I'm working on a customhouse. The owner is obsessed with glass and wants to do a glass p-trap. I couldn't find any. Someone saw it on magazine in an Italian kitchen. Please let me know if you know any information on that. Thank you!
Louisville Architect
Aug 17, 05 2:27 pm
ewww. who wants to see what stays in the pipe below their sink bowl? i've only ever seen this in drano commercials.
mwad
Aug 17, 05 2:28 pm
Yeah, that sounds disgusting.
liberty bell
Aug 17, 05 2:29 pm
Don't kow of one that's manufactred, but it would be easy enough to make custom. Is there a university near you with a glass blowing/casting facility? You could hire a student to make one - take a mold of a regular metal P-trap, then cast glass into it.
Pricey, but definitely possible.
Louisville Architect
Aug 17, 05 2:32 pm
have you ever seen what happens to hair and soap and toothpaste and everything else when it gets wadded up below the drain. sorry, but i'd try to talk them out of this.
maybe a glass sink? at least they can clean it. and it can be colored or lit dramatically...whatever.
they'll thank you in the long run.
abracadabra
Aug 17, 05 2:39 pm
that sounds like a war on pasta..
Manteno_Montenegro
Aug 17, 05 2:43 pm
Would be so much cooler if you were talking about the tubes under the toilet.
mwad
Aug 17, 05 2:43 pm
I demo'd the kitchen in my house and the P-trap was f'ing disgusting. I poured it out into a bucket and almost threw up. Lovely stuff in there. (*note: I didn't use the kitchen, just bought the house and demo'd existing)
e
Aug 17, 05 2:55 pm
that is absolutely the most ridiculous thing i've heard in a long while. it's just plain dumb.
Reason
Aug 17, 05 3:04 pm
It may sounds wired, but has definitely been done with the entire counter top, bowl and p-trap in glass. Not too bad actually.
Reason
Aug 17, 05 3:06 pm
By the way, it's in the poweder room, so only water and soap, not much other things will go there.
Aluminate
Aug 17, 05 3:09 pm
Check with manufacturers of specialty lab equipment, and or consultants who do university science labs. The entire plumbing systems (not just the traps but all the pipes) of older laboratory buildings were often done in glass because of corrosive substances used in the labs.
e
Aug 17, 05 3:18 pm
not too bad? a glass p trap? are you kidding me? even if it is for a powder room, soap scum, dried skin, and hair wil collect over time, and it will look gross. i can hear the plumber now.
abracadabra
Aug 17, 05 3:23 pm
*not too far from the subject.
they've found a lot of cocaine residue in po river, italy.
Louisville Architect
Aug 17, 05 3:32 pm
mmm. swimming anyone?
Arzo
Aug 17, 05 3:46 pm
ohhhhhh, i thought you wanted a glass pee trap.
pomotrash
Aug 17, 05 4:05 pm
check your local building codes...it may not fly. P-traps and backflows are regulated by the upc and have specific req. also you may have to pay to have it tested...
pomotrash
Aug 17, 05 4:13 pm
also, threaded glass joints are not known for their ability to withstand shear or the vibratrions of the garbage disposal...
you should convince them to do all glass counters/sink and then do chorme piping.
Reason
Aug 17, 05 4:18 pm
Beauty is in the eyes of beholder, so is ugliness.
Some people seems don't have better thing to do than making negative comments. It's more gross than the p-trap.
I do appreciate liberty bell and Aluminate's suggestions.
Be more positive and constructive please.
mwad
Aug 17, 05 4:22 pm
You could frost the bottom of the trap. That way there is that mystery of what is making that shadow behind the frosted section. Sexy kind of.
Carl Douglas (agfa8x)
Aug 17, 05 4:31 pm
this is why clients need architects - to stop them doing stupid things like having a glass p-trap (although I must say I am glad that you were talking about a sink, not a toilet)
liberty bell
Aug 17, 05 4:35 pm
mwad, that's actually a nice suggestion! Sexy, kind of.
Note I'm not condoning this idea - I for one want what goes down my drain to stay invisible. My comment above was mainly meant to raise the issue that it's possible to custom fabricate just about anything.
