If ever there was an invention that made life more comfortable
it must be that contraption we all use every day that is widely
attributed to Yorkshireman Thomas Crapper. In fact it was
Sir John Harrington who invented the first flush toilet way
back in 1596, he built one for Queen Elizabeth 1 (thronemakers
to the royal family?). