Preliminary Design Information
Before starting the water system design, you must assemble
O
ne of the fundamental design elements that every
plumbing engineer faces is the design of domestic
water systems. Water is used in just about every
building of every type, and it is necessary for the plumbing
engineer to be able to design and lay out a water system to
be as efficient as possible in these days of lower fees and
more demand from clients.
This article outlines a methodology plumbing engineers
can use to design an efficient domestic water system. It walks
through the design process for a relatively large, multistory
building, which will allow readers to look at all elements of
the design of a domestic water system with the knowledge
that smaller projects will not need to address every issue. It is
up to the designer to audit the steps presented for each spe-
cific type of project. Please note that the scope of this article
does not allow great depth on the design of water-heating
systems or water booster pump systems. Designers should
review ASPE design manuals, such as Domestic Water Heat-
ing Design Manual II or the Plumbing Engineering Design
Handbooks, for further information on those topics.
30  Plumbing Systems & Design  SEPTEMBER 2010
a collection of information. This includes information from
the owner, the local utility, and the architect. Things to
consider in developing this design information include:
• Utility information, such as contact information;
requirements for the meter location (most utilities
require the meter at the property line); requirements
for backflow preventer locations (inside or outside,
at the water meter); submittal requirements for
permitting (some jurisdictions have special fixture-
counting methodologies not included in the model
plumbing codes); and special requirements of the
local utilities (For example, the City of Houston will
not allow direct pump suction from the city water
mains, so you must have a break tank.)
• Water supply flow test
• Applicable plumbing codes, especially local amend-
ments to national or state model codes
• First pass at equipment needs and space require-
ments (While this is only a portion of the entire
plumbing design, the elements included in the water
design are water booster pumps and water heaters.)
A word of caution: If you are working in a new jurisdic-
tion, do not assume that the rules are the same as your
home territory. While I started the bulk of my plumbing
design portfolio in Florida, I designed a project in Ohio,
where for some reason the architect had not provided
the lavatories in the accessible water closet stalls. It was
rather embarrassing when the architect told me that the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not require
them. It turns out that Florida has its own ADA rules that
are more stringent than the federal version. (I hate it when
the authority having jurisdiction has to educate me on the
local codes!)
Is a Water Booster Pump Needed?
To determine whether a water booster pump is required,
the following information is used:
• The minimum required water pressure typically is 20
pounds per square inch gauge (psig) if flush valves are
used and 10 psig otherwise. For healthcare, laboratory,
or industrial projects, you may have equipment that has
higher minimum pressure requirements.
• The elevation difference between the elevation of the
water supply flow test and the highest fixture in the
building must be determined. You typically do not have
to worry about hose bibbs in mechanical penthouses.
The elevation difference in feet multiplied by 0.454 gives
the pressure drop in psi.
• The longest run of piping in the building, including fit-
tings, must be determined. This typically is figured at
this stage in the design process by adding the height,
width, and length of the building and multiplying by 1.5.
• Assume a pressure drop of 1.5 feet per 100 feet (approxi-
mately 0.7 psi per 100 feet).
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 If the sum of the minimum pressure, elevation, and
friction exceeds the water supply pressure, then a water
booster pump is required.
As an example, let’s look at a three-story building, 200
feet long by 100 feet wide by 45 feet tall, with flush valve toi-
lets and no major equipment. Assuming that the fixtures on
the top floor are 3 feet above the floor slab, the calculated
data is:
• Flush valves = 20 psig
• Elevation difference = 33 feet x 0.454 = 15 psig
• Pressure drop = (200 feet + 100 feet + 45 feet) x 1.5 =
517.5 feet x (0.7 psi/100 feet) = 3.6 psig
Thus, the minimum supply pressure is:
20 psig + 15 psig + 3.6 psig = 38.6 psig
If the water supply flow test does not indicate a residual
pressure of at least 38.6 psig, a water booster pump will
be required. Please note that a safety factor has not been
included in this calculation. The designer must pay special
attention to the friction losses in pipe sizing to determine
an appropriate factor. A safe practice is to add a 10 percent
factor to the minimum.
Some owners prefer water booster pumps to serve only
the portions of the building that are higher than the pres-
sure limits of the water service. This can save some operat-
ing costs for the pumps, but it also leads to problems with
coordinating water heating. Do you provide two domestic
hot water (DHW) systems or attempt to limit pressures to
match the domestic cold water (DCW) system? If you are
asked to do this, make sure you carefully examine the pres-
sures in the systems.
Locating Water Heaters
For the purposes of this article, the discussion of water
heaters will be limited to where to locate them. To avoid the
potential for large differences in water pressure between
the hot and cold water systems, it is preferable to locate the
water heaters as close to the service entrance as possible. I
have provided design services for a hospital that requires
a check valve in every faucet that does not have an integral
check stop. Due to portions of the building having a 10- to
20-psig difference in pressure between the DHW and DCW
systems, faucets that do not have check valves can allow
the hot water to cross over to the DCW system.
Piping Distribution
Once the preliminary design information has been gathered
and the architect has provided base sheets, you can start
the layout and design of the systems. The design of the water
systems should start at the service entrance and proceed to
the individual fixtures in the building. Of great importance
in the early part of the design is to determine how often and
where vertical distribution will be located.
For the most part, it is recommended that you use
a layout using primarily horizontal distribution. This
layout will consist of vertical risers from the water service
entrance to the highest floor, horizontal mains to distrib-
ute water on each floor, and individual branch lines to
each toilet room and/or fixture. Shutoff valves should be
provided for each riser, floor, and toilet room. Normally,
shutoff valves are not included for branch lines serving an
individual fixture unless the owner has a requirement for
such. Since every fixture must have a stop, eliminating the
shutoff valves for single fixture branches can save money,
since most repair or maintenance can be performed with
the stop in lieu of a shutoff valve.
In today’s design practice, the piping serving a floor
generally is located in the ceiling cavity for that floor. This
is the simplest layout in terms of minimizing installa-
tion costs and allowing efficient access to shutoff valves. I
believe that making maintenance personnel find a valve on
a different floor in an emergency situation creates potential
trouble for everyone. For example, it has been common
practice in Veterans Health Administration hospitals to