Louisville Architect
Aug 17, 05 4:35 pm
whoa, reason, this isn't mean-spirited criticism you're getting. we're attempting to help, not waste your time with negativity.
maybe you're onto something dope and we're wrong. i hope so and that you'll post pictures later to say 'i told you so'. just seems a little too 'cool' for its own good...
and we don't want to see you get reamed later by the client: 'why did you let us do that? it's dumb'. (believe me. i've heard it before after having followed through with a client's idea.)
btw, i've seen big chunky bumpy cast glass vanity tops that look pretty sexy. (hint.)
e
Aug 17, 05 4:45 pm
yeah, constructive criticism indeed. some of the most valuable comments suggestions in life are the things that you don't want to hear. is this for your first client? i know you started a thread a while back asking about fees for your first client.
if you go mwad's route, i would frost the entire thing. soap scum will build up all over. hmm, nevermind. it will self-frost with the scum.
A Center for Ants?
Aug 17, 05 4:48 pm
maybe you can clean it with a really really high molar hydrochloric or sulfuric acid since it's glass. it'll make all sorts of nice fumes and gasses but it'll clear that out right quick.
might also kill you.
el jeffe
Aug 17, 05 5:09 pm
the IPC (table 303.4) seems pretty clear that these devices need to be tested. this is getting expensive...
el jeffe
Aug 17, 05 5:18 pm
it also says this:
1002.10 Plumbing in mental health centers. In mental health
centers, pipes and traps shall not be exposed.
wonder what the hell happened that caused this entry?
vado retro
Aug 17, 05 6:04 pm
is your client part owner of that taiwaneese toilet restaraunt?
Carl Douglas (agfa8x)
Aug 17, 05 6:59 pm
could you do a custom sink that drained into the wall, and had its trap concealed in there?
john lautner's sheats/goldstein house has a glass sink.
if you explain all that cleaning rigmarole like shalak just did, i'm sure the clients will get turned off the idea.
Reason
Aug 17, 05 7:13 pm
I'm sure most people make the comments with good intention. Unfortuantely, this is my own client. (I wish I have client with that money.) My boss asked me to research on this. I'm sure there are ways to solve the problem of visibility, like frosting suggested by mwad. I'm more interested in the construcbility. Maybe it seems wired now will be a standard product in the future. Just be open minded.
Here's a link to a supplier of clear glass plumbing. http://www.scientificglass.co.uk/Our_Products/Traps_/traps_.html
They have a .pdf download booklet of traps, and also have sizing and specifications for connectors, etc.
It looks like you have to use metal connectors for glass piping.
If you contact other suppliers or look elsewhere on line what you want to look for is "borosilicate glass".
Good luck.
garpike
Aug 17, 05 9:56 pm
UCLA has a chemistry lab building with the glass drain pipes exposed and visible in the hall ways. Even with only liquids running through them they look pretty gross.
MysteryMan
Aug 17, 05 10:02 pm
hawhawhawhawhawhawhaw....
Whatever you do, bill the sumbitch (client) royally for coming up w/ shit like that!
sameolddoctor
Aug 17, 05 10:30 pm
"Maybe it seems wired now will be a standard product in the future"
sure it might be a standard product in the future, but whats the f..ing logic for such products??? what we are saying here is that maybe you could explain to your boss that this is a crappy idea....maybe you could get a raise that way
el jeffe
Aug 17, 05 10:37 pm
ASTM C 1053 - Standard Specification for Borosilicate Glass Pipe and Fittings for Drain, Waste, and Vent (DWV) Applications
1. Scope
1.1 This specification covers chemical resistant, low expansion, Type I, borosilicate glass, Class A (see Specification E438), used to manufacture corrosion-resistant pipe and fittings for drain, waste, and vent service.
1.2 The pipe and fittings covered by the specification are intended for chemical resistant service above and below grade under gravity flow or vacuum conditions.
1.3 The pipe and fittings shall have beaded or plain ends.
Bloopox
Aug 17, 05 10:39 pm
The info on that lab glass site says that glass pipes tend to remain pretty clean and collect less slime/scaling than other types of pipes.
It does seem that the stuff sitting in the pipe at any given time might not be too appealing to look at, but on the other hand I think the issue is being exaggerated.
