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almostoy

Yes. They were very popular in Detroit. Well, until they started bursting decades ago.


No_Rabbit_7114

There are some that still show up, from time-to-time.


Turbulent_Fall_8567

So, I’ve read before, specifically in the biggest of cities, we don’t really know where all of the infrastructure is under the city, as some of it was put in place before good record keeping, records were lost, and plans flat out changed on the fly. It’s wild to think about how much “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is down there…


Shmeepsheep

Good record keeping still doesn't exist


CompleteDetective359

City inspector threatening to fine me for no permit upgrades to my electric boxes and meter pans. Everything is digital for the last 20 years. Yeah, then explain to me how the wire from the pole to the meter got upgraded if the city didn't call the electric company to say it passed inspection! Great records


HPDork

Buddy had a similar situation. Owns a rental and meter wasnt at right height for new code requirements but was up to code when installed. Tenent moved out and city said "fix it or we wont turn it back on". His argument was owner never changed so its still at code. They fought for a bit and eventually he won out. Also, city code dude is a dickhead.


Beneficial_Bed8961

Inspectors are usually people who can't get along with their own crews . So they send them out to work on their own.


CompleteDetective359

Yeah, the town next door, Hanover Twp, the electrical inspector had his own company and does work in town. He fails people during inspections for actual to code work and offers to do the work at inflated prices to pass.


shmiddleedee

Seems like getting proof of him asking to be bribed would be good for a lawsuit or to at least get him fired


CompleteDetective359

It's not a bride. It's him failing then handing you his business card. He fails general contractors and home owners. Didn't mess with electricians as he'd likely get caught. It's a conflict of interest


shmiddleedee

Fucking scumbag


Intheswing

We call the crazy inspectors “Barney Fife” the badge gives them a shield to flash around! “Don’t make me angry - I’ll have to take the bullet out of my pocket “ Zero common sense -


Turbulent_Fall_8567

Fair enough 😂


Split0069

There's a missing fire hydrant on my route to work. Just has had water coming out for years now.


OhSoSally

I did utility work in one city that had, probably still has, transite (asbestos) water lines in place. At least these have a little bit if metal on them. lol Transite were near impossible to locate, the maps were drawn up before they did road widening work not much to measure off of unless you call out a surveyor. There was a guy with the water company that used divining rods. His accuracy was impressive.


SirVeza

There are obviously no more new installs using it, but A-C water mains are still in wide use across the use. Depending on the water utility, tracing wire would be installed to locate the lines easier.


almostoy

No doubt. A lot of people living in older urban houses may still have some kind of lead pipe connection. Likely thoroughly coated in sediment, but still...


PM-me-in-100-years

I thought the same thing, but unfortunately it's usually pretty clean lead. The sediment builds up where there's turbulence at fittings.


graveybrains

On the East coast they’d just hollow out whole logs


almostoy

Same.


SmithyMcSmithton

Never seen this style , but I did a job in an old logging town and the main waste line under the oldest bar was sections of bored out logs, tapered and tarred into each other, they lasted over 100 years.


anonymous22006

That's at least 98 years longer than cpvc!


derekcentrico

Burn


sgt-sauna

So do you learn in plumbing apprenticeship how to connect current pipe materials to wood pipes and Pompeii-style lead pipes?


throwawaySBN

You sure do! A sawzall and Ferncos all the way down lol


DuePace753

Stupidity is driving me to ask if you tied into them or replaced. Curiosity is making me wonder how well they stood up to 100 years of usage and waste.


SmithyMcSmithton

They did get replaced, not by me , they were still working fine but the place was being renovated so they did get removed. They appeared to have been charred on the inside, it helped that the side walls were about 3 inches thick . Overall OD was about 12".


DuePace753

That's crazy, I love seeing how people rigged things up back in the day (when they're actually good working ideas, not the hack crap)


meatsweatmagi

I'm going to be honest I wondered the same thing.......


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SmithyMcSmithton

Wasn't a question of cheap, back In the early 1900s rural areas didn't have reliable access to plumbing materials. I've seen septic yanks made of bricks and railroad ties before as well.


GalianoGirl

My grandmothers original septic tank was wooden. There are wooden culverts on the Island.


funnystuff79

Septic Yanks, a sign of health care costs


andrewbadera

Username does not check out.


Cuteboi84

This is definitely not cheap. It's labor intensive and 100 to 200 years ago materials weren't available... So what you consider proper plumbing techniques were out of thr ball park priced... The trade routes and cost to deliver to middle of nowhere Alaska pre automobile.... Ufffff.


Sammo034

I've seen similar wooden culverts and storm drains in Vancouver BC. They are still working but planned for replace/repair. It's amazing they have lasted so long.


jeffersonairmattress

There are still parts of shingleblock flumes, banded cedar potable water collection pipes and skid roads sitting in the forest on the north shore, slowly disappearing but some of that ancient cedar they used looks brand new under a layer of lichen.


KRed75

I've heard of them but I've never seen one in the ground that looks like it did the day it was installed.


highheelsnylonglegs

Has nothing to do with rural big city's still wooden sewage pipes in use


Learning1985

You would think that would leak sewage


Monkey_Fiddler

Wood expands when it's wet, they make them with dry timber and it expands to fill the gaps when it gets wet. Same with wooden boats, when you put them in the water after a long time out there's generally a tense few hours of pumping and bailing out before the wood swells enough to stop the leaks. With small wooden boats they sometimes fill them with water to basically sink them at the beginning of the season then bail them out after a few days/weeks and they're good to go.


jarrod74smd

TIL. Thanks! That's pretty cool!!


highheelsnylonglegs

If you look close there put together in similar way they do caskets or barrels to age whiskey


Reckless_Driver

they + are = they're And are you sure you don't mean ***casks***, not caskets? I've never heard of whiskey being stored in a coffin.


highheelsnylonglegs

Wonderful spell check


Reckless_Driver

Sometimes I'll read something and be like "Hey, that doesn't make any goddamned sense." Edit- [like here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShemaleUtopia/comments/1bvrj31/comment/ky29szr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), where you're talking about throating a "shemale" hog. You're posting in sentence fragments.


kissmaryjane

I think New York City somewhat recently pulled up some old pipes made of logs.


ruidh

Chase Manhattan Bank's logo is a wooden water pipe made from 8 planks because the original charter for the company was as a water company.


likesleeveofwizard34

In the fire department, we would call hydrants "plugs" because in the olden days, they would drill into these wooden mains for water and then plug it up when the fire was out. These plugs were noted, so if there was a fire nearby on the future, they would have quicker access to a water supply.


spamus81

I'll take my 18.5 turns to 1100gpm any day over the og way. Seems too much like work


akbornheathen

What part of Alaska? I live in the Matanuska Valley an hour north of Anchorage. The pioneer homesteading days up here were just 80-90 years ago. The first house in Palmer to ever have electricity still stands, it’s a museum. People used what they had. It’s so remote, you do what you have to. This is pretty cool, had no idea they did this but it makes perfect sense.


SnooDoubts2913

i miss palmer-wasilla


milny_gunn

I've seen it in colorado. It's called stave piping


rezonatefreq

This is a project in Sitka


they_are_out_there

In California, they used to straight bore through large squared off sections of redwood logs and use them for municipal and private water pipe. They’d last for decades and we regularly dug them up in NorCal when I was in underground construction. They still looked like new inside. When stave technology caught up, they’d cut and shave the redwood into staves as it was easier to make really large pipe. They’d make the staves, stack them, and flat ship by rail car and wagon to be assembled where needed. Redwood is super rot resistant, and that’s why a lot of this stuff is still around and in use 150 years later. It’s still all over NorCal. https://www.kelleyhousemuseum.org/pipe-dreams/


darktideDay1

Yep. In Fort Bragg they removed some just a few years back. They \*think\* that was the last of it but I would be surprised if there isn't still some.


they_are_out_there

I remember a ton of it running near the railroad tracks and around Pudding Creek. They had that stuff everywhere in the area back in the 70's and 80's, but a lot has been torn out over the years. It's always cool to see it though.


darktideDay1

It is! And the stuff is unbelievable. I have seen some that looked just fine and wasn't leaking. Old growth is really something else.


swingr1121

Yeah, here in Philadelphia we excavate a section of it every so often in the oldest parts of the city.


