Apparatus and method for breathing through the soil-stack during a high-rise fire

In apparatus for establishing gaseous communication between a room of a building, wherein said room contains a toilet bowl having a water trap, and a building conduit disposed within the building, said building conduit being in gaseous communication with the atmospheric gases outside of the building and the water trap of the toilet bowl, said apparatus comprising:

• a toilet bowl having a water level forming a water trap, said toilet bowl having a flexible, water-impermeable, tubular member manually inserted completely through the water trap so that a first end of the flexible tubular member is disposed on a building conduit side of the water trap and a second end of the flexible tubular member is disposed on a room side of the mechanical water trap, the improvement comprising mechanical pump means operatively connected to the second end of the flexible tubular member for pressurizing said room and enabling a user of the apparatus to cause gases within said building conduit to flow from said building conduit through the flexible tubular member into the room to pressurize said room and provide breathing air to said room for breathing purposes within the room.

A method of inhaling gases from a building soil stack to lessen inhalation of undesirable atmospheric contaminants within a living area comprising manually inserting a flexible conduit formed of a water-impermeable material completely through a water trap in a toilet bowl establishing fluid communication between a soil stack side of the water trap and a toilet bowl side of the water trap and operating a mechanical pump means for pressurizing said living area and providing breathing gases from the soil stack through said flexible conduit to the toilet bowl side of the water trap, so as to accommodate a plurality of users in need of inhaling said soil stack gases in said room.

A method of limiting the ingress of gaseous contaminants into a room containing a toilet bowl in fluid communication with a soil stack, comprising manually inserting a water-impermeable, flexible conduit completely through a water trap in the toilet bowl from a toilet bowl side of the water trap to a soil stack side of the water trap so that a first end of the flexible conduit is disposed on the soil stack side of the water trap and a second end of the flexible conduit is disposed on the toilet bowl side of the water trap;

• operatively connecting the second end of the flexible conduit to a pump means, causing soil stack gases to flow through the flexible conduit from the soil stack side of the water trap to the room on the toilet bowl side of the water trap;
• operating the mechanical pump means to cause soil stack gases to flow into said room and increase the ambient pressure in said room above that of surrounding living areas and limiting the ingress of gases from outside of said room for breathing purposes of those in said room.