If you've ever taken apart the trap on a bathroom sink you'll find that there isn't generally anything too disgusting in there UNLESS the sink is clogged and/or some heavy object (rings, rocks, toys, whatever) has taken up residence there and is collecting other goop. Usually there is just clear water in there. This isn't a kitchen sink that would collect food particles, or a toilet.
I've seen lab buildings with exposed glass pipes. The stuff in the pipes can be pretty disgusting, but that is partly due to the nature of what happens in science labs. One would imagine that the average powder room doesn't have a lot of animal-guts-mixed-with-chemistry-experiments going down the drain.
The traps on that lab site are intended for cooling systems - so you might want to contact the company and see if specifications for bathroom plumbing might differ.
will galloway
Aug 17, 05 11:05 pm
my old office (matthew priestman architects) did a glass tub wut you can see here:
i would post the image directly but am embarassingly uncertain of the meaning of the instructions at the bottom of the page. and lazy.
you will notice the lack of glass traps and so on. not to be overly critical but sometimes using standard stuff in interesting ways is often nicer than just being unique in every detail. if you manage to get it built would be cool to see images, mind.
btw, If the lab equipment doesn't strike your fancy i am certain you can get a glass artist to make it for you. the tub matthew did took three tries to make without breaking however and was on the expensive side. looks beautiful though.
paper tiger
Aug 18, 05 5:16 pm
i think frosted would look great, but maybe the client likes to see all the stuff slowly flowing through the pipe. it would be kind of neat to have a camera that takes one photo each day of the pipe for an entire year and make a large collage of the evolution of the clear glass p-pipe and then the client could hang it in their living room or something like that....it would be kind of neat to see the growth and changes and the foods and the goody goodness that can go thorugh those pipes....
OlDirtyArchitect
Aug 18, 05 5:26 pm
and while you're at it, put in glass draine pipes everywhere, especially for the toilets, and leave them exposed. Watch out Pompidou here comes the poopadoodoo!
paper tiger
Aug 18, 05 5:36 pm
OLD DIRTY BASTARD HAS TAUGHT YOU WELL....ODA....
OlDirtyArchitect
Aug 18, 05 5:47 pm
It does sound like something big Baby Jesus would say doesn't it?
Reason
Aug 18, 05 8:30 pm
Ok, back to satin nickle finish bottle P-trap. Have to say here I don't really interested in glass P-trap anyway. Of course I will pursuade the client to change his mind if I have the chance. Like the glass stair her is planning to do with glass pickets, not my style. But working for a controling architect, and have to say it again, IT'S NOT MY CLIENT! I have to do my job, research on the product. Find something interesting here to share, a cool glass counter top design Jean Nouvel http://www.curvet.it/home.html
How to post pic? Anyone can help? I can share what the bathroom look like.
Regan Martin
Aug 18, 05 8:41 pm
Ick-
I would try this with heat formed PETG or Acrylic tubing rather than glass. then you can do it as one piece.
The best suggestion so far is to have the P-trap inside the wall and accesible from behind an access panel of some kind for maint. purposes.
Clients are not always right, and this is a colossaly bad idea for a whole lot of reasons that have nothing to do with spectacle or voyeurism or whatnot.
Luck, and let us knwo the resolution
usathomas
Apr 13, 20 9:40 am
found glass u trap after years? ... there are many available in the markets
I'm working on a customhouse. The owner is obsessed with glass and wants to do a glass p-trap. I couldn't find any. Someone saw it on magazine in an Italian kitchen. Please let me know if you know any information on that. Thank you!
ewww. who wants to see what stays in the pipe below their sink bowl? i've only ever seen this in drano commercials.
Yeah, that sounds disgusting.
Don't kow of one that's manufactred, but it would be easy enough to make custom. Is there a university near you with a glass blowing/casting facility? You could hire a student to make one - take a mold of a regular metal P-trap, then cast glass into it.
Pricey, but definitely possible.
have you ever seen what happens to hair and soap and toothpaste and everything else when it gets wadded up below the drain. sorry, but i'd try to talk them out of this.
maybe a glass sink? at least they can clean it. and it can be colored or lit dramatically...whatever.
they'll thank you in the long run.
that sounds like a war on pasta..
Would be so much cooler if you were talking about the tubes under the toilet.
I demo'd the kitchen in my house and the P-trap was f'ing disgusting. I poured it out into a bucket and almost threw up. Lovely stuff in there. (*note: I didn't use the kitchen, just bought the house and demo'd existing)
that is absolutely the most ridiculous thing i've heard in a long while. it's just plain dumb.
