Christoph Lohr, PE, CPD, LEED AP BD+C
Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, IAPMO
Christoph Lohr has over a decade of experience in designing plumbing systems for health care, laboratory, hospitality, sports and university projects. As a results-oriented expert, Christoph's current responsibilities as Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for IAPMO are identifying and developing a business case for long-term, high-impact projects, including resourcing and execution for maximum results. Christoph's professional activities include leadership roles setting strategy and team direction for many industry associations including the ASPE Phoenix Chapter, the ASPE Society, the ASPE Legionella Working Group, ASHRAE 514, the PIPE Trust of Arizona and IAPMO’s Safe Building Reopening Best Practices. It is with this mindset that Christoph looks to find holistic solutions that positively impact public health and safety, particularly in the world of water and plumbing.
Short-Term Water: A History of Unintended Consequences
Abstract: Plumbing systems have been underappreciated and not analyzed in a holistic manner for decades – and looking at history we can see how misunderstanding plumbing engineering has contributed to waterborne pathogen outbreaks. A number of changes to plumbing codes and building design methodologies over the last 70 years have been implemented without considering other effects, and have caused issues that can lead to decreasing public health and wellness: Whether reduced water flows causing issues in potable water distribution or sanitary/sewer systems or disinfection by-products’ effect on health, to disinfection incompatibility with various plumbing systems, issues have arisen due to these short-term solutions.
This presentation reviews some of the history of epidemiological outbreaks (cholera, Cryptosporidium, Legionella, etc.) and material issue outbreaks (lead issues throughout the U.S.) through a plumbing perspective. It also covers the issues that the push for low-flow has caused in domestic water systems and some of the proposed solutions, as well as calculations for initial model of velocity and flow, and temperature considerations.