this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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11
Hotel and Apartment Pipe (Poop) Question (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by gothic_lemons@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
7 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

How do hotel and Apartment sewage pipes connect between rooms?

So there my toilet right. Its pipe width is whatever is normal. Does it connect to a bigger diameter pipe?

I'm assuming all the individual rooms poop pipes empty to the same big poop pipe.

If I make an extra big deposit at the poop bank and my neighbor does the same, but I flush just a few seconds before my neighbor, could my poop collide with theirs and clog their toilet?

Is the big central highway poop pipe always full of water?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm counting on you my pipe people

Edit: Oh yeah different floors. Does each floors big poop pipe empty to the same vertical poop pipe?

If I take a poop (in a toilet) on top of floor of a skyscraper, how fast does my poop plummet to the earth?

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[–] schwim@piefed.zip 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

All of the waste pipes in a complex/hotel will eventually make it to the same pipe but not right away.

As an example, each apartment complex block would have a structure of 3 inch pipe at each toilet that eventually ties together at a larger diameter pipe. Each pipe from each block would eventually feed into yet another larger diameter pipe until eventually, it feeds into the main sewer line.

Your poops won't "collide". since they are all headed the same direction when they meet in one pipe, they simply line up in a queue on their way to the main sewer.

These pipes and sewer line aren't always full of water. They only have something flowing when someone is doing something so in an apartment complex, there'd always be some flow(toilet, sink, dishwasher, washing machine, tub/shower) but the pipe's diameter is caluculated to always be large enough to handle the largest likely need and still have room to spare.

[–] Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I'm stealing "caluculated".

[–] gothic_lemons@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Thank you very much for the detailed answer!!

Let's say my neighbor is "downstream" of my toilet. Then if I flush just at the right time before my neighbor flushes, couldn't our poops collide? Assuming my poop is already in the big pipe and in front of where my neighbor's exit pipe empty to the big pipe. Idk why this is important to me but it is lol

Edit: I guess this goes back to what you mentioned about the bigger pipe being calculated to handle any combination

[–] schwim@piefed.zip 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The reason it wouldn't collide has something to do with an element of the network of pipes that I haven't mentioned yet.

First, all pipes have a pitch or slope. That's to ensure that the flow only goes in one direction. Secondly, pipe joints have a "sweep" to them, meaning the joint directs the the waste to go in a certain direction when intersecting another pipe.

The fitting in the image below is called a sanitary wye(Y). Imagine that your toilet or sink would be the source of the waste and would be connected to the 2" side. You can see which direction this would direct the waste and each connection to the trunk would be directing the waste in the same direction. For this reason, your flush would never collide with another, instead it would be like you both would be speeding along in the same direction and just kind of blend together if they happened to meet in the pipe at any time.

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Pressurized plumbing does not have these sanitary features, they just have hard angles with no sweeps because the pressure is what pushes the water to your faucet. Drain lines lack this force so everything is handled by pitch and flow guidance in the form of these joints.

[–] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So technically if I have the right fishing gear, I could turd burgle my apartment neighbors without leaving a trace? Like a poop ninja?

[–] Doxin@pawb.social 1 points 2 months ago

People do this all the time accidentally with drain snakes. So yes.

[–] Krusty@quokk.au 2 points 2 months ago

Yes. Whoever is upstream would need to flush first and then as that poop would arrive under the downstream toilet if that person flushed - whoosh - they could collide in the main line. But gravity being what it is... there is little chance of a clog in the downstream toilet unless further downstream is clogged and then it could back up all the way back to both of you! But that's what the siphon is for so it's not actually going to come up out of your toilet... (Usually)

This is why in hotels you're going to notice that all the toilets and the showers and the sinks form parallel runs all the way along the building. They're all going to go down into a horizontal submain sewage tube (4"+) which is going to be pitched from one end of the building to the other. On the bottom (far) side of that is going to connect to the vertical main sewage line that's going to go down vertically below the ground to the actual municipal sewage system as well as vent vertically upward out the roof.