It may sounds wired, but has definitely been done with the entire counter top, bowl and p-trap in glass. Not too bad actually.
By the way, it's in the poweder room, so only water and soap, not much other things will go there.
Check with manufacturers of specialty lab equipment, and or consultants who do university science labs. The entire plumbing systems (not just the traps but all the pipes) of older laboratory buildings were often done in glass because of corrosive substances used in the labs.
not too bad? a glass p trap? are you kidding me? even if it is for a powder room, soap scum, dried skin, and hair wil collect over time, and it will look gross. i can hear the plumber now.
*not too far from the subject.
they've found a lot of cocaine residue in po river, italy.
mmm. swimming anyone?
ohhhhhh, i thought you wanted a glass pee trap.
check your local building codes...it may not fly. P-traps and backflows are regulated by the upc and have specific req. also you may have to pay to have it tested...
also, threaded glass joints are not known for their ability to withstand shear or the vibratrions of the garbage disposal...
you should convince them to do all glass counters/sink and then do chorme piping.
Beauty is in the eyes of beholder, so is ugliness.
Some people seems don't have better thing to do than making negative comments. It's more gross than the p-trap.
I do appreciate liberty bell and Aluminate's suggestions.
Be more positive and constructive please.
You could frost the bottom of the trap. That way there is that mystery of what is making that shadow behind the frosted section. Sexy kind of.
this is why clients need architects - to stop them doing stupid things like having a glass p-trap (although I must say I am glad that you were talking about a sink, not a toilet)
mwad, that's actually a nice suggestion! Sexy, kind of.
Note I'm not condoning this idea - I for one want what goes down my drain to stay invisible. My comment above was mainly meant to raise the issue that it's possible to custom fabricate just about anything.
whoa, reason, this isn't mean-spirited criticism you're getting. we're attempting to help, not waste your time with negativity.
maybe you're onto something dope and we're wrong. i hope so and that you'll post pictures later to say 'i told you so'. just seems a little too 'cool' for its own good...
and we don't want to see you get reamed later by the client: 'why did you let us do that? it's dumb'. (believe me. i've heard it before after having followed through with a client's idea.)
btw, i've seen big chunky bumpy cast glass vanity tops that look pretty sexy. (hint.)
yeah, constructive criticism indeed. some of the most valuable comments suggestions in life are the things that you don't want to hear. is this for your first client? i know you started a thread a while back asking about fees for your first client.
if you go mwad's route, i would frost the entire thing. soap scum will build up all over. hmm, nevermind. it will self-frost with the scum.
maybe you can clean it with a really really high molar hydrochloric or sulfuric acid since it's glass. it'll make all sorts of nice fumes and gasses but it'll clear that out right quick.
might also kill you.
the IPC (table 303.4) seems pretty clear that these devices need to be tested. this is getting expensive...
it also says this:
1002.10 Plumbing in mental health centers. In mental health
centers, pipes and traps shall not be exposed.
wonder what the hell happened that caused this entry?
is your client part owner of that taiwaneese toilet restaraunt?
could you do a custom sink that drained into the wall, and had its trap concealed in there?
john lautner's sheats/goldstein house has a glass sink.
if you explain all that cleaning rigmarole like shalak just did, i'm sure the clients will get turned off the idea.
I'm sure most people make the comments with good intention. Unfortuantely, this is my own client. (I wish I have client with that money.) My boss asked me to research on this. I'm sure there are ways to solve the problem of visibility, like frosting suggested by mwad. I'm more interested in the construcbility. Maybe it seems wired now will be a standard product in the future. Just be open minded.
Here are some clear tubes
Here's a link to a supplier of clear glass plumbing.
http://www.scientificglass.co.uk/Our_Products/Traps_/traps_.html
They have a .pdf download booklet of traps, and also have sizing and specifications for connectors, etc.
It looks like you have to use metal connectors for glass piping.
If you contact other suppliers or look elsewhere on line what you want to look for is "borosilicate glass".
Good luck.
UCLA has a chemistry lab building with the glass drain pipes exposed and visible in the hall ways. Even with only liquids running through them they look pretty gross.
hawhawhawhawhawhawhaw....
