Plumbing and Drainage Design for Buildings

Plumbing and drainage design, called public health engineering (PHE) in the UK and the Gulf, is the design of a building's water supply, hot water, sanitary drainage, vents and stormwater systems so every fixture gets safe water at the right pressure and all waste leaves without smells, blockages or flooding. It is one of the MEP disciplines, alongside HVAC, electrical and fire protection.

It is for civil, mechanical and building services graduates and diploma holders, plumbing draughtsmen and site engineers who want to work as plumbing or PHE design engineers in consultancies and MEP contractors. You need school algebra and a spreadsheet; no plumbing design experience is needed.

The course teaches the methods shared by the main code families: the International Plumbing Code and Uniform Plumbing Code (drainage and water supply fixture units), BS EN 806 and BS EN 12056 (loading units and discharge units), and NBC Part 9 with its IS codes. Code text is paraphrased, never copied, and every real design must follow the edition the local authority has adopted.

No paid software is needed. A spreadsheet such as LibreOffice Calc is enough for every calculation, and schematics can be drawn in LibreCAD or FreeCAD, which are free, or on squared paper. AutoCAD and Revit are optional and free to eligible students on the Autodesk Education plan.

Yes, every module, the notes, the worked problems, the practice tasks, the optional project and the final assessment are free to learn. The course takes about 22 hours at your own pace, of which about 14 hours is video; the optional G+10 building project takes about 14 hours more.

You get a verifiable certificate of completion when you finish the modules and pass the 15-question final at 60 percent. It carries a unique certificate number and a QR code that open a public verification page showing the course, the modules covered and your final score. It is not a plumbing licence or an ICC, IAPMO or ASPE credential.

It prepares you for roles such as plumbing design engineer, public health engineer, junior MEP design engineer, plumbing draughtsman and site plumbing engineer. MEP consultancies and contractors in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar advertise public health engineer roles that ask for exactly these calculations: demand, tanks, boosters, pipe sizing, drainage, stormwater and lifting stations.

No. Fire water storage, sprinklers and fire pumps are taught in Fire Fighting Design: Sprinklers, Fire Pumps and Hydrants, and chilled water and air systems in HVAC Design: Heat Load, Ducts and Chilled Water. This course covers domestic water, hot water, drainage, vents and stormwater, and shows where they meet those systems.

Yes. Learning costs ₹0 in India: every module, the written notes, the practice tasks and the final assessment, with no card and no trial period. The only paid item is the optional EDWartens Certificate of Completion, ₹499 including GST for this beginner course, paid in rupees through Razorpay, and only if you want it after passing the final assessment.