested in it's in the international energy code not the plumbing code energy conservation code and it says no more than two ounces for public laboratory faucets and for everything else a half a gallon And I'll tell you neither number is right. It's what I thought I could sell Okay So yeah, right the two liter number So this is the chart that converts all of this stuff and makes generic pipe and it's in the code pressure drop through pipe and fittings Lots of materials lots of fittings. I will tell you that the last time we have measured data is from 1890 something For steel pipe and threaded and flange fittings And I would suggest to you that's not current for plumbing systems This is the lab same gas company lab. We set up some experiments. We measured pipe We've actually got piped down to eighth inch now. We've done beyond that. That's what it looks like A bunch of different elbows again modern materials modern fittings um We looked at them far apart close together various velocities So far. Yeah, right. You're gonna love this Okay Nope nope and nope Look, we got to get it right Okay pressure drop number two Is there a minimum radius of curvature through which there's no extra pressure drop other than that through the length of the bend And wouldn't that be the most energy efficient? Yep Ask me about the swoop another time We have a trademark on the word swoop. It's that shape that um benefits of good architecture Ashway guidance line 12 in the draft says planet control pathogens as it should start with the architecture design engineering the building We did a study for the state of california where it's really clear in a 2100 square foot building You can save one to two thousand dollars at time of construction by compacting the architecture the wet rooms I haven't built it yet. I can save one to two thousand dollars. We're not talking about a hundred bucks We're talking about serious money in the building process. We're not doing this in multifamily high rise multifamily Two bathroom one laundry room one kitchen multifamily dwellings look just as dumb to me as single family detached of the same size For some reason it's required to put the fixtures as far apart as possible I'm sorry. That's not good. We need to fix that one I want to show you a quick diagram of the way the buildings are laid out This is showing you how one thinks about the logic of plumbing The logical worst case is for the water heater to be diagonally opposite the furthest fixture on the other corner of the house I'm showing you three sizes of dwelling. I don't care how many stories you can play games with that But the answer is that gives me my approximate distance I hate to tell you you can do worse than worst case You can do worse than the logical worst case We've got some at 155 percent of the floor area is the plumbing area It's just the way you laid out the whole complex. Anyway, lots of stuff compact plumbing cores huge wind Four bathrooms four wet rooms two bathrooms alone in the kitchen. By the way, we've got one building that's There's a home being built in stock in california by habitat Two bathrooms alone in the kitchen 1200 square foot dwelling. The entire plumbing wall is 10 feet long They got it. They cut it in half from what I estimated They made an i-beam instead of a cross. It's very interesting Other issues down to the rest of your questions Enforcement what's meant by a minimum code? Isn't that the first building you're legally allowed to build? Anybody got kids in school? What's the first passing grade? Sierra day Right, that's what my parents said, but the school district says z That's a minimum code now some jurisdictions have higher minimums than others But in your jurisdiction minimum code is the first passing grade so For this question. Are we talking about a requirement that all should be doing if that's true It's now a minimum code requirement And it becomes the first passing grade It's not easy to get stuff into that set of codes It's a time-consuming process Okay on the order of a decade It's three cycles is a good guess before you get much in Thank you. We're almost done with the slides and we've been taking a few questions as we go What is meant by a stretch code? It's going beyond the minimum Some jurisdictions have them some jurisdictions adopt lead as a stretch code for their jurisdiction or Uh, what is it ashray 189.1? They do things like that Um, one of the things to think seriously about is to put the legionella requirements Which we would all I think in this room agree our health and safety and therefore minimum Start out by putting him in the stretch world So you get experience with them and people get to try them without being required everywhere to try them Jurisdictions authorities having jurisdiction some of them are willing to try new ideas Because they're insensible to the people involved Okay, give them the ability to do it without requiring them to change everything overnight Get practice with that then move forward for other things. Well, you found it works You asked about what happens the buildings built under previous codes. They sit there If it ain't broke you're not required to fix it However, if you go in and replace for any reason more than half of the system You're trying to fix you are supposed to bring it up to the modern current code So if you go in and you do your wiring and you replace More than half you're supposed to bring it all up to code If you do your plumbing more all the way up to code All of it if that's the way it works Now I said supposed to Any di wires in the room? I'm not sure I'm telling Okay, I'm pretty sure that that happens a lot There are some places That are supposed to be requiring california being one of them When you sell your home, you're supposed to bring your fixtures up to current title 20 in california And I use the words supposed to I don't think it happens much And if it does