It seems like such a huge amount of water and would require so much energy to get it that high, plus there’s the waste to deal with
Pipes.
Much like the internet, it’s a complex system of tubes.
Waste is easy, it goes down.
For pressure, high rises have a pump in their machine room that pumps water upwards. It used to be water towers on the roofs of buildings that aides pressure
And water towers are still used to manage water pressure demands in municipalities.
Yeah - if you’re in NYC at any point and go up anywhere you can see roofs of a lot of buildings, you’ll see a TON of water tanks and towers on older stuff.
Example:
(It’s not just older stuff, by the way. They’re actually still made of wood like that to this day, because it’s apparently the best way to do it.)
A bit of an elaboration on why water towers are used in combination with pumps. Pumps are great for moving a constant amount of water around at whatever rate the pump is designed for (e.g. a small pump will move something like 1 gallon per minute). a big enough pump (or series of smaller pumps) can cause that pumped water to consistently flow at that rate.
The problem is that people don’t use water at a constant rate. In the morning, several residents probably all run the shower at the same time. if too many people open the water tap at the same time, a pump will give each just a fraction of what they expect.
But a water tank high up supplies water by gravity, you could open a large number of water taps, and as long as the pipes from the tank are big enough they’d all have the same pressure as if just one opened.
The water is gradually pumped up to the tank no matter if people are using it or not, then when many people want water, they all get it at expected pressures and the tank start to empty. Eventually people close the taps, the tank will slowly start to fill again from the pump.
This same basic design is also how water towers supply water to many single story buildings, it’s not a unique engineering feat for skyscrapers, but an adjustment to fit somewhere within the building’s footprint.
Toilet waste (black) water pipes are quite underused for their diameter so it’s enough to just feed dozens of bathrooms’ worth into a reasonable diameter you can still get at a hardware store. Sure, some will have trouble flushing if they all do that at the same time but not too serious.
As for drinking water, some high-rises feature tanks as part of their oscillation damping system anyway, and municipal water towers don’t need to be placed much higher than customers to get decent pressure. I think it’s not the amount but pressure of water at the ground floor that causes engineering challenges. The pumps and tank at the top help, though.
How Water Towers Work | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZwfcMSDBHs | by Practical Engineering
High buildings sometimes have their higher floors above the height level that the water pressure from the water supply of a town can reach.
Those buildings then use pumps in the cellar to either pump the water to a tank on the highest floor and let it fall down again to the floors or to pump the water to the floors directly.
