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Louie
      
 |  |  | Manhole designations
< on 6/20/2004 5:13 AM >
|  | | | i could go off on jokes about manholes, but i wont...
anyways around here there are 6 different manhole designations (Letters or names on top of the cover). however i am not totally sure what means what. there are the two obvious ones, "BELL TELEPHONE" and "STORM DRAIN" (found on gutter boxes). but there are the four mystery marks.
S - I figure sanitary sewer. but again, not sure. why would crews need access to sanitary sewers? blechhh. These are the most common manhole covers.
W - I believe to be "Water" but what would a manhole give access to related to water? Water mains? water valves? help me out here. these are the least common manholes.
D - I think this means drain. not gutter boxes, but the actual main storm drain.
and finally:
PEPCO - Pepco is my local electrical company. I could understand electrical manholes because of underground power supplies, but these commonly exist even in areas with above ground power. why would these exist?
thanks
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MacGyver
location:
St Paul, Minnesota
Gender: Male
"Someone go find me a paperclip, a D-cell battery, and a cheese grater"
| | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 1 on 6/20/2004 5:48 AM >
| | | | Posted by fatLouie
...why would crews need access to sanitary sewers? blechhh. |
I'm a bit surprised you ask this, because as an explorer, you more than any normal person should be keenly aware that a city can never run on it's own. There is always so much more than meets the eye.
To answer your question, it's because there's a lot of shit down there that needs to be maintained, repaired, cleaned-out, and inspected more often than you'd think (excuse the pun). If sanitary sewers were just left to do their thing and sealed shut, there would be all kinds of problems. It's sort of the same reason you can pop the hood on your car, only a lot smellier. (I hope your car smells less offensively than a sanitary sewer...)
W - I believe to be "Water" but what would a manhole give access to related to water? Water mains? water valves? help me out here. these are the least common manholes.
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water valves and junctions in water main pipes, mainly. In very rare circumstances, there might be tunnels involved, but I can almost guarantee not. In the US these days, it's a bad idea to hang around near supposedly easily sabotaged, etc. critical infrastructure. You might find yourself handcuffed and explaining yourself to terr0rism specialists if you're seen in/near that kind of stuff, so I recommend staying far away, given the interestingness to risks ratio.
| D - I think this means drain. not gutter boxes, but the actual main storm drain. |
You are likely precisely correct.
PEPCO - Pepco is my local electrical company. I could understand electrical manholes because of underground power supplies, but these commonly exist even in areas with above ground power. why would these exist? |
Not all power utilities are above ground when there are phone/power poles in the area. There is also a very remote possibility of tunnels here, but I can nearly guarantee otherwise. It takes several very selective criteria to be able to hope for interesting tunnels instead of vault rooms and tubes, and very few cities meet this criteria. Also, see note about water infrastructure. It applies here as well, although not to such a great degree.
Like a fiend with his dope / a drunkard his wine / a man will have lust for the lure of the mine
"If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent." |
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Louie
| | | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 2 on 6/20/2004 5:56 AM >
| | | | the terr0rism assumption problem is especially prevalent here in the DC area. jeez it sucks.
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Louie
| | | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 3 on 6/20/2004 5:58 AM >
| | | | oh one more question, often S and D manholes are right near each other. is this just because of the covience of putting tubes right next to each other, or could it be a combined system? and also, i figure access has to be avaiable to sanitary sewers, but these things are EVERYWHERE.
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Asylunt
location:
MPLS
Gender: Male
The Friendly Beer!
| |  | | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 4 on 6/20/2004 6:04 AM >
| | | | Think of it this way, not saying this is the only reason, but a good one in my opinion, would you want to walk five blocks to get to a problematic section of sewer?
I think not, and I'm speaking as someone who has walked through five blocks of sanitary sewers before.
Asylunt
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain |
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MacGyver
location:
St Paul, Minnesota
Gender: Male
"Someone go find me a paperclip, a D-cell battery, and a cheese grater"
| | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 5 on 6/20/2004 7:05 AM >
| | | | Posted by fatLouie
oh one more question, often S and D manholes are right near each other. is this just because of the covience of putting tubes right next to each other, or could it be a combined system? and also, i figure access has to be avaiable to sanitary sewers, but these things are EVERYWHERE.