locate the DCW and DHW piping in the ceiling of the floor
below the fixture location. While this does allow slightly
less piping to be used and allows a completely drainable
system, every time the water needs to be shut off, mainte-
nance has to find the valves on the floor below.
Other design philosophies that have been utilized in the
past include branch piping on every other floor, with each
horizontal distribution system serving one floor up and
one floor down. This can reduce installation costs, but two
floors must be shut down if major maintenance or renova-
tions are performed.
A vertical distribution concept makes more sense in
some projects, such as any type of project that has stacked
toilet rooms as with many hotels and prisons. Using verti-
cal branches for these projects keeps all of the plumbing in
vertical stacks and makes the building more efficient.
In any case, the primary criterion for selecting a location
for risers, mains, and branches is to minimize the cost of
the piping installation.
Pipe Sizing
Once all of the distribution piping has been laid out, it is
time to start sizing the piping. The following approach to
sizing piping is based on Hunter’s curve and the fixture
units included in the various plumbing codes. (Refer to
Tables 1 through 4 for supporting information.)
The fixture units in Table 1 are from the Florida Plumb-
ing Code. The flow rates are based on the fixture unit to gal-
lons per minute (gpm) tables also included in the Florida
Plumbing Code. This information is similar, if not the same,
to the information provided in the International Plumbing
Code, Uniform Plumbing Code, and various state-level
plumbing codes that are in place around the country.
Notice that this spreadsheet has three sections for different
types of information. The top section is the water supply flow
information and the limits for the various calculations for
pressures and velocities. The middle section calculates the
total number of fixture units. The bottom section includes
adjustments to the available pressure at the entrance.
SEPTEMBER 2010  Plumbing Systems & Design  31
Domestic Water 101
To summarize the process, the specific steps used for
sizing piping are as follows:
1. Using the amount of piping in the longest run and the
water supply flow information, the maximum allow-
able pressure drop can be determined. This value will
be based on the difference between the water supply
pressure and the minimum pressure at the fixtures. If
a water booster pump is used, the available pressure
is set at 55 psi, assuming a 75-psig discharge from the
booster pump and a minimum of 20 psig at the fixture.
(Refer to Table 1.)
2. For DHW systems, the maximum flow rate is set at 6 feet
per second (fps) for most pipe materials, and the flow
information for systems with flush tanks is used. (As
an aside, it is recognized that according to the Copper
Development Association, velocities for hot water
piping should not exceed 5 fps. However, based on the
DHW system not being a steady flow system and the
actual flow rates based on Hunter’s curve being high
with low-flow fixtures, I never have had a problem with
erosion in a DHW system sized for 6-fps maximum
velocity.) If the maximum allowable pressure drop does
not allow for a velocity of 6 fps, the limit based on pres-
sure drop is used. (Refer to Table 4.)
3. For DCW systems serving group toilets, the volume of
water is based on only the maximum flow rate limit of
8 fps. For the most part, you are not worried about the
pressure drop in the short runs of pipe that make up a
toilet room. (Refer to Table 2.)
4. For the main DCW distribution system, the maxi-
mum flow rate is set at 8 fps, and the resultant flow
is compared to the flow rate based on the maximum
allowable pressure drop. Usually, the maximum pres-
sure drop will be the limiting factor in the smaller
pipe sizes, while the maximum flow rate will be the
limiting factor in the larger pipe sizes. The breakpoint
is determined by the actual allowable pressure drop.
(Refer to Table 3.)
5. You should walk through the entire building and cal-
culate the number of fixture units on each section of
piping. Refer to Figure 1 for a sample of this method. In
Figure 1, the blue numbers represent the DCW system
fixture units, and the red numbers are the fixture units
for the DHW system.
6. This fixture unit value then is compared to the appro-
priate Table (2, 3, or 4) to determine the size of that
section of piping.
It is advised to keep your markup drawing as part of your
project notebook just in case you have to verify or defend
your sizing in the future.
Things to Think About
Water Service Sizing
The water service should be sized using the total water
column indicated in Table 1. This value accommodates the
fact that while faucets and shower valves have a maximum
32  Plumbing Systems & Design  SEPTEMBER 2010
flow rate, you don’t need to worry about whether they are
using hot or cold water.
Backflow Preventers
Unless you have a break tank in your system, the local util-
ity may insist on a reduced-pressure backflow preventer
(RPBP) on the water service to the building. Even if you are
on a campus area that provides a master RPBP to protect
the utility, you still should have a building-level RPBP so
that one building does not compromise the campus system.
Further, if at all possible, the RPBP should be installed out-
side or at least in a mechanical room that is above grade.
RPBP vent sections are designed to flow full under some
types of failure conditions. Figure 2 indicates how much
water can flow from this vent. As you can see, a 6-inch RPBP
installed in a basement level mechanical room with a 50-gpm
sump pump will not work. I speak from personal observation!
Type of Building
Most buildings can be sized safely based on the fixture
units and Hunter’s curve flow rates in the plumbing codes.
However, especially for buildings with large assembly
occupancies, you will have to increase the pipe sizes to
get everything to work. For example, when the Tennessee
Titans opened their new stadium in Nashville, the DCW
system was designed for all the flush valves in the facility to
be actuated at the same time. If there was enough system
pressure to close the diaphragms, the system would work.
They even brought in the local Boy Scouts and other volun-
teers to test the system. The same can be true for theaters,
conference centers, and large auditoriums. On the other
end of the scale are building such as hospitals where most
rooms have a bathroom. In that case, using Hunter’s curve
will drastically oversize the piping system unless you figure
everything as “private” use.
Temperature Maintenance
If a recirculation system is used, the layout of the hot
water system must include circulation legs for any branch
that exceeds 100 feet in length. In reality, especially for
branches that serve only public lavatories, the minimum
branch lengths really need to be evaluated.
Further, I recommend using a minimum pipe size of ⅜
inch in lieu of ½ inch as is normally used. The reasoning for
this change is apparent by looking at the velocity of water in
the various pipe sizes. Table 5 provides some comparison
information for ⅜-inch and ½-inch piping.
For a lavatory with a maximum flow rate of 0.5 gpm, this
results in a velocity of 44 feet per minute in ½-inch pipe and
76 feet per minute in ⅜-inch pipe. Thus, if you want water
to get to the fixture in a reasonable time, the smaller pipe
is the better choice. Further, using a maximum of 6 fps for
hot water systems, a ⅜-inch pipe can carry 3.2 gpm while
a ½-inch pipe can carry 5.6 gpm. This means that without
diversity, a ⅜-inch pipe could serve seven lavatories while a
½-inch pipe could serve 11 lavatories.
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 Domestic Water 101