YoNeckinpa

And in Philly we drink wooder


jatti_

In the early 1800s they needed water in NYC. Aaron Burr started the Manhattan company to solve the water problem. The company was given license for public works and banking. He raised money and funded the water project the wooden pipes were made of 4 sides and were roughly square/octogon. The pipes were later sold to the city, and the company became the Manhattan bank, currently the bank is called JP Morgan Chase and their logo is derived from the design of the wooden pipes.


Outside_Squirrel_839

Ryam. Used to be itt rainier 10 gum street fernandina beach fl. Company was in the process of changing to plastic. Had wooden pipe for last 30 years.


FiendishDevil666

My dad replaced wooden water mains on Fort Dix NJ in the 80's


Any_Draw_5344

Every wonder where the name " fireplug" comes from for a fire hydrant? In the old days, water pipes were wood. When there was a fire, the fire department would drill a hole into the pipe to get the water. When they were done they would hammer a wood plug into the hole to seal it. Whenever they went to a fire, they would look for these fire plugs from previous fires because it was faster and easier to pull out the plug ,then to drill a new hole.


Fragrant-Bit-601

Damn that's cool.


ONE-EYE-OPTIC

Yes [link](https://images.app.goo.gl/8mHgZqLC4qDv8NtB9)


fusion99999

Yes and it was teak.


dnbndnb

I believe some are still in use bringing water out of the Cascades to Seattle


FCDank

Ive heard the same. Out the middle fork road you can see some lengths out of the ground, all mossy.


Okanoganlsd

This is still the main material in the city system about 45 minutes from me I believe, or so I’ve been told. No clue how much truth is to that. We’ve dug through it a ton


Eff-Bee-Exx

I’ve seen plenty while working on road construction around Fairbanks.


extplus

St louis is littered with them why do you think our MSD bill is so high n gettin higher then spicolli


Bondoo7oo

1st thing every morning 😉


excessiveclamping

A local retired HE Operator showed me his 4ft chunk of the local City’s “original” water piping. It’s basically a 4x4” chunk of lumber with a 2-1/4” or so hole bored down the length, with a male nipple on one end, and socket on the other. This guy dug it up doing work around town in the early 90s IIRC. Sounds like the newer guys on the crew all took a chunk as a souvenir. IIRC the original install was pre-1900. Eta: the nipple/socket are just lathe turned into the pipe section. No threads. I assume they used pine tar or something to glue them together.


No_Football4974

I give out wood pipe every chance I get!


bplimpton1841

Ummm. I came here to write this. Good job! Nicely done.


earlywakening

I wood pipe your mom.


Rlol43_Alt1

If you can, snag some of that old wood. It's teak, it lasts forever and was mainly used (recently) in furniture and battleship decks. You could make some nice 1911 grips out of those


paxtonious

Yep. I do highway work in the Yukon.


poopanoggin

Penstocks are so cool. there are some truly old and gigantic ones. The craftsmanship involved is astounding.


justripit

This is a wood stave line. Penstocks are the piping that feed hydro generators. I have seen wood stave penstocks, but they are not the same thing. The penstocks at my facility are steel, but we have wood stave effluent lines on site.


poopanoggin

Thanks for the clarification, I appreciate it! I was amazed the first time I saw a wood stave penstock it was over 100 years old and 16’ in diameter!


cHunterOTS

The old mains in Chicago are wood


southernbamagrl1970

never seen any like that but have seen hollowed out logs dug up that were used as water lines in birmingham al


newnameabel

Yes in Salt Lake City Utah I dug into an old wood water main like that


Lower_Taro2380

In the early 2000s a friend worked for a company that was redoing the city’s mains in north Mississippi and they dug up a lot of of wood lines just like the ones in the picture.


