IAPMO’s Newest Green Growth Spurt —
Pipe Sizing By Daniel P. Cole W
hat is new in green plumbing? Since the release of IAPMO’s Green Plumbing and Mechanical Code Supplement (GPMCS) in February 2010, the
cities of Los Angeles and Houston, the states of New Mexico, Georgia and South Dakota, and the nations of Abu Dhabi and India have adopted all or portions of the docu- ment (others are on their way). If we are witnessing a grow- ing interest, it is because the GPMCS is a living document, always growing and maturing. The newest growth spurt has begun to show itself in the foreword of the GPMCS under the Green Technical Committee (GTC) task group titled “Pipe Sizing Task Group.” How did the Pipe Sizing Task Group originate and what
is its mission? What may we anticipate seeing in the Green Supplement? The question of pipe sizing originated with the hot water task group chaired by Gary Klein (Affiliated International Management LLC). The problem at hand was the efficient and timely delivery of hot water to the end user. Reducing the hot water pipe size would increase the rate of flow, reduce the volume of water and, hence, deliver the hot water to the user more quickly and with less waste. What reduction were they considering? Investigations were under way for 3/8-inch tubing for a fixture supply branch. The deliberation continues. In August 2008, at the International Emerging
Technology Symposium held in Chicago (hosted by IAPMO), I made contact with Mary Ann Dickinson and Tom Pape (Alliance for Water Efficiency) to discuss research work that was underway regarding the revision of Hunter’s Curve. They requested a copy of the research doc- ument and, in turn, handed it over to the GTC. Because of this document, the committee decided to sep-
arate the pipe sizing matter from the Hot Water Task Group and to make pipe sizing an independent task group. In the months following, the Pipe Sizing Task Group emerged, with the following members: Larry Galowin, NIST; Dick Wagner, Emcor Group and chairman of the National Standard Plumbing Code; Ron George, Ron George Design
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and Consulting Services; Phil Campbell, UA; Gary Klein, AIM; John Koeller, P.E., Koeller and Company; C.J. Lagan, American Standard; Jim Lutz, Lawrence Berkeley National; Larry Oliver, LEED AP, Glumac Engineering; Sally Remedios, Delta Faucet Company; Craig Selover, Masco Corporation; April Trafton, Donald Dickerson Associates; John Watson, Sloan Valve Company and Bill Erickson, C.J. Erickson Plumbing Company. I was appointed chairman of this task group. Yanda Zhang from the Heschong Mahone Group has recently come on board in support of our efforts. With the varied interests of the stakeholders involved, a
mission statement for the task group was established as fol- lows: “The IAPMO Pipe Sizing Task Group is charged with investigating if significant water, energy and/or construction cost efficiencies can be achieved by revising the method of estimating the water demand load to be provided for the water distribution system comprising the water service, cold water and hot water distribution and to accordingly re-eval- uate the minimum required pipe sizes. If so, this task group will work toward the development of code change proposals to the Uniform Plumbing Code that will help to achieve these efficiencies while ensuring continued The first action item for the task group was to revise the
method of estimating the water demand load. Since the pub- lication of BMS65, Methods of Estimating Loads in Plumbing Systems, in 1940 and BMS79, Water-Distributing Systems for Buildings, in 1941 by Roy B. Hunter, a physi- cist for the National Bureau of Standards, Hunter’s Curve
March 2011
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