
Philadelphia's early-1800s wooden water pipes - bookofjoe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/06/discovered-philadelphias-high-tech-totally-natural-plumbing-of-1812/
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mirimir
I lived in central Philly for a while. Being largely nocturnal, I'd often be
out walking in the early morning.

So one morning, I saw someone walking toward me, wearing a stethoscope-like
device, with a tube hanging down, almost touching the sidewalk. At first, I
thought "crazy person, take care".

But then, I saw a "Philadelphia Water Department" logo. Basically, he was
listening for leaks. His partner was one block away, and they talked via
radio. So they could triangulate.

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Scoundreller
> A Water Department crew working May 3 on the 900 block of Spruce Street

> sections of 10-foot pine logs

That was disappointing.

~~~
bookofjoe
That's funny. But it took me a full minute to get it.

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pdx_flyer
Similar to Chicago's clay gas lines from the mid-1800s. Crazy to think that
some of that infrastructure is still in place.

~~~
caymanjim
Stories about wooden water lines come up pretty regularly. In every instance
I've read about, they're not in use; they're just still buried, alongside the
iron pipes that replaced them long, long ago. That makes sense to me; they
would probably lay new iron pipes along the same route, burying them as they
went, and only disconnect the wood pipes after the iron pipes were in place.
No sense removing the wood as they went.

~~~
Moru
And then we have the leadpipes still in use. Better check if your house has
new pipes or still using the lead pipes.

[https://apps.npr.org/find-lead-pipes-in-your-
home/en/#pipe-e...](https://apps.npr.org/find-lead-pipes-in-your-
home/en/#pipe-explainer)

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mikekij
Is this why Philadelphians call water "wooder"?

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hanniabu
I believe the proper spelling is wourder

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mikekij
Spoken like a local!

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tdeck
Wood pipes apparently have some surprising advantages. For one thing, the wood
doesn't rot when it's immersed constantly in fresh water. The pipes don't
corrode as easily, and the water doesn't freeze as easily either:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piping#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piping#History)

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kingbirdy
The Water Works is still standing, right behind the Philadelphia Art Museum. I
wouldn't want to drink from the Schuylkill nowadays though.

~~~
andrewl
Agreed. At least you don't want to drink _unfiltered_ Schuylkill water. The
Water Works is definitely worth a visit:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairmount_Water_Works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairmount_Water_Works)

The bike path along the river goes right past it, and you can ride all the way
to Valley Forge almost completely on a bike path free of motorized vehicles.
(I am not paid by the city; I just like riding along rivers.)

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TheAdamist
Newport Rhode island has there too, I think some are occasionally found to
still be in use.

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sg0
This reminds me when I was roaming around Annapolis, MD, I spotted one of the
many markers around the historic downtown, about how utility workers stumbled
upon clay pipes when they were servicing underground water pipes.

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falsedan
The wooden pipes in Edinburgh were recently removed from George’s Square and
are on display on the Middle Meadows Walk (though I don’t think they were
included into Forza Horizen 4)

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ed
[https://outline.com/G2Kkbz](https://outline.com/G2Kkbz)

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greggyb
I appreciate the article and the fact that it is certainly an example of
"today's 10,000"[0]. I don't appreciate the title making it sound like this is
a new discovery that we used to have wooden water infrastructure. There's a
nice little museum in the historical Philadelphia Waterworks building behind
the art museum, and there is a lot of material about the original piping of
the city.

[0] [https://www.xkcd.com/1053/](https://www.xkcd.com/1053/)

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AstralStorm
In the "meantime", Chinese had bamboo piping systems centuries earlier, and
Babylonian ceramic ones as well...

Nice find though.

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8bitsrule
Dear WaPo: 1) No, I will not be subscribing to your podcasts in order to find
out if they're worth listening to. 2) The odds are still low because ... in
case you didn't notice ... there are many excellent non-subscription podcasts
(to mention just one: 'BackStory with the American History Guys' ;
[https://audioboom.com/channels/4987698.rss](https://audioboom.com/channels/4987698.rss)
) ... and most of them appreciate you sending them what you think they're
worth.

Oh ... and welcome to the 21st century.