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The standard procedure is to run a sanitary line and a storm line next to eachother, sort of like the positive and negative leads in a complex parallel electrical circuit. Manholes are usually at intersections of pipes, which usually happens at inte5rsections of roads, so you see a LOT of amnhole covers in street intersections. I remember counting one time at a red light in minneapolis. There were over twenty manhole covers inside of the crosswalks. That's a lot of utilities!
Like a fiend with his dope / a drunkard his wine / a man will have lust for the lure of the mine
"If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent." |
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nostra-YOUPPI!
Umpire
location:
Shahre:'on Kaybec
Bonsoir et cest partie
| | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 6 on 6/20/2004 7:20 AM >
| | | | in montreal you have conduits montreal that manages the downtown manholes. they contain both electric and telephone. thats why in the downtown core you sometimes one day see a telephone guy in a manhole the next day a electric company one, its not always the rule as the telco also has its own manholes and the electric company has its vaults. the conduits montreal manholes on dorcester/rene levesque are notable for the fact they have a link consisting of a large conduit pipe to pass fiber optic through between the tunnels. montreals steam network is rather small by american scales as it was originally private owned by a railway for its own buildings and later made public and now links a great many sites. as manholes go there are many interesting ones if you look around. I find it funny when you see manholes in odd places. Like in ville mercier (montreal south shore suburb) there is a farmers field with a line of manholes down the center. they are valve chambers for a water line. In kahnawake you have 5 manholes on an uninhabited island because the towns sewage discharge is pumped under the seaway and across the island into the st lawrence.
montreal also has this huge pipe that runs the length of the south side of the island of montreal as a catch all sewage pipe. the problem is it overflows because some cities on the island have cso like ville lasalle. we also have some interesting items like the drainage chambers in st henri to prevent flooding, parts of the area are very low.
all this to say under our feet is so much, just be safe and dont get in trouble
Montreal Expos 1969-2004 Forever Proud Lets Keep The Dream Alive |
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hax0r
| | | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 7 on 6/20/2004 10:23 PM >
|  | | | Those electric company manholes are probably large transformers/switching equipment that is too big to be on a power pole. I wouldn't exactly recomend going down there unless you like the idea of becoming a crispy critter. remember, power lines aren't insolated! the stuff on the outside is only to protect them from the elements. each wire is rapped in styrofome, then a group of I think 7 wires is inside a steel conduit and then rapped in teflon. I actually have a piece of power line here (found it on the sidewalk, couldn't resist...).
Air Iraq: We get you there, you get back |
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Macsbug
Noble Donor
location:
St. Paul, MN
Gender: Male
Safety First!
| | | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 8 on 6/21/2004 2:35 AM >
| | | | Posted by MacGyver
The standard procedure is to run a sanitary line and a storm line next to eachother, sort of like the positive and negative leads in a complex parallel electrical circuit.
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Which makes it easier(=cheaper) to make one installation of pipes at a place, and keeps everything simpler for the city people to keep track of it all. Another good reason for it would be if you have a city which isn't very new, it probobly had some CSO's at one time, which would explain the two pipes by each other - historically.
"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it." |
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Louie
| | | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 9 on 6/22/2004 1:13 AM >
| | | | i figure it would just be cheaper to build to dig one big side by side trench as opposed to two differetn trenches
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NY Telecom
location:
Western NY
Gender: Male
A ringing phone has to be answered, doesn't it?
| | | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 10 on 9/1/2004 6:53 AM >
| | | | When I worked in Telecom, our manholes were labeled "S" for "Signal." Don't know what the D could mean but if it's close to the ones labeled "S" it could very likely be electrical. Although with your local power co. labeled ones nearby, I'm not totally certain on that.
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tbone
Gender: Male
| | Re: Manhole designations
<Reply # 11 on 9/1/2004 4:47 PM >
| | | | Posted by fatLouie
i figure it would just be cheaper to build to dig one big side by side trench as opposed to two differetn trenches
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often in toronto the sanitary is directly below the storm. just another configuration.
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