Table 1 Tabulation of fixture units (FU) for a sample project Table 4 DHW sizing
Available Pressure (psi) Maximum Water Velocities (fps) Pipe Flow at
Pipe ID Maximum Maximum FU,
Static 73 Cold water 8 Size Maximum
(in.) Velocity (fps) Flush Tank
Residual 67 Hot water 6 (in.) Velocity (gpm)
Flow rate 1,574 /8
3
0.43 6.00 2.72 1
½ 0.527 6.00 4.08 4
Required pressure: 25 psi Highest elevation: 37 feet ¾ 0.785 6.00 9.05 12
1 1.025 6.00 15.43 21
Hot Water Cold Water Total Water 1¼ 1.265 6.00 23.50 36
Description Number FU Total FU Total FU Total 1½ 1.505 6.00 33.27 60
EWC 5 0 0 0.25 1.25 0.25 1.25 2 1.985 6.00 57.87 160
Lavatory, public 35 1.5 52.5 1.5 52.5 2 70 2½ 2.465 6.00 89.24 321
Sink 11 1.5 16.5 1.5 16.5 2 22 3 2.945 6.00 127.38 517
Shower, public 44 3 132 3 132 4 176 4 3.905 6.00 223.96 1,116
Service receptor 4 2.25 9 2.25 9 3 12
Water closet, valve, public 39 0 0 10 390 10 390 Table 5 Piping comparison
Floor totals (FU) 210 601.25 671.25 3
/8-inch Pipe ½-inch Pipe
Flow rate (gpm) 67 155 165 Inside diameter (inches) 0.402 0.529
Supply pressure @ flow 72.90
Volume of 1 foot of pipe (gallons) 0.0066 0.0114
Length of pipe for 0.5 gallon (feet) 75.8 43.8
Corrections
Elevation 17 Capacity of pipe at 6 fps (gpm) 3.2 5.6
Site piping (ft) 150 0.13 Number of public lavatories at 0.5
6 11
Inside diameter (in.) 6 gpm, undiversified
C value 150
Water meter 6
Backflow preventer 11
Fixture minimum 20
Available pressure 18.77
Longest pipe run – Pipe + Fittings (equivalent length) 100 ft