we still have all plumbing So I'm not sure it's the smartest answer. I'm just observing that that's what the rule says The size matter. Yep This building is a big building with very little water use and that's not how it's treated in the codes We have to rethink plumbing systems from building size anybody ever been to a home depot? Where do they put the bathroom eight miles from the street the back, right? There and they go on all the they get um Passes on the requirements for slope There is no way to get to the street at any slope It's all the way across the parking lot and all the way across the building How about a 400 feet deep? I'm in california. We don't run drains that deep Being silly to make the point, but they have to match And you get exceptions in the code you can go less than this if you do these things Oh, by the way, one of the exceptions for drain lines is if you want to go to a lower slope you can make it bigger Why is that smart? It just makes it flatter I'm sorry the boats won't float Oh and for drain lines the single biggest variable turns out to be toilet paper. You go after the toilet paper code I'm serious by the way it is toilet paper choice um Residence time and turnover the bigger the plumbing The more the residents time Why do we keep building buildings as though we have fixture flow rates from the 1950s? We don't It's at least a factor of four smaller. Our pipes should be proportionally smaller in some way We closed the laboratory at NIST In the mid 1990s about the time epac was Came out the guy retired The lab's been mothball But we should resurrect it Why we need a national Purview over this kind of decision it can't happen at the state level it will if the state says don't do it But we should do something national Uh water based cooling systems. I'm going to pass on that the answer is they can be a mess Don't breathe down down wind. I'm sorry There's a problem. We have to pay attention to all waterborne. So other issues Design code enforcement pretty much ends at the time of certificate of occupancy There are a few exceptions environmental health inspectors the folks that cover food service and public facilities for You know the fountains and water fountains and things like that They come and do periodic after inspections But in the plumbing world very very few times. I understand that Some uh health jurisdictions like we just heard earlier today. They have periodic audits that go out Right, but it's very very rare Okay, um, there is an international property maintenance code Which has been adopted in some places, but I will tell you it's not very there's not very much in it And it won't have any teeth for a very very long time Not quite the way it was including ashrine 188 into the codes I'm wary of it It's still a design standard. That's not well tested I showed you the rule earlier about the requirement to make water leave at 140 come back at 124 But there's no guidance on the on the branches The branches are where we're creating the conditions of growth for the pathogens But the standard doesn't say anything about it. It's silent The engineers who do 90.1 who will implement the 188 stuff Don't see the branches in their system design. It's not part of the required mathematics It's a mess out there and if i'm picking on one provision. I don't want that one to be a requirement in the code It's going to create more problems than it solves Okay Redundant water sources are not common in most buildings We get one hospitals get redundant water sources. I've learned But most buildings are not required to have them. In fact, it's frowned upon Okay, but when you start to see multiple sources of water, you really have to think about Who's fought primary? Okay, and that's not well thought through in the code at all They're all assumed to be allowable and parallel and that's not rational Some recommendations I have a few I'd like to see a method of test For measuring pressure drop for all fittings and piping that's modern Oh, and then we actually have to require that fittings and pipe be tested and listed so that you can actually look them up The tables are wrong. We have to fix that We want to measure pressure drop in systems with modern piping materials And from over here in your comment earlier, we have to do that in concert Collaboration with people are looking at the biofilms and the sloughing. We don't do these together We do those in separate silos bad choice. We need to do a combined effort Um establish a maximum volume from the source of water hot water to use You might adjust that volume based on certain circumstances like public labs are different than residential showers Okay, or hotel showers. Um, I think we ought to think about energy credits for architecture that creates compactness of wet rooms We can get that in an energy code. We might even be able to get it by awards for architects It might not cost much to do it. We just have to start people thinking that way And I want to see energy credit for right sizing of piping systems We're going to have a big job of selling the value the ability of smaller diameter piping right size piping in the plumbing code Plumbing code believes bigger is better And that's the one of the biggest things we're fighting in the battle is that the belief in that in that system is that bigger is better For worries of all sorts of things, right? It's just we've never tested it. We don't have a 10-year history We need a 10-year history. Remember I told you can take 10 years to change the code Great. Let's just start building a few now And then in 10 years we'll say here they were they didn't die. No one got you know everything's still working um One of the biggest things we see in the in the plumbing In the code world Is that public health professionals are? Visibly absent from the process In fact, many jurisdictions won't let their people attend a code hearing Well, you