The Plumbing Merit Badge has us taking a look at our own homes, and drawing out where the cold and hot water supply is.

There are a few different ways that your home could be receiving it’s hot and cold water. Some of the different ways of receiving your cold water supply include a main line from the city, water tank from the roof or your building, and well water being pumped up from the ground. Having hot water can also be piped through your home in different ways. You could have either a tank or tank-less water heater, or you could also be set up on a boiler system where there is one giant tank being heated up and supplying each unit in your apartment complex with hot water.

Our home is receives cold water from the city main line and then goes into a water heater tank to be heated up. On the drawing, you can see at the bottom of the page is the main line, which goes directly into a water meter and then into the house. Where the pipe enters the house, there is a shut off valve in the event that we need to completely shut off the water coming in. We have had to do this a couple of time when our water heater decided to burst it’s bottom and flood the basement. For us to receive hot water, cold water from the inlet goes into the water heater, and then is piped throughout the house. Usually following the cold water pipe. In addition to the main water shut off, we also have a cold water shut of valve for the pipe that goes directly into the hot water heater. This is very handy to have if your hot water heater starts to leak or if you need to replace it.

For the most part, everything that requires water has the cold water piped to it. Not everything requires hot water, toilets and outdoor hose bibs for example. Here is a list of items in our home along with if hot or cold water is hooked up.

• Hose Bib (outdoors) - Cold

• Toilets - Cold

• Sinks - Hot/Cold

• Showers - Hot/Cold

• Tubs - Hot/Cold

• Washing Machine - Hot/Cold

• Dishwasher - Hot

• Yard Sprinkler System - Cold

Most of the time, your water supply pipes will run along the inside of the exterior walls. In our case, the pipes do run through the middle of the floor to the kitchen as the utility room is on the other side of the house with the inlet and water heater.