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About This Quiz
What do you think qualifies as plumbing, anyway? When our ancient ancestors discovered that digging a hole could lead to clean water and made the first wells, was that plumbing? That's been going on for over 8,000 years. Various forms of crude indoor plumbing that allow clean water in and take wastewater out have existed for about 5,000 years based on some archaeological evidence. The details of who and how and why aren't super important, but what is important is that people have been trying to keep the water flowing for a very long time. That means plumbing is a pretty ancient profession, and it's had a very long time to develop its own special vocabulary.
Most of us don't have a reason to use too many plumbing terms in our day to day lives, but it's possible you know more than you realize. After all, when it comes to making sure you have hot water or that your basement isn't flooding or that your shower isn't wasting 100 gallons of water every morning, you need to know at least one or two handy terms. So let's find out what you know and what you don't in ou plumbing vocabulary quiz.
P-trap
Overflow valve
Stop valve
You should have a stop valve installed on the line near any sink or toilet to allow you to shut down the flow of water before it reaches where it's going. This ensures that, if you need to fix something, you don't need to turn the main water off for the entire building.
Backwater valve
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Backwater Valve
P-trap
Any fixture like a sink or basin should have a p-trap under it that gets its name because it's a p-shaped bend in the pipe. Water gets trapped in the curve when the faucet is off, and that prevents sewer gases from flowing back up the line and stinking up the place.
Septic Tank
Reducer
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Sealing around faucets or drains
Plumber's putty is used any time you need to seal around a fixture to make sure it's going to be watertight. It looks a lot like Play-Doh, and it tends to be applied pretty liberally when doing any kind of fixture work.
Smoothing joints
Soldering
Holding narrow water lines
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Sump pump
Grease Trap
Toilet
Water heater
Earthquake straps aren't too hard to figure out; you use them to secure things to the wall in case of an earthquake. In plumbing, they're a necessity for water heaters, which you need to properly secure for an added layer of safety in case disaster strikes.
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Plunger
A plunger is the most basic tool in a plumbing arsenal and pretty much the only one commonly used by everyday citizens. The suction cup creates a vacuum in a toilet or over a drain to loosen clogs.
Snake
Reducer
Bushing
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Drain the hot water
Fill it with water
Drain the excess air
You can bleed the lines of excess air in a building by opening all the faucets to allow the air out. Why do you care about air in your pipes? An excess of air can lead to very noisy pipes that can actually rattle and shake in the walls.
Half-open a pipe
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Balances your water's pH
Prevents your water heater from corroding
Your anode rod lives in your water heater and exists solely to be destroyed. It's a steel rod covered in a metal (like aluminum or zinc), and through the magic of electrolysis, the rod will corrode over time rather than the inside of your water heater.
Stops sewage from backing up
Holds a water filter in place
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Oakum
Oakum is generally made of old rope fibers, sometimes hemp rope, and it should be tarred in some way. The oakum is forced into the space between a cast-iron pipe in the fitting to fill the gap and then molten lead is poured in to finish the seal.
Flux
Plumber's putty
Pex
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Prevents grease from flowing into the sewer
A grease trap is a key component for many large-scale commercial kitchens that traps the grease flushed down a drain and prevents it from flowing out into the main sewer line. Grease traps have to be emptied regularly.
Holds oil needed for cooking
Mulches garbage and grease
Separates grey water from black water
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Putty
Draino
Flux
Flux is a compound necessary for soldering a joint that helps them "sweat" together. The flux, as it heats up with the torch, helps pull the solder all the way into the joint to ensure proper coverage.
Pickle
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Drain
Flange
Bibb
Faucet
A lot of people call them taps, but it's just the faucet you have to allow water to flow out. You have a faucet in the kitchen, the bathroom, the tub and probably the laundry room and outside somewhere as well.
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A way to replace pipes
Pipe bursting is a way of replacing pipes called trenchless pipe replacement. A new pipe is run through already-buried pipes that need replacement with a head that literally bursts the old pipe as the new pipe replaces it. This saves time and money and ensures you don't need to dig up your lawn.
A condition caused by pipes not buried deep enough
Gas backing up in pipes
Destroying pipes during a demolition
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Mark all fixtures on a blueprint
Demolish old, broken fixtures
Run pipes and lines through the frame of the building but does not connect them
You rough-in a building during the construction process by running lines and pipes through the framework as the building is being built but not connecting everything. This will be done before the walls are built so the pipes are in place and fixtures can easily be installed later.
Install cellar fixtures
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Reducer
A reducer is a handy fitting that will be able to connect pipes of two different sizes. One end may be 1.5 inches and the other end will be perhaps 2 inches or whatever size you need. Generally, the difference isn't too dramatic to prevent clogs in the line.
Solder
Bi-valve
Pipe grader
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PVC
ABS
CLP
PEX
PEX pipe and tubing is a flexible plastic pipe that is being used much more often in place of copper in modern buildings. It's easier to use since it doesn't require soldering and, being flexible, it is easier to transport. Plus, it's cheaper.
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Toilet
If you've ever looked in the tank of your toilet when you flush it, you've likely seen a small, round valve that gets pulled up on a chain when you push the handle down. That's called the flapper, and it's what keeps the water in your toilet tank until it's flushed.
Water heater
Sewer connection
Dishwasher
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Low flow
Bidet
Dual flush
Dual-flush toilets are all the rage in most parts of the world that use flush toilets, though they haven't fully caught on in North America yet. The mechanism allows for using two different amounts of water so that less can be used for flushing when a larger amount would be wasteful.