know, if you've got eight bosses, it's not clear which one's going to let you say what? And it's political, right? So we have to think that through we need People in the public health community giving guidance to the people that are writing the plumbing stuff so that the Plumbing rules are written based on current science Right, but we're not in the room and you know, if we can't get public health agencies to be in the room that we should think about investing in a Independent set of experts who can't afford to be in the room. We pay them to do it just like everybody else pays their representatives to be there I think we need to develop a comprehensive approach to guide decisions Right. I can't just do the energy and the pressure stuff on one side without doing the the biofilm growth on the same experiment Or parallel experiments with the same set of numbers looking at them So we get the same kinds of answers that we can cross compare We don't have it. Um, the current code Assumes that you just add components to fix the problem the last one fix last one created I don't like that strategy. It's not elegant. We need to fix that Develop a common language. I talked about that earlier. I think it's absolutely critical Um, I'll show you an example of that in a minute And I want to require water suppliers and wastewater treatment agencies to use flow rates that are present and going forward One last one to show you is the common language Um Tim keen who you who has met you have met before Proposed this for the uniform plumbing code for a new appendix for the 2021 code cycle It was rejected in the development hearing But it got a task force Which was probably better than being approved and not understood And the purpose of the task force is to create the common language that will end up in the code I've sent you all a two-page Set of this table one with this table and the other with the descriptions underneath the reasoning And the dilemma in code is that code has to be in what's written as mandatory language It you shall Okay, so it this is not telling you what you to do. This is just stating the facts Can't explain them much But it's the underlying explanation that gives guidance as to why you would be interested in one or another I will tell you that working in the code world and I suspect you've seen it as well 85 to 110 degrees is sometimes called tempered and sometimes called something else by depending on who you ask And maybe they picked 85 to 105 and said it's like it's not common What's hot water you saw 110 and 120? We need one language for temperature That we use in all venues This is a start Thank you for your time ladies and gentlemen 15 minutes or so Maybe I'm willing if ramy is The very last one so that one So why do we go from low to very high to moderate to high on the final column I don't know first draft Is that final column the right hand column? Is that correct? We think so But then why does it go back up at 120? Oh, we have sorry that's a mistake Sorry good catch Okay, thank you. I was tired. This is tim's table. Yes of how we should define the words on the left Yes Okay And we actually have another table Let me check the one I sent you If this is wrong, we'll fix it in the version before we send out the pdf unless you've already done it But I've got it. We'll fix it. This should be low. It should not be high It goes up and comes back down again Okay, because I was looking for somewhere where the skull potential and the gross potential was both low and I Couldn't find it. It's on the words over there. It's supposed to be here. Okay And we've moved tempered which is going to drive the code people who have the tempered in other places nuts By the way, that's one of the justifications for not making a change. It's already in code I'm sorry. We should have common language. We have to drive that pretty hard Good catch. Laura. Thank you The question is in relation to underfloor heating and those sort of supplementary circulating water systems that are connected to the potable supply Not necessarily with non return valve So I was wondering what the international plumbing code was in relation to those sorts of scenarios and buffer tanks that hold liquid water right, so The one you're describing is actually in the heating code. So it would be in the mechanical code and in the mechanical codes, there's a discussion about Heating loops connected to potable water hot water loops And they pretty much tell you you're supposed to cycle the water every so many minutes over so many hours I don't remember the exact rule, but I could find it for you. I just don't keep it in my head So they're the the method of dealing with it is to periodically run it back through the heater to do whatever they're going to do And that same heater supplies hot water to the home. Yes So that's the concern. Yes, and it's we don't it is allowed. It is Yes, it's allowed Let's leave it that With the widespread implementation of the tmv across the systems as you mentioned I'm very concerned about that as well um Have you um, is there anywhere in the code something that addresses the actual design of these valves the dead volume? The fact you need to be able to Trust them with very hot water when you want to clean them, etc It would be in the standard if it's anywhere It is with standard. Well, it depends. So If anyone makes them help me out here, there's probably A standard for the manufacturing of the valve itself That might be an asme standard. I will go look Okay But we'll look for that But the the 10 the that 10 series 17 7 tells you about how it's to be tested Yeah, and that's where you get the temperature ranges that it's required to deal to be Allowable through it So there's a method of test to see if it meets the application But you've actually asked another set of questions which has to do with its underlying construction materials as well All right, and