# what, exactly, do water towers do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2001, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348 "2001-03-17T05:41:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![russjourn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@russjourn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russjourn)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/1 "2001-03-17T05:41:12Z")
I recently took a train trip across the nation, and it seemed like every small town has a water tower. No water tower is large enough to store enough water for even a small town; plus, with reservoirs and underground pipes, most towns can get what they need. You rarely see water towers in large cities. With these factors in mind, tt seems to me that while water towers once had a noble purpose, they are predominantly ornaments, identifying the name of the town and serving as an easel for the graffiti of local gangs and lovers. So, in the twenty-first century, what function do water towers perform? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/2 "2001-03-17T05:55:32Z")
Actually, large cities have hundreds of water towers; they’re all on the tops of buildings. Water towers work because the demand for water changes throughout the day. When people are asleep, there is little demand for water and the pressure in the system is high. The high pressure fills up the water tower with a surplus. In the morning, when people wake up and take their morning whiz, the pressure in the system decreases, causing the surplus water to come out of the tower. For more information, see [How Water Towers Work](http://www.howstuffworks.com/water.htm). ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/3 "2001-03-17T13:29:42Z")
Water towers supply pressure, mainly. They are far from ornamental. A pump would not be able to supply enough water at a significant constant pressure. The water pressure doesn’t change a lot during the day, because the level of the water in the tower doesn’t change that much relative to the height of the tower–unless the entire reservoir is depleted. ---
**Author:** ![waxteeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@waxteeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waxteeth)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/4 "2001-03-17T13:52:24Z")
It’s all about the pressure. Storage capacity is a great side effect but without towers/ tanks we would need monster pumps everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/5 "2001-03-17T15:22:20Z")
Water towers are hardly necessary. They are a cheap way of providing pressure, but there are other ways. I lived in a city that had no water tower, and which maintained water pressure adequately through simple use of pumping mechanisms. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/6 "2001-03-17T17:11:14Z")
Water towers in small towns are in fact a very important storage facility. While larger communities can afford reservoirs and expensive pumping facilities, small towns cannot. They must rely on small tanks and towers to get the job done. This is especially true on the High Plains where water is drawn from aquifers. In smaller communities, usually there is one large large tower per two to three thousand people. In addition they will have three to five per that number at ground level in large tank-like containers. Once again on the level land of the Plains, gravitational pumping from a tower can provide a consistent pressure to most homes in a community relatively easily and relatively inexpensively in that the pumps from the ground level tanks to the tower can be done once or twice or three times per day as needed and a steadily gravitational pressure can be kept up through out the day to houses and businesses from the tower. It saves the small town a great deal of money not having to have constant mechanical pressured pumping throughout the town all day. Larger communities do not willingly share reservoir water, and assuming you could get it, they would have to be markedly higher in elevation to create the pressure you would need without a tower. TV ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/7 "2001-03-17T17:25:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DSYoungEsq \* > \*\*Water towers are hardly necessary. They are a cheap way of providing pressure, but there are other ways. I lived in a city that had no water tower, and which maintained water pressure adequately through simple use of pumping mechanisms. \*\* Which city was that? ---
**Author:** ![Mikahw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Mikahw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikahw)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/8 "2001-03-17T18:22:09Z")
There are **tons** of water towers over here. West Seattle, if you needed to know that… ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/9 "2001-03-17T19:14:23Z")
In case you’re interested in why the water doesn’t freeze in water towers, we discussed it in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=52701). There is also a link to some interesting looking water towers. ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/10 "2001-03-17T19:16:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RM Mentock \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by DSYoungEsq \* > > \*\*Water towers are hardly necessary. They are a cheap way of providing pressure, but there are other ways. I lived in a city that had no water tower, and which maintained water pressure adequately through simple use of pumping mechanisms. \*\* > > Which city was that? \*\* I don’t recall seeing water towers in Philadelphia, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any. Water pressure can be supplied by having a resevoir at a higher altitude, essentially the same principal as a tower. ---
**Author:** ![ctywkr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@ctywkr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctywkr)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2001, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/11 "2001-03-18T04:18:51Z")
> [@](#): > > **Originally posted by DSYoungEsq > Water towers are hardly necessary. They are a cheap way of providing pressure, but there are other ways. I lived in a city that had no water tower, and > which maintained water pressure adequately through simple use of pumping mechanisms.** A post I know somethig about finally lures me out of lukerdom. Simple answer, By pumping water into a tower and letting gravity distribute the water into the system the pumps at the wells don’t have to run all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2001, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/12 "2001-03-18T05:22:42Z")
The water tower also provides a simple solution to the problem of controlling the pressure in a towns system of pipes. Since water is not compressible the pressure in a closed system will fluctuate wildly unless the rate of pumping from wells closely matches the rate of water usage. With a water tower in place, any excess pumping acts to fill the tower while any deficit drains it, without huge changes in the systems pressure. This allows the use of cheaper, unregulated, pumps, and decreases the wear on the system. ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2001, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/13 "2001-03-18T06:02:21Z")
Besides storing a bit of water, where else would you be able to declare that Billy Bob Loves Charlene? ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2001, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/14 "2001-03-18T20:04:37Z")
Why, on the railroad bridge down on the Old Post Road. Duh. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2001, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/15 "2001-03-19T01:44:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by friedo \* > \*\*Actually, large cities have hundreds of water towers; they’re all on the tops of buildings. Water towers work because the demand for water changes throughout the day. When people are asleep, there is little demand for water and the pressure in the system is high. The high pressure fills up the water tower with a surplus. In the morning, when people wake up and take their morning whiz, the pressure in the system decreases, causing the surplus water to come out of the tower. > \*\* Here in Sydney, we have several massive pipes which run from a huge dam in the mountains west of the city to a storage reservoir in the suburbs. Apparently, many, many years ago, the pipes weren’t there, and it was an open canal. People who lived along the canal said they could see the constant slow flow of the water as the city used it. But, they said it speeded up noticably towards the end of commercial breaks during high rating TV shows as a hundreds of thousands of toilets were simultaneously flushed. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2001, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-do-water-towers-do/58348/16 "2001-03-19T01:52:58Z")
"But, they said it speeded up noticably towards the end of commercial breaks during high rating TV shows as a hundreds of thousands of toilets were simultaneously flushed. " Sheesh! You guys had 'Superbowls" down under, too???