A Brief History of the Water Pipe

Water pipes are an extremely old invention that humans have been using to source their most important resource: water. The Indus River Valley was one of the oldest examples of a civilization that used water pipes, which were constructed of clay in 4000-3000 BCE. Today, the United States alone has over 2.2 million miles of water pipes throughout the country, which is enough pipeage to complete 4.5 round trips to the moon.

In 1820, water pipes were constructed with steel and had a life expectancy of 85 years. In many cases, this was reduced to less than 50 years due to corrosion. Moving away from steel pipes was a necessity, as this material is comparably expensive, has poor thermal conductivity, and often has a difficult repair and replacement process.

It took more than 100 years for the next breakthrough in water transporting technology, which came in the form of prestressed concrete cylinder pipe (PCCP). It has a high risk of premature failure, which is caused by the sudden rupturing of the pipe wall. Ductile iron pipe (DIP) was its successor, but was quickly abandoned for its huge negative impacts on the environment in the form of C02 emissions.

The current method of water pipe production is Hobas Fiberglass Reinforced Polymer Mortar (FRPM), invented in 1960. Its expected lifespan is 150 years, and is utilized for both new and existing water mains and wastewater pipelines. It has the lowest carbon footprint of any other water piping system.

Although water pipe technology has improved dramatically since their invention, there is still a water pipe break every two minutes in the United States. Clearly, America’s water pipe infrastructure is in need of a major overhaul, which is why U.S. communities will invest nearly $8.5 billion in building, replacing, and rehabilitating drinking water pipe networks in 2024.