so the rule on that is that you must use materials that are allowed in the plumbing code Almost certainly that's the way that rule is written because I'm helping to write one. So that's what they look like Um, but we should look at offline We should look at the 10 17 and other standards we listed And look at the 1080 twos and you'll see the codes there and we'll find out very quickly if there's a An a priori manufacturing standard because on the market when you do buy them in the last three years you can buy some that are Able to sustain very high temperatures for these infections, for example When you couldn't get those five years ago have another question for you when you're going to 1a these really really small types Are you not concerned with systems, especially hot water systems that are prone to the development of particles Usually because of the heater itself I've seen so many of these systems with very small particles that accumulate in Areas is no already and actually block some of the Larger tubing that we know flexible tubing already. Are you not concerned about that? Yes, but I'm actually I'm asking the questions so that we can develop the matrix of what works and what doesn't Rather than what's normally done is I'm afraid don't touch it I don't know the answer. I hear you Air Raiders are designed to collect screens are designed to collect stuff the problem is we put screens where you can't get at them That's not smart So if we're going to have stuff that needs maintenance, we better put the maintenance stuff where it's easily accessible Right And if there's particle problems, then we shouldn't go that small Okay so my question is around the choice of materials Didn't really cover that much, but it seemed like there's a concern get back to what nick had said before Sometimes that flexible tubing Um Supports more microbial growth anywhere in the plumbing code or their, you know Specifications around choice of materials that don't promote a microbial growth So it's not clear to me that any of the common plumbing materials support much microbial growth now old plastics So let me in particular the flexible plastics leach Plasticizers more than the than that than like the rigid plastics like pbc Okay, and I'm I'm out of my depth here. Um, and so What I would say is that that kind of question is debated at the plumbing code hearing and then the manufacturer says it Met this standard and the standard Doesn't necessarily address it, but it's the only standard there is So you're asking a question about codes that might be better asked about the standard public health Professionals don't participate in any of these discussions Your knowledge is not part of the conversation Your concerns are not part of the conversation and until they become part of that conversation all the way through I can't fix the plumbing code until I fix the manufacturing standard One other question around you mentioned heat trace in your example And so I had to go look it up and it seems like well, why is it? What's the problem with that that would seem sensible, but is there a lot of practical problems and it's implementation so It's unknown for the most part. It's more well understood in industrial applications than it is in commercial or residential applications building applications It's relatively expensive compared to putting one pump on you have to run as many feet But if you have fewer feet, then it's a fewer smaller expense There's energy costs for operation. There's compatibility with pipe materials You've got to do a really good job of insulation There's a bunch of practical aspects, but it makes a lot of sense if temperature is one of our control variables Then we should think hard about how to do it Um in our energy commission work that we're just completing we've set The reference case for our energy mathematics At the ideal hot water distribution case. I'm supposed to study hot water distribution, right? So The question is are you delivering all events? That requested hot water Did they all get hot water and the only way to do that is to assume a perfect delivery system as in zero feet of pipe And so we did that Then in a practical sense you have to add on to that the energy to make that viable And that becomes your energy baseline The current energy code rules do not require that you supply the load 90 of the load never gets supplied In a typical day in a california home It's too short Too low a flow rate to actually get through the pipe 7 out of 10 load 7 out of 77 events in a typical day that we've been studying Actually are long enough at a high enough flow rate to get hot water They're called showers and a few sink draws and that's it Everything else is not getting hot water. So Do we design the plumbing system with heat rays to do all of it? If we do we have to add that energy into our new baseline So it's an interesting question, but it is not well understood in the united states to be happy to have longer conversations about it Who has the authority to mandate who's at the table? In developing the IPC and the UPC strictly the purview of those two development authorities Yes, but anybody can show up at the hearings. They're public So there's two parts of the process one is who makes proposals and who shows up to listen to them and And present them at a hearing that can be anyone So any one of us could write a proposal for the next cycle which starts in january For some codes not plumbing plumbing is off the table for two or three more years. We're already If in the UPC is in the middle of a two-year cycle, but they don't take new proposals Although that table you're looking at can still be modified that's still up for grabs And the international plumbing code is not going to start again till the 2024 cycle Which will be in 2021 roughly but having said that You want to be In the room is making proposals anyone can do that But it would but