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Short Stuff: Water Towers · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh. Chuck's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: here too. Jerry's hanging around out there, just kind of loitering,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes with her leather jacket on being a bad kid.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: And this makes the stuff you should know. Don't ruin
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the illusion, Chuck, I know. Uh So this is about
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: water towers and we need to shout out a very
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: special person. This is not only from our old how
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works website that we used to write for, but
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the very founder. His name is Marshall Brain. That's his
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: real name, and he created How Stuffworks so many years
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: ago and technically is why we have a job doing
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: what we do today. So hats off to you, Marshall,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: because he used to write everything himself. And this is
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: one of the kind of the good old Marshall Brain articles.
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  Speaker 1: This is a Marshall Brain special water towers. Um. That
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: was very Marshal Brain kind of like, hey, how does
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: that air condition to work? Me tell you? I think
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: he wrote how a condishers working his kitchen in North
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  Speaker 1: Carolina years ago for so. UM. One of the things
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  Speaker 1: that Marshall points out, and we're on a first name
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  Speaker 1: basis with them, don't worry, um, is that you very
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  Speaker 1: rarely run into a water failure, like as a utility
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  Speaker 1: goes the pressure of water. Now, something might have happened
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  Speaker 1: and it maybe brown, it may have lead in it. True.
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  Speaker 1: His point is is that your water pressure is pretty
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  Speaker 1: reliable as far as utilities go. Yeah, like get a blackout,
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  Speaker 1: get internet outage, all that kind of stuff happens. But
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  Speaker 1: if you ever go and turn your fascel on and
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  Speaker 1: nothing comes out, then there's something really bad has happened. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there's probably like a break in a water main and
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  Speaker 1: that's why it lost pressure. And at that point, pressure
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  Speaker 1: is like the least of your warries. Right. But what
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: we have to thank for all of this, And we
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  Speaker 1: had people recently right in about this suggesting this as
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  Speaker 1: a topic. I don't know if you took a name down,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: did you? I'm looking now? Sorry sorry, uh listener if
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: we don't get your name. But people suggested water towers.
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  Speaker 1: But we have water towers to thank for this. And
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  Speaker 1: it's a very simple thing. If you drive through a
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  Speaker 1: town and you look up and you see a big,
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  Speaker 1: giant water tower, it may be painted to look like
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  Speaker 1: something cool, like like a Georgia peach or or a
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  Speaker 1: walnut Georgia peach or a buttocks perspective, or it may not,
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  Speaker 1: or it may just have the town's name, or it
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  Speaker 1: may have nothing on it. But in that tower is
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  Speaker 1: water about five i'm sorry, about fifty times as much water.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a generalization as you might find in
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  Speaker 1: a backyard swimming pool. And that water is very tall
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  Speaker 1: because it needs to be tall because it uses gravity
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  Speaker 1: to make that water pressure happen. And that water tower
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  Speaker 1: helps spell the water pump that sends water through your town. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and it's really really simple because it's just a huge
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  Speaker 1: giant water tank and because it's elevated, it can use
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  Speaker 1: gravity to pressurize that water. Right, it gets it going
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  Speaker 1: when it starts to drop, and that's it. Like, that's
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  Speaker 1: a water tower. There's nothing special about it aside from
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  Speaker 1: its height or that it looks like a peach. It's
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  Speaker 1: a really really simple idea, but it's also a really
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  Speaker 1: ingenious idea that really really works because no pump is needed.
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  Speaker 1: So if you do have a power outage in your
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  Speaker 1: whole town, that's why you still have water pressure. And
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  Speaker 1: because of the amount of water in it, they usually
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  Speaker 1: can cover the amount of time it will take to
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  Speaker 1: get those pumps back online, so you never are out
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  Speaker 1: of water. Yeah. I think in the idea that there's
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  Speaker 1: enough water in the tower to cover the town for
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  Speaker 1: like a day. Yes, And I mean I would guess
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  Speaker 1: you could probably deal unless it was a major natural disaster.
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  Speaker 1: Let's say it was a routine problem with electricity or
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  Speaker 1: the pumps or something like that. Yeah, I guess you
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  Speaker 1: could probably deal with just about any problem you get
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  Speaker 1: the pumps going within a day. Um. Again, I think Jackson, Mississippi,
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  Speaker 1: just found out that you can go many days without
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  Speaker 1: water pressure at all if you have a bad enough
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  Speaker 1: natural disaster with the floods that they had. But I
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  Speaker 1: think under normal circumstances, if you have a water tower,
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  Speaker 1: it's got a day's worth of water and most of
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  Speaker 1: the time it's going to cover you. Yeah, that's the idea. Um,
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  Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about these statistics or this math,
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  Speaker 1: because Marshall was kind enough to do the math many
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  Speaker 1: years ago. Uh. Every foot of height for a water
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  Speaker 1: tower provides point to four three pounds per square inch
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  Speaker 1: of pressure. Uh. He says a municipal water supply will
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  Speaker 1: run between fifty p s. I so you're gonna have
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  Speaker 1: to have. You know, it's very simple math. You do
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  Speaker 1: the math to figure out how big tall tall your
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  Speaker 1: tower needs to be, along with how much water you're
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  Speaker 1: gonna need, and bing bang boom, you build it. You're
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  Speaker 1: filled up with water and you're done. Right. Um. I
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  Speaker 1: saw that the average um uh p s I that
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  Speaker 1: comes out of a faucet and the house is between
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  Speaker 1: forty and forty five and sixties the backs. So if
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  Speaker 1: you're on completely if your town is totally flat at
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  Speaker 1: sea level, um, you would need to have between a
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  Speaker 1: ninety three and a hundred and four foot water tower
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  Speaker 1: to to achieve those pressures of forty or a hundred
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  Speaker 1: and forty foot water tower to hit that sixty. Al Right,
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  Speaker 1: it makes sense. It's probably wrong because I did the math,
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  Speaker 1: but you know, I say, we take a break. I'm
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: gonna go over my work again. All right, we'll be
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  Speaker 1: right back. So, Chuck, like you said, of water towers,
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  Speaker 1: pretty big. Um, it can have a million and a
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  Speaker 1: half gallons. I'm guessing if you've got a town that's
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  Speaker 1: flushed with I don't know, local casino money or something
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  Speaker 1: like that, you probably have one that holds even more
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  Speaker 1: water than that. There's a lot of toilets flushing in
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  Speaker 1: the casino right well, and that brings up this point,
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  Speaker 1: right that it actually lets your your city save on
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  Speaker 1: the size of the pumps they buy for their water
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  Speaker 1: supply because your your city does have pumps under normal circumstances,
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  Speaker 1: that's how water initially gets pressurized from the treatment plant
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  Speaker 1: to begin with. But because there's such things as water towers,
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  Speaker 1: they can cover things like peak demand so that you
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  Speaker 1: only have to buy pumps. They can handle the average
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  Speaker 1: amount of demand right right, So in the morning, when
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  Speaker 1: everyone's taking showers and uh, they're having their morning constitutional, uh,
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  Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of water are pumping through
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  Speaker 1: the system, and that's when they rely on that water
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  Speaker 1: tower to spell the pumps. When demand is less, those
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  Speaker 1: that water tower is going to fill back up. The
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  Speaker 1: pump is gonna say, all right, we don't need as
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  Speaker 1: much water, so we're gonna give some back to you
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  Speaker 1: and you hold onto it until we need it tomorrow morning.
