Water Towers

Before I lived in Colorado, where there are no water towers, I lived in the Chicagoland area...lots and lots of water towers.  While driving home from my previous job the other day I began to wonder.  "What do they do and how do they work?"

Arrived home, parked car, and headed directly to the world of endless information.  Found this one rather easily.  HowThingsWork is a fantastic website for this simple minded brain of mine.  Here is what I found out.

What they do...or how they work...whatever?
Felt dumb when I got this part of my answer.  They work based on gravity.  Shocking I know.  Basically water fills up the "tub" with a water pump from a city water line.  Also think about the water tower on one pipeline.  Easier to picture and more importantly easier for me to explain.  When water is being filled by one end of the pipeline the other end is closed.  Thus, the water stays in the "tub," also shocking.  When the water in the tower is needed they open the closed in and it rests with gravity.  That's pretty much the how without revealing the why.

Why do we have water towers?
In major metropolitan areas they have busy hours and slow hours for water consumption.  Guess when the busiest time of the day is?  I will tell you because you won't guess.  In the morning.  Once again...shocking.  I know that I am using that word a lot, but when read in the write context you can imagine the look of disappointment on my face when I found out that this was a simple thing.  Damn.

At night is when the water is pumped into the tower because there isn't a lot of demand for the water so they can turn attention to the tower.  Once the tower is filled over night there will be ample amounts of water for everyone to make sure that working around them for the day won't be an awful experience.  The tower can't be filled while during high demand hours because then no one would have water...well not no one, but not everyone.  The city without the water towers would also have the same problem...not enough water.

Simple enough I know.  But then I moved to the Denver area.  MAJOR metropolitan...NO water towers.  Water towers attacked again.  Went home and got on the world wide web.  Guess what folks...Colorado has mountains and...they are AWESOME!  You should check them out.  Anyway to sum it up quickly water towers buried in foothills...gravity runs them downhill to residents.