there's a different question. Who's on the development hearings So there's two parts. There's a first you make a proposal and it goes to a group of Six seven ten people and they vote on its ups and downs and they hear testimony on the good the bad and the ugly Who is You have to apply to be on it. I can tell you right now if I was trying to do that. I would contact The executive director of both of those organizations and say I want to be on that process in the next year How do we have what do we have to do to get involved? And I would want to be I would want to have a seat on the development hearing and I'd want to have a lot of people in the room To support the public health proposals that would be made not necessarily by the person sitting on the committee Okay Um, and I remember I said it's a 10-year process. It's going to take a few years just to get to know the people and the players Would it be would it be fair to say that the amount of energy required to maintain the hot water hot in that pipe is less than Via h-watt would be or Heat wrap would be less than recirculating it and reheating it About 10 percent. Yes, but less but but it depends what you're doing So I showed you h-watt on the branches, which is extra because the loops don't keep the branches Right if it's h if it's the the loop and h-watt you only have to do the supply not to return the answer is h-watt is less energy Um, but again that's very poorly understood One more question Given heat wrap and the often short distance between the hot water and the cold water Is there a regulation in place or have you studied the heat transfer and where you have stagnant? You might have recirculating hot water But a stagnant cold water system in a building and it's getting up to a critical temperature of concern here for legionella Uh, it has not been well studied although one would think that the mathematics of heat transfer are fairly straightforward Um, I will tell you they're close, but they're not accurate. We've been studying this stuff for 20-something years We have not yet matched it. The simple answer is they should not be in the same interstitial bag They should be separated by at least one. They should be but is that what the code says? In the u.s. It's it's in california they wrote it in and it says Hot and cold pipe running maybe in the international energy code as well hot and cold pipe running in parallel Shall be just separated by at least six inches But but that's no that's in the u.s. But it's it's so poorly written and so poorly understood I only get ever gets enforced No, it's a system issue. I sorry I work on hot water, but it raises all these interesting questions Well gary you've given us a lot to think about um, especially the role of public health here and um Really appreciate your presentation. I was a lot about let me so thank you. Thank you all very much Okay, we've got um before we wrap up we have um, oh the open mic and I think we um I think everyone has been given some instruction by remmy, but We're thinking you know five To six minutes. Um, I'll I'll stand up at the five minute. I'll I'll go ahead in time and um, I think we're Hung cheng's not here right remmy Not going to be Right. Okay, then we'll um Let's go in Courtney Gwen okay Is it con Conway, okay. All right Well, you're up for our public comment and um, you're welcome to come up and thank you very much for being here Um, my name is gwen handlin. Um, I was asked to give a patient's point of view with regards to legionnaires um, I Really appreciate being able to be here today and um hearing what's been done to prevent legionnaires And I was surprised that some of these processes weren't already in place Um, I'm here to tell you my husband's story. Um, and my family's nightmare with legionnaires Um, my husband's name was kevin handlin um He was diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 46 Uh, he didn't smoke. He had no signs of cancer Um by the time it was caught he was stage four Um, they've linked kevin's cancer to environmental exposure. Um in the world trade center area post 9 11 We were shell shocked and devastated with two small children But kevin was ready to fight and that's what we did He was being treated in new york city by leading doctors in the leading cancer hospital But kevin didn't even get a year He didn't die from lung cancer in august of 2017. He was being treated for that We weren't naive to think that he had 20 years, but we certainly did not think he had 10 months Not me not kevin not his doctors or his nurses. No one thought it would be less than a year Uh, he thought we were fighting cancer Um, I didn't know that there was something else something completely preventable that could bring him down Legionnaires pneumonia killed my husband He was exposed to it in new york city in new york where he was supposed to be getting treatment for cancer where he was supposed to be safe He was spending hours there fighting for his life fighting for our family In the summer of 2017 We're going about our daily business treating cancer kevin was working. He was picking our children up from school He was in treatment, but he was not near the end of his life I remember thinking I remember going to one of his appointments and I would hand it a flyer about a legionnaires outbreak I remember thinking that was odd I thought that was something that happened a long time ago. I didn't I knew it was associated with healthy water I didn't have any idea that this would become part of our story We were told that kevin was exposed in lenox hill where there are literally hundreds of medical facilities hospitals and clinics During the outbreak of 2017 40 plus buildings were tested More than 20 came back positive for legionella But the addresses of these buildings have not been released to the public All this is new york continues to lead the country in cases of legionnaires disease