The word plumbing actually comes from the Latin word for lead: plumbum. This is because the original pipes that were used for plumbing endeavors in the ancient days of human civilization were made from lead. Needless to say they soon realized the inherent problem in this part of plumbing. Sachse, and indeed no other city in the world, uses lead for their pipes anymore. It was the ancient cultures of the Romans, Persians, Indians, and Chinese that are attributed to first discovering, as it were, the wonders of plumbing. All these civilizations had baths and soon discovered that they required an effective way of transporting water but also of getting rid of their waste products.

Few large cities or even small towns could exist today without the wonders of plumbing. Sachse to New York to Pofadder to Beijing - plumbing is an important part of the modern infrastructure of modern cities and nations. Sometimes a distinction is made between plumbing and sewage. The difference being that plumbing only refers to the systems of pipes and such inside a home or building while sewage refers to the pipes and systems that take the waste water away from the homes or buildings. It certainly makes sense when you consider that plumbers - the only people on the planet who could possibly understand the amazing mysteries of the pipes behind the walls - only work on the pipes and systems inside homes and not on the sewers. That job is usually left to government employees.

The integral parts of plumbing are pipes and tubes. Pipes tend to be thicker and heavier while tubes tend to be smaller and thinner but both are used for a variety of purposes in modern day plumbing. Sachse plumbing systems, like the others in the world, use materials like copper, brass, plastic or steel for pipes that are responsible for the water-supply. The pipes that take away the water to the sewers and other places are made from plastic, steel, cast-iron or lead. Lead is never used for water supply pipes since it is toxic and poisons the water. This was a hard lesson that the ancients learned. But the lessons have been carried over to us in the modern world. We thank them for their innovation and their inventive thoughts to come up with plumbing. And let us not forget the skilled ones who keep this system going - the plumbers.