Dual piping is a system of plumbing installations used to supply both potable and reclaimed water to a home or business. Under this system, two completely separate water piping systems are used to deliver water to the user. This system prevents mixing of the two water supplies, which is undesirable, since reclaimed water is usually not intended for human consumption.
In the United States, reclaimed water is distributed in lavender (light purple) pipes, to alert users that the pipes contain non-potable water. Hong Kong has used a dual piping system for toilet flushing with sea water since the 1950s.
According to the El Dorado Irrigation District in California, the average dual-piped home used approximately 0.17 acre feet (210 m3) of potable water in 2006. The average single family residence with traditional piping using potable water for irrigation as well as for domestic uses used between 0.63 acre feet (780 m3), higher elevation, and 0.78 acre feet (960 m3), lower elevation.
Read more about Dual Piping: Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words dual and/or piping:
“Thee for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day
declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat
convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“It is principally for the sake of the leg that a change in the dress of man is so much to be desired.... The leg is the best part of the figure ... and the best leg is the man’s.... Man should no longer disguise the long lines, the strong forms, in those lengths of piping or tubing that are of all garments the most stupid.”
—Alice Meynell (1847–1922)