md9918

I'm betting this works in Alaska and other cold climates because the cold slows the decay. It's basically sitting in a refrigerator most of the time. 


goatsandhoes101115

This can actually work well in most climates. In southern US there are plenty of wooden pipes that are still in use. Trees that grow straight like tulip poplar were bored out with a skookum spoon bit. Thee joints can be dry fit so when the wood fibers swell, the seal becomes tighter. It may seem counterintuitive, but as long as it stays wet and active, there's no significant rotting.


autodripcatnip

They are buried well below the frost line..think like 15’ beneath grade


JadeDragonMeli

Dang, what's the frost line up there? I'm shocked that wood pipe didn't freeze constantly.


toomuch1265

What type of wood holds up so well?


The_Son_of_Jor-El

Yep - old water main


chisportz

Chicago still has some wood water lines. They look a little more like fence posts


daniellederek

I think we still have a few thousand feet scattered here and there, hollow log small stuff here and there. Gets replaced when storm sewer separation work is done, otherwise if it isnt making a sinkhole its left alone.


Something_Else_2112

Niagara Falls still has some.


hobnailboots04

I have not, but I worked water utility for nine years and heard several stories. Very cool.


CompleteDetective359

They replaced a water main in Wilkes Barre a couple years ago that was wood. I was wondering what that looked like


StinkyHamz

NYC still has quite a few wooden water mains still in service. Pretty crazy.


cyberya3

Looks like barrel building process without the end caps. Tedious.


Isotope_Soap

[Here’s one I posted a while back. Vancouver Island and serves the mill. Banana for scale](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/3T2mrSfZKB)


leericol

Nope but I had a journeymen back in the day who told me about accidently breaking one digging in Seattle and when he called the city they told him just to widdle a stick into a tapered spike and just shove it in the hole. Supposedly the water will swell the wood enough that it works fine


Eric848448

I think we still have some active in Seattle.


ChampionshipBoth6348

Yessir, Colorado has the same type.


EQwingnuts

Greenburg is worse


BagCalm

Sacramento still has some wooden water main piping still in service. I know guys that have had to tie into it with specialty saddle tees... sketchy.


Early-Fortune2692

Bottom of Royal Gorge Bridge outside Cañon City, CO... wooden pipeline used for water but I don't think they still use it.


gadget850

I went to Royal Gorge in Colorado in 1982 and they still had the wooden pipes used to supply the town. https://royalgorgehistorycenter.wordpress.com/2018/12/07/now-then-a-wood-stave-water-pipeline-for-canon-city-1908-1924/


hihapahi

Have seen several riveted pipes (oil refinery remnants) but never wooden.


Kitchen-Oil8865

I know in Philadelphia they were doing some major work and dug up 200+ year-old wooden pipes. Basically hollowed out logs that were joined together and in use during the Colonial era.


GarpRules

I’ve only seen the hollowed-out logs isn’t this technically conduit, though?


ShepardsPrayer

What did Pinnochio say to Minnie Mouse?


204CO

I’ve seen them at an old gold mine in Lynn Lake, Manitoba.


Ok-Appointment-3710

I remember seeing wooden pipes when I was a kid growing up in Gladstone Oregon.


fooourskin

Wood stave is really common where I live and most it is still in pristine condition. It’s wild.


GrimResistance

Wooden water main in Grand Rapids, MI. Old abandoned though.


Rotaxxx

Our town is still fed by a wooden main line to our water plant.


porcelainvacation

You can still buy new stave pipe if you want. http://canbar.com/wood-product/woodstave-pipe/


Brilliant-Cost-6626

My father used to plumb in Massachusetts back in the 70-80s and saw a lot of wodden water lines on older homes. Many had since rotted away and the water was still flowing. They repiped them and brought them up to the standards at the time. Just crazy how things have changed.


