What Is A VTR in Plumbing? (Explained)

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Plumbing is a very daunting task. It’s not the simplest thing to understand either. There are so many different parts and pieces, and they all do something different.

VTR stands for vent through roof in plumbing. This basically means that you are venting your pipes through your roof so that the different gases that build up in your pipes are able to escape through your roof and will disperse into the atmosphere instead of leaking into your home.

What does the VTR stand for?

In a lot of different professions regardless of what they may be, there are plenty of different terms used to describe what the professionals or the experts in these fields do. The profession of plumbing is no different because plumbers themselves have certain terms that only they can understand unless they actually explain what these terms mean to their clients.

Of course, to make things simpler for the plumbers themselves, they often shorten the common terms that they use in the profession into forms that are easier to understand and use for them.

This is why there are a lot of different common plumbing abbreviations that plumbers use on a regular basis but are quite unknown to their clients.

In some cases, the terms and abbreviations that plumbers use to describe what they are doing to the pipes can be quite like a foreign language to clients.

One of the abbreviations that you might have heard a plumber using in the past is VTR.

This is one of the different terms that quite common among different plumbers because of how common VTR is in the plumbing world and how important it is to incorporate VTR into a house’s plumbing. So, in that regard, what exactly does VTR stand for?

VTR basically means “vent through roof”, which actually is what it sounds like.

This term is used whenever a plumber is talking about the overall makeup of the pipes inside a certain home especially when he is still about to set up the home’s plumbing or whenever he is trying to fix the plumbing problems of a house.

So, when a plumber talks about anything related to VTR, he basically means that the pipes of a home should be vented through the roof. Now, you will understand how important VTR is when it comes to the overall habitability of a home.

Why is it necessary to incorporate VTR?

Understanding the importance of VTR in the home’s entire plumbing system requires that you first need to understand the different things that are going through the pipes of your home.

That’s because knowing what is happening in your pipes is what will ultimately allow you to understand why you may need to vent your pipes through the roof.

First of all, when it comes to the pipes of your home, it is needless to say that there are plenty of different organic and inorganic matter that is in the pipes.

This does not only include gross things such as human waste but also food particles that may have found themselves in the drains. Of course, things such as oil, grease, scum, and other similar materials can also be found in your home’s pipes.

So, when you look at how rich a home’s plumbing system is in terms of the different organic and inorganic materials that may be in the pipes, it is needless to say that there are plenty of different things that are decaying and rotting in the pipes before they even make it out of your home’s entire plumbing system.

The decaying process begins when these materials find themselves passing through the pipes. And, in some cases, they won’t even leave your pipes especially if they get stuck somewhere.

As a result, the different decaying materials found in your home’s plumbing system will start to rot away and release different gases that are nothing short of toxic when they are abundant in the nearby air.

Methane is one of the gases that are normally released by decaying matter. While methane is not dangerous in smaller quantities, it can be lethal when it builds up and gets stuck in a confined area that won’t allow it to get dispersed into the atmosphere.

As a result, methane can be a potentially dangerous gas that you don’t want building up in your home.

So, going back to our point about VTR and how important it is to a home’s entire plumbing system, the reason why venting your pipes through the roof is necessary is to allow the gases that are building up inside the pipes to have an escape so that they won’t end up building up inside the pipes of your home.

After all, when these dangerous and toxic gases build up inside a home, what can happen is that they can actually end up leaking through small cracks in the walls or in weakness in your home’s plumbing system.

When that happens, the gases may end up building up inside the house in small increments up to the point where they can actually become dangerous or lethal to the inhabitants of the house.

This is usually the case when the house doesn’t have proper ventilation such that all of the windows of the home are always closed. As such, the gases such as methane will eventually build up and make it difficult for people to live in it.

As such, by allowing the gas to escape through the home by venting your pipes through the roof, you will be preventing them from building up in the pipes and making the home uninhabitable when they do indeed escape the pipes through small leaks.

The gas, when released through the roof, will immediately disperse into the atmosphere such that it won’t be able to harm anyone.

So, why is it that we are venting through the roof and not some other portion of the house such as the walls?

Again, let us go back to how important it is to allow the gas to immediately disperse into the atmosphere. Through VTR, the gas will immediately release through the home’s roof where no one will be able to inhale it immediately as the gas escapes the home’s pipes.

As a result, it will immediately spread out and become harmless because the concentration of these gases in the air will be safe enough for people once they have been dispersed.

Something as small as VTR may seem immaterial to those who don’t understand how toxic gases can affect the overall habitability of a home.

However, if you value the health of the people living in the house as well as the overall resale value of the home once it does enter the housing market in the near future, VTR becomes important as you are making the house a better and healthier place for people to live.

What some abbreviations for plumbing?

So, if you are wondering more about the different abbreviations that are often used in plumbing, here are some of them:

  • AD: AREA DRAIN
  • AFF: ABOVE FINISHED FLOOR
  • AHU: AIR HANDLING UNIT
  • BFF: BELOW FINISHED FLOOR
  • BP: BACKFLOW PREVENTER
  • CI: CAST IRON
  • CTE: CONNECT TO EXISTING
  • CO: CLEANOUT
  • COTG: CLEANOUT TO GRADE
  • CW: COLD WATER
  • DN: DOWN
  • FCO: FLOOR CLEANOUT
  • FD: FLOOR DRAIN
  • FS: FLOOR SINK
  • GPH: GALLONS PER HOUR
  • GPM: GALLONS PER MINUTE
  • GUH: GAS UNIT HEATER
  • HB: HOSE BIBB
  • HD: HUB DRAIN
  • HW: HOT WATER
  • INV: INVERT ELEVATION
  • LAV: LAVATORY
  • NTS: NOT TO SCALE
  • PRV: PRESSURE REDUCING VALVE
  • PSI: POUNDS PER SQUARE INCH
  • RI / FCL: ROUGH-IN AND FINAL CONNECT
  • SA: SHOCK ABSORBER
  • T&P: TEMPERATURE AND PRESSURE
  • TPS: TRAP PRIMER SUPPLY
  • TR: THROUGH ROOF
  • TYP: TYPICAL
  • UNO: UNLESS NOTED OTHERWISE
  • V: VENT PIPING
  • VB: VACUUM BREAKER
  • WCO: WALL CLEANOUT
  • WHYD: WALL HYDRANT

Conclusion

If you hear a plumber talking about VTR and wanting to use VTR for a home, you should know by know how important it is and how it allows your home to better and more habitable for the people living in it.

After all, VTR is not merely a fancy abbreviation that plumbers used but is actually an entirely essential concept when it comes to the overall makeup of a home’s plumbing system.