Fresh water from the City of Portland is piped into the Atwater, where some of it is heated, and both hot and cold water are pumped to the floors and then your units.
Recirculating the hot water means that the lines in your floor always have hot water, so when you try to get hot water, it only has to come in from your floors pipes, not the hot water heaters themselves.
P1 Boiler Room
This room has the boilers for hot water for floors 1-15, and is the source of all cold water for the building.
Cold water is piped into the booster pump, where 3 pumps push it up through to the 23rd floor
There are 7 boilers here, the four on the left handle floors 1-4, and the three on the right handle floors 5-15
The middle one here is leaking, and had to be replaced. Because the other two as old as the one that leaked, and are so hard to get to, while the middle one was replaced we also replaced the other two
Misc plumbing
Rooftop
The water heaters for floors 16-23 are in the rooftop equipment room, as well as the hot water recirculation pump.
Floors 16-23 only need 3 water heaters
This is the pump for the hot water recirculation – your floor’s hot water is constantly circulated so it’s hot at the hallway. When you turn your hot water on, you’re only pulling it in from the hallway, not waiting for it to come from the roof
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