Table 2 Bathroom group DCW sizing

Pipe Size Pipe ID Maximum Flow at Maximum Maximum FU, Maximum FU,
(in.) (in.) Velocity (fps) Velocity (gpm) Flush Valve Flush Tank

/8 3
0.43 8.00 3.62 0 3
½ 0.545 8.00 5.82 0 6
¾ 0.785 8.00 12.07 0 16
1 1.025 8.00 20.57 0 30
1¼ 1.265 8.00 31.34 14 56
1½ 1.505 8.00 44.36 35 103
2 1.985 8.00 77.16 136 259
2½ 2.465 8.00 118.99 351 470
3 2.945 8.00 169.84 694 743
4 3.905 8.00 298.62 1,738 1,738

Table 3 DCW main sizing

Pipe Size Pipe ID Allowable Allowable Velocity Maximum Flow at Maximum Maximum FU, Maximum FU,
(in.) (in.) Loss (psi) Flow (gpm) (fps) Velocity (fps) Velocity (gpm) Flush Valve Flush Tank

/8
3
0.43 0.188 2.91 6.44 8.00 3.62 0 1
½ 0.545 0.188 5.44 7.48 8.00 5.82 0 6
¾ 0.785 0.188 14.20 9.42 8.00 12.07 0 16
1 1.025 0.188 28.66 11.14 8.00 20.57 0 30
1¼ 1.265 0.188 49.87 12.73 8.00 31.34 14 56
1½ 1.505 0.188 78.78 14.21 8.00 44.36 35 103
2 1.985 0.188 163.25 16.93 8.00 77.16 136 259
2½ 2.465 0.188 288.69 19.41 8.00 118.99 351 470
3 2.945 0.188 461.12 21.72 8.00 169.84 694 743
4 3.905 0.188 969.08 25.96 8.00 298.62 1,738 1,738

SEPTEMBER 2010  Plumbing Systems & Design  33

Domestic Water 101

There is so much more that can be talked about in the

design of domestic water systems. We haven’t touched the
principles behind proper backflow prevention based on the
hazard classification or the impact of laboratory or medi-
cal equipment on water systems. Maybe in a future article.
I often have been told that plumbing design is an art, not a
science.

Raymond F. Parham, PE, is a plumbing/fire protection

engineer with Moses & Associates. He has more than 25 years
of experience in mechanical design and building construction
and has been a registered Professional Mechanical Engineer
since 1986 and a registered Fire Protection Engineer since
1999. For more information or to comment on this article,
e-mail articles@psdmagazine.org.

Figure 2 Maximum water flow from reduced-pressure backflow preventer vents

Source: Watts Regulator Co.

Figure 1 Sample layout with fixture units

34  Plumbing Systems & Design  SEPTEMBER 2010 WWW.PSDMAGAZINE.ORG