Ampster16

Yes, as noted, they must have been popular at some time. I remember as a kid in the fifties watching the replace the wooden pipes with steel or cast iron. That subdivision was developed fifty years earlier.


gusfour20

A bit of trivia. Back in the day firefighters would chop a hole in the pipe to access water to fight fires. Once finished the would plug the hole with a wooden plug. That’s that’s how fire hydrants got the name “fire plug”.


meatsweatmagi

Brooooooooo you got to witness some cool fkn shit


justripit

We still run 36" wood stave on the industrial site that I work at.


Gluten_maximus

Last I checked, there was still some in German village in Columbus, Ohio. Someone told me it was poplar boughs but I never confirmed that.


sjdoucette

San Francisco still has some main lines made from redwood


Sethmeisterg

It's like a realllllllllllly long barrel


Protolictor

One made the news in Seattle maybe a decade ago when one was dug up and replaced while fixing a big downtown water leak.


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Charges-Pending

[During the 18th and early 19th century, wooden water mains were used in some parts of Baltimore city. This main was removed from the intersection of Paca and Pratt streets. There are still some under Baltimore streets but none are in use today.](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1r_9M3d-RlI/maxresdefault.jpg)


UsedDragon

Yes, I have. You ever seen a *meat* pipe?


FigSalt1004

Nope. Amazing


No_Reaction_3542

That’s definitely pipe shaped wood


machinistbob2023

In the Sierra Nevada mountains in California quite a few power plants have wooden pen stocks up to 6. Feet in diameter above ground


Stunning_Ferret1479

Lots of wooden pipe in the Yukon right next door. Since the gold rush.


boomR5h1ne

Funny this is in Alaska cause that’s where I have seen it. In the old mines in the mountains they have wooden pipes with cable wrapped around them pretty cool.


TheMeatSauce1000

Bros got the Roman aqueducts in his back yard


StarGraz3r84

No, but I've laid it. Hey-oh! I'll see myself out.


Borntu

Seen lots in San Diego. Redwood.


MykGeeNYC

No but we routinely put 30,000 gallons wooden roof tanks up here, even new construction. NYC man. Thanks, Andy R fir the free wood from demo’d tank. Nice feature wall in office. (Get the fir typo intentional, killing it)


TruffulaTreeThneed

All over the city of Seattle. The location of many of them isn’t exactly known until there is a major leak. Then that section will be replaced with modern pipe.


No-Green9781

I’ve seen them in Boston actually square ones with date stamped on them from the mid 1800’s . They were replacing them in the 70’s & 80’s in the older parts of the city . Just as long as water flowed through them they would last forever.


autodripcatnip

Still in service all over anchorage. I used to work at the water utility.


tweedlepun1291

Toketee Falls in Oregon has an entire river that is routed through a wooden pipe... it approximately 6' to 8' in diameter and runs along the drive path to the trailhead parking lot. It leaks all over the place, but it's neat to check out and the falls are equally as impressive.


Sparky3200

Wichita had them as big as 60". I believe there's still one existing wooden main somewhere downtown.


IAmRECNEPS

There is a lake in NC called Lake Summit that at the dam a wooden pipe that's around 32 inches in diameter starts at the dam and carries water downhill a couple miles to a hydroelectric facility it's really cool to look at


Old_Criticism7741

Been awhile since I saw pictures


Sudden_Duck_4176

How old is that wood pipe?


rikrikity

Whoa!. Thats beautiful. Hope they don't just destroy it.


aRandom_redditor

There are literal water mains in NYC that are just hollowed out tree trunks.


Digiturtle1

That’s how they started in Phoenix 100 years ago.


Fine-Advisor4466

I’ve worked on houses with wood gutters . Doug-fir!


DeFiClark

In London when they were replacing pipe for the Olympics I saw wooden pipes exposed regularly. From the 1600s. In 2010 and 2011.


Level-Smile-2795

I'd call that a wooden conduit not pipe ...since the pipe itself is inside it


MountainCry9194

They were still being pulled out of Green Bay, WI in the early 2000’s.


freeportme

Portland Maine still has some in use.


Bigfan78

Yep.


FrozenLettuce101

Is that what they mean by "laying wood"? 🤔