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  Speaker 1: And it's just sort of a beautiful little cycle. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And um, the reason or the way that that happens
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  Speaker 1: is the way that the water system is configured. So
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  Speaker 1: you've got the water treatment plant shooting out water to
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  Speaker 1: the pump station, which pressurizes the water initially, and then
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  Speaker 1: that from out of the pump station goes to the
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  Speaker 1: you know, people's houses. But right after the pump station, say,
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  Speaker 1: you will have the water tower connected and water goes
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  Speaker 1: in or out depending on demand. So when there's so
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  Speaker 1: much demand that the pump can't handle it, the water
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  Speaker 1: just starts to naturally come out of the water tower
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  Speaker 1: to supplement it. And then when there's an excess of
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  Speaker 1: it of um pressure from the pumps, that's when the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: water tower gets filled back up. And if there's neither,
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  Speaker 1: this is a little known fact your town's water tower
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  Speaker 1: will explode in a thermonuclear explosion and take your entire
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  Speaker 1: town out. Really, I don't think so. There's only one
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: way to find out. If you've ever been to New
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: York City. Say it New York City. If you've ever
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  Speaker 1: been there and you've looked out of your hotel room
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  Speaker 1: and seeing, uh, those big water tanks on top of
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  Speaker 1: all those buildings, and just thought, man, you never really
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  Speaker 1: notice those until you notice them, and they are everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: That's because New York is a city of tall buildings,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of those buildings, uh, they don't even
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  Speaker 1: have to be that tall to exceed that what your
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  Speaker 1: water pressure can handle, like to get water up to
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  Speaker 1: the top floors of those apartments and offices and things.
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  Speaker 1: So all those buildings have their own little water tanks
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  Speaker 1: sitting up there on top, and it does the same
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  Speaker 1: thing that those water town wars do in the small
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: towns that you drive through. Yeah, it's pretty neat. It's
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  Speaker 1: so New York too, very New York. We got I've
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  Speaker 1: got my own take up there. A lot of those
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  Speaker 1: buildings too, will have a lot of pumps uh themselves,
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  Speaker 1: not just water towers, but also pumping systems too. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: especially ones that are, you know, flushed with casino money,
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  Speaker 1: or buildings in New York that are known for lots
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of pooping. Sure, which is there's a lot of buildings
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in New York known for that. Yeah, we won't mention
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: any though. The only murders in the building building that's
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a big pooping building. I love that show. It's a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: great show, for sure, it is. Did you finish up
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: this last season? No, I'm still in the middle of it.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Actually I I started and then I was like, I'm
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: already out of episodes. On episode three, so I was
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: waiting for the rest and I think it finished right. Yeah, yeah,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: it's all out. We watched it. It's a lot of
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: fun and just reaffirms that. But don't tell me, don't
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: tell me the funniest tell me ever live. Man. I
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: love that guy. You just spoiled it. Martin. Short's funny
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: in the rest of the season. God, he's so funny.
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  Speaker 1: So there's one last thing about water towers, Charles, that
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  Speaker 1: I think we should talk about. Um that they will
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: save you money on your fire insurance for your house. Huh, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think that is the case because, uh, you've got
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  Speaker 1: to have, you know, a lot of water pressure on
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  Speaker 1: demand if something is on fire, and that water tower
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  Speaker 1: is going to guarantee that if there's a fire, you're
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  Speaker 1: not going to run out of water pressure to put
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that fire out. So you're gonna get your fire insurance
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  Speaker 1: rates determined by the fact that you have a great
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  Speaker 1: water system and water tower. Fantastic. And before we go,
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  Speaker 1: we should shout out some of the people who rode
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: into request and water towers. There's so many of them
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  Speaker 1: we cannot name them all. But starting all the way
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  Speaker 1: back in two thousand nineteen with Lila Craig all the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: way to two weeks ago with Magan Stall and thank
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  Speaker 1: everyone in between. Yeah, and everyone in between. That's right. Uh.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And since we just thanked a bunch of people that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you've not met yet, that means short Stuff is out.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
• 11:13
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• 11:16
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• 11:19
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