Energy star
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The main vent from a sewer
A building with more than 3 floors
Two fixtures sharing drain pipe
The main vertical drain pipe
All drains in a house connect to one main pipe that runs vertically through the building. From the highest point a fixture is connected on down, it's considered a soil stack. Above that point, it's a vent stack. Gases rise up and vent out of the room, and waste flows down and drains into the sewer.
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Clear
Potable
You have potable and non-potable water in any plumbing system. Potable is what you drink and cook with, and non-potable is suitable maybe for watering the lawn, flushing the toilet or washing a car but probably not for personal use.
Greywater
Line water
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Drain
Receptacle
Fixture
Basin
Basin and sink are often interchangeable, but some plumbers will stick to calling a sink what you have in the laundry room and a basin what you have in the kitchen or bathroom. It often depends on the plumber.
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A ball on a stick
You've likely seen a float valve in a toilet tank; it looks like a ball on a stick. As the water level rises, the ball floats up pushing the stick down, which cuts off the flow of water at a certain volume to ensure it doesn't overflow.
A saucer
A wheel
The letter T
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In the water heater
Near the basement foundation
Weeping tile is installed around the foundation of a building to allow for the draining of groundwater away from the foundation. Generally, the weeping tile, a porous tile covered in aggregate to allow only water to pass through, then drains into a storm sewer.
In the main sewer line
Under the toilet
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Bathroom sink
Laundry tub
Shower
Toilet
Graywater is pretty much any household wastewater except that which is contaminated with fecal matter. In other words, if it comes from any of your fixtures other than the toilet, it's graywater.
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A low-flow toilet
A toilet with the cistern and bowl connected
Most toilets you'll see in your life are close-coupled toilets. The cistern or tank is a separated but connected piece to the bowl, unlike some much older models of toilets where the water tank was elevated and away from the bowl.
A one-piece toilet
A toilet within 20 yards of the main line
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Bidet
Sump pump
Cistern
Backwater valve
A backwater valve is a key piece of equipment, especially in areas prone to flooding. If water backs up the sewer line, the backwater valve closes to prevent it from flooding back into the house.
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An automatic shut-off valve
A water-temperature monitor
High-efficiency fixtures
WaterSense is a label you'll find on fixtures like toilets that means they're EPA certified to use less water than traditional fixtures and are therefore more environmentally friendly and responsible to use.
A drainage system
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Annealing
Annealing copper is the process through which copper is heated so you can make it more malleable instead of it being firm and rigid. An annealed pipe is much more easily bent, shaped, or hammered into whatever position you need it in.
Soldering
Ridging
Sloughing
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A faucet
A fixture
A valve
All a valve does is either allow or prevent the flow of liquid through a system of pipes. An open valve is a straight pipe from one to another while a closed valve will use some kind of ball or other mechanisms to obstruct the flow.
A drain
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GPM
The rate of flow in a fixture like a shower is typically measured in gallons per minute or GPM. 2.5 GPM is the federally mandated maximum for a showerhead and has been so since the 1990s.
RPM
TSC
ABS
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Redux
Dual flush
Low flow
Low-flow fixtures like showerheads and toilets are meant to use less water overall without compromising on the functionality. A low-flow shower, for instance, should force water out at higher pressures, so it functions just as well but saves water overall.
Energy Star
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Bidet
A bidet, either on its own or combined with a toilet, is designed to clean you with a direct jet of water. They're not particularly popular in North Ameria, but they're actually much more efficient and environmentally friendly than using toilet paper.
Laundry tub
Basin
Irrigation system
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Prevents oxidization in a water heater
Clears out clogged drains
A snake is a kind of auger meant to clean out drain lines, often when a clog is either very deep in the line or so large it's hard to be cleaned by other means. A long metal line is forced down the pipe and usually hand-cranked or mechanically cranked to loosen up any material clogging the drain.
Scours basins
Connects pipes
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Blackwater
Household wastewater from the toilet is called blackwater and is often separated in drain systems from graywater, which can sometimes de diverted to storm sewers. Blackwater must always go to the sanitary sewer so it can be treated.
Graywater
Brackish water
Potable water
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Cistern
Sump Pump
Backflow valve
Overflow valve
Often, bathtubs and bathroom sinks will have overflow valves installed, and they're just holes in the basin or the tub under the faucet. When the water level reaches the overflow, it drains out and prevents the water from overflowing onto the floor.
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Main stack
Storm sewer
Sanitary sewer
Sewage flows from houses and businesses into a sanitary sewer so it can flow to a treatment plant. A storm sewer does not transport sewage and does not have to go to a plant for treatment.
Weeping tile
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Grease trap
Storm drain
Sump pump
Septic tank
Especially in rural areas, sewage from a home will be transported to a septic tank where it can decompose and begin the basic treatment process. This happens most often when a connection to a municipal sewer system is not an option. Septic tanks have to be drained regularly.
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Gas pump
Tankless water heater
A tankless water heater is a device that saves a lot of space by doing away with the large traditional water tank instead of heating water directly in the pipes as it passes through. This way you never run out of hot water, but it can be pricey to set up.
Heat exchanger
Sump pump
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Basin wrench
A basin wrench is designed to work in confined spaces. The head is on a hinge so it can flop from one side to another, letting it operate in a narrow vertical passage like up under a basin.
Monkeywrench
Plumber's pliers
Gasket wrench
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Sump pump
A sump pump generally works with a sump basin below a basement floor. Sump basins collect water sometimes from overflow and sometimes from external drainage systems like weeping tile, and the sump pump forces it out before it backs up to flood the basement.
Drain screen
Dual flush
Pex
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Stop valve
Flux
Anode rod
Water softener
You have hard water if there's too high a mineral content in it. Hard water makes it hard to work up a good lather and get anything clean, but a water softener exchanges the harsh mineral ions for sodium ions and makes your water a little easier to work with.
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