Whatever you do, bill the sumbitch (client) royally for coming up w/ shit like that!
"Maybe it seems wired now will be a standard product in the future"
sure it might be a standard product in the future, but whats the f..ing logic for such products??? what we are saying here is that maybe you could explain to your boss that this is a crappy idea....maybe you could get a raise that way
ASTM C 1053 - Standard Specification for Borosilicate Glass Pipe and Fittings for Drain, Waste, and Vent (DWV) Applications
1. Scope
1.1 This specification covers chemical resistant, low expansion, Type I, borosilicate glass, Class A (see Specification E438), used to manufacture corrosion-resistant pipe and fittings for drain, waste, and vent service.
1.2 The pipe and fittings covered by the specification are intended for chemical resistant service above and below grade under gravity flow or vacuum conditions.
1.3 The pipe and fittings shall have beaded or plain ends.
The info on that lab glass site says that glass pipes tend to remain pretty clean and collect less slime/scaling than other types of pipes.
It does seem that the stuff sitting in the pipe at any given time might not be too appealing to look at, but on the other hand I think the issue is being exaggerated.
If you've ever taken apart the trap on a bathroom sink you'll find that there isn't generally anything too disgusting in there UNLESS the sink is clogged and/or some heavy object (rings, rocks, toys, whatever) has taken up residence there and is collecting other goop. Usually there is just clear water in there. This isn't a kitchen sink that would collect food particles, or a toilet.
I've seen lab buildings with exposed glass pipes. The stuff in the pipes can be pretty disgusting, but that is partly due to the nature of what happens in science labs. One would imagine that the average powder room doesn't have a lot of animal-guts-mixed-with-chemistry-experiments going down the drain.
The traps on that lab site are intended for cooling systems - so you might want to contact the company and see if specifications for bathroom plumbing might differ.
my old office (matthew priestman architects) did a glass tub wut you can see here:
http://www.priestmanarchitects.com/HTML/MPA_Queensbridge6.html
i would post the image directly but am embarassingly uncertain of the meaning of the instructions at the bottom of the page. and lazy.
you will notice the lack of glass traps and so on. not to be overly critical but sometimes using standard stuff in interesting ways is often nicer than just being unique in every detail. if you manage to get it built would be cool to see images, mind.
btw, If the lab equipment doesn't strike your fancy i am certain you can get a glass artist to make it for you. the tub matthew did took three tries to make without breaking however and was on the expensive side. looks beautiful though.
i think frosted would look great, but maybe the client likes to see all the stuff slowly flowing through the pipe. it would be kind of neat to have a camera that takes one photo each day of the pipe for an entire year and make a large collage of the evolution of the clear glass p-pipe and then the client could hang it in their living room or something like that....it would be kind of neat to see the growth and changes and the foods and the goody goodness that can go thorugh those pipes....
and while you're at it, put in glass draine pipes everywhere, especially for the toilets, and leave them exposed. Watch out Pompidou here comes the poopadoodoo!
OLD DIRTY BASTARD HAS TAUGHT YOU WELL....ODA....
It does sound like something big Baby Jesus would say doesn't it?
Ok, back to satin nickle finish bottle P-trap. Have to say here I don't really interested in glass P-trap anyway. Of course I will pursuade the client to change his mind if I have the chance. Like the glass stair her is planning to do with glass pickets, not my style. But working for a controling architect, and have to say it again, IT'S NOT MY CLIENT! I have to do my job, research on the product. Find something interesting here to share, a cool glass counter top design Jean Nouvel
http://www.curvet.it/home.html
How to post pic? Anyone can help? I can share what the bathroom look like.
Ick-
I would try this with heat formed PETG or Acrylic tubing rather than glass. then you can do it as one piece.
The best suggestion so far is to have the P-trap inside the wall and accesible from behind an access panel of some kind for maint. purposes.
Clients are not always right, and this is a colossaly bad idea for a whole lot of reasons that have nothing to do with spectacle or voyeurism or whatnot.
Luck, and let us knwo the resolution
found glass u trap after years? ... there are many available in the markets
Yes, all the glass pipe you want is here:
http://www.msilabproducts.com/...
Commonly used in science labs and photo processing labs:
pee pee pee
Glass plumbing would look shitty.