Once a plumbing system is installed behind a cavity, building occupants and facility managers are unaware of the system’s actual performance.

As plumbing professionals know, there are many influences in a built structure that can affect the long-term performance of a system, not the least being faulty installation.

That makes learning for students somewhat more difficult to comprehend.

While the principles of good plumbing design can be learnt from text books and in the classroom, there is nothing to compare with seeing a ‘live’ system in service.

WPR recently visited a learning and research facility that offers its students an ‘eye to the world’ of what really goes on in plumbing systems once they are installed.

The University of Applied Sciences at Gelsenkirchen near Düsseldorf in western Germany has been an independent higher education institution since 1992.

About 6000 students can study for an academic qualification at the university, which now has departments in the cities of Bocholt and Recklinghausen.

The plumbing lab is part of the Department of Building Services and Environmental Engineering at the Gelsenkirchen campus, a few hours’ drive from major centres like Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin.

Gelsenkirchen is no longer a heavy industrial city: coal mine buildings and factories have become venues for cultural events, while new industries such as solar cell manufacturing have started up on a large scale.

The Department of Building Services and Environmental Engineering has three main four-year study programs:

• building services (or utility technologies) engineering
• environmental engineering
• facility management.

The main courses in building services engineering are:

• heating
• ventilating and air conditioning
• plumbing
• energy technology
• environmental design
• components and methods of building automation.

In charge of the state-of-the-art plumbing facility is Prof Dr Mete Demiriz, who is proud of his students, who are much sought-after by industry.

Graduates find positions in planning and construction offices (40%), research and development or product engineering in the manufacturing sector (30%), energy and sales management (15%), and communal offices (15%).

Dr Demiriz’s plumbing lab specialises in testing, optimising and developing water closets, urinals, and flushing and water-heating systems. The lab makes use of actual restroom facilities in the university as well as utilizing nearby schools, hotels, airports and even the city’s soccer arena.

Gelsenkirchen is home to the Football Club Schalke 04 and the city will host a number of games in the 2006 World Cup at its new stadium, Arena.

Further research areas are:

• unsteady three-phase waste water hydraulics in building drainage;
• siphonic roof drainage systems;
• dry urinals;
• User behaviour in restrooms; and
• Efficiency of low water sanitation.

The main testing facilities of the lab are:

• large-scale building drainage system research and demonstration tower;
• siphonic rainwater research plant with three roof traps;
• long-term test plant for rainwater usage;
• water hygiene testing;
• backflow testing plant;
• mixing tap testing plant; and
• building control systems.

The application-oriented research develops new scientific findings to the stage of marketable products, processes and services.

The building drainage system research and demonstration tower includes in its larger part several design and installation faults.

These demonstrate to students and interested groups how wastewater hydraulics are negatively affected.

The tower also has two research lines including horizontal and vertical pipes for designing, testing and optimising flushing systems, water closets and flushable products.