Explore the intricacies of plumbing drawings for building roofs, including the strategic placement of roof drains and the essential role of architectural scuppers. Understand how these features work together to effectively manage water loads and protect the structural integrity of the building.
Key Insights
- The plumbing drawings demonstrate how roof drains are strategically placed around the building to direct rainwater, thus preventing water buildup on the roof.
- Architectural scuppers serve as vital overflow mechanisms during heavy rainfalls. Positioned about an inch higher than the roof, they start to overflow once the water level exceeds one inch, thereby maintaining the roof's design loads.
- The drawings also incorporate details about gas lines and mechanical systems on the roof, underscoring the multifaceted approach to building design and the interplay of different systems.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Let's look at the plumbing drawings for the roof of the building. You can see that we have roof drains here, here, here, here, and you can see as they are located around the building. These lines that are pointing towards the roof is where we're showing that the roof is essentially a flat roof that's built up, but it's a high point here going down to a low point here, back up to a high point.
We're trying to direct the water into the roof drains. One thing we need to be aware of though is sometimes there are massive deluges of water, and so in that case we want to make sure that the architect provides what we call scuppers for overflow water loads. So this would be a low point in the roof, but if there's too much water built up here, it would flow away out of the scupper.
And scuppers are usually architectural features about an inch higher than the roof itself. So once we get more than an inch's worth of rain in this area, it would start overflowing out the scupper, and this way we don't have a lot of rain buildup on the roof because water has weight and we have certain design loads for the building. So again, the architectural scuppers are manners that allow the amount of water on the roof to be controlled.
We have notes about the roof drain. There's a mechanical system here on the roof, so we're providing gas to that mechanical system. Again, keynotes, notes about the roof drain.
There's an architectural scupper over here. Another one here, and a roof drain down here with another mechanical system with a gas line. So a relatively clear and plain drawing.
Learn Blueprint Reading
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
The important things are we have roof drains, notes about the roof drains, gas lines, the mechanical systems, and architectural scuppers to prevent an excessive buildup of water on the roof during a rainstorm. Let's move on to our next drawing.