The department of health and the cdc have not reported on my husband's death They will not release reports to me They will not tell me what testing had been done I have found in my experience the legionnaires has been downplayed on numerous occasions Telling the public this is not an epidemic only those with compromised immune systems are at risk as if that somehow makes it okay Anyone who's battled legionnaires and survived will tell you how sick they were that they thought they were going to die ld makes you very very ill kevin was on a ventilator men a feeding tube At tracheotomy he was in pain. He had fevers. He was withdrawing from all those drugs He was on life support for five weeks My family had to say goodbye our nine-year-old daughter had to kiss her father goodbye sobbing at the same machines and tubes coming out of his body After five weeks in intensive care. I had to take my husband off life support He died from legionnaires and lung cancer As one leading doctor put it to me They said this is going to become the norm not the exception My family still has no answers. So I'm advocating today to prevent this from happening again To bring awareness that we as people living and working in new york need to do more to protect ourselves to demand clean air clean water and not take it lately That we are still still being exposed to these toxins. I will never stop sharing our story and kevin's story. Thank you for listening Thank you. And thanks for putting a human face on this issue our next Public speaker is patsy rub I Sincerely sorry that you had to share that story, but appreciate it So my name is patsy rub. I work for idex laboratories. I'm based in our corporate headquarters in west brick main And I believe that remi had provided a electronic coffee of the comment that i'm about to make But I do have paper copies if you all are interested so We know that legionella nemophila is recognized as the number one waterborne pathogen causing deaths Both in the u.s. And globally the world health organizations september 2017 recommendation paper supports and encourages the use of legionella nemophila testing as a key first step for managing legionnaires disease risk Although regulations will certainly drive the highest prevention opportunity activities by this community committee could also have a more immediate impact in protecting the public from this very preventable disease This group could follow the veterans administration's path And encourage epa and the cdc to sign a collective policy statement Urging building and cooling tower owners to implement water safety management plans That include validation testing per the ashray 188 2018 standard The committee's official recognition of the value of ashray 188 and the parallel cdc toolkit As tools to immediately manage legionnaires disease risk could prevent cases outbreaks and deaths And would be an easy preliminary step on the path toward potential full regulation A policy or statement that supports implementation of ashray 188 is not a permanent solution But one that would show building and cooling tower owners that epa and cdc recognize the need for action now Additionally, the statement could encourage states to codify ashray 188 into relevant building codes As an alternate path to epa regulations. Thank you um our next Is uh patrick q Thank you, patrick Thank you very much. My remarks are very short and simple. Um I have a laboratory out in herndon, virginia right near delis airport We've been working on a uh 24 7365 solution for killing legionella in building cooling systems cooling towers um And we're getting real close we're working with frank and uh some others on A solution that we think is very exciting We've talked with the highest levels at epa. So the good news is they're sending a team out to our lab um probably in about a month We want to show them what we've done And and fingers crossed we've got uh a very substantial investor. Um looking at Taking us forward on uh an investment to keep this thing going so If all goes well possibly in a year from now We hope to have a uh solution that can go to market So I just wanted to say hi to the committee. I was up in woods hole and the one before and I'll keep attending. I appreciate The invite and we're going to push forward and listening to that story from coin was incredible and hope we have a solution that can help Okay, our next public speaker is joker truffles Hello again Uh first I I just want to uh congratulate you and encourage you to continue on this exercise because it's extremely important And it has a very direct And almost immediate link to public health protection and risk reduction and uh, I don't know how many other projects uh that uh The academy has That are that have that kind of a nexus. So you've got a good one and I encourage you to keep going with it uh a few thoughts um First of all, uh, thank you all and many of you participated in our conference in in uh, may I think it was very successful of almost 500 people showed up and You were either speakers or attendees and so forth and so that was really much appreciated um The the next phase is underway and that is we we have three webinars organized with The water research foundation first one has already been held in september that one had to do with analyses and monitoring The second one is coming up this week on thursday and that deals with technology Uh treatment technology and some case studies and the third one will be in uh on december 4th and that one will deal with uh guidelines and uh management methods Etc and so, uh Those are all free webinars. Enjoy your participation if you would like to some of the speakers that you know, frank sedari will be one uh Sheldon masters will be also this week in uh, december Mark will be speaking Just lusty from new york Will be speaking several people from cdc and also ash ray that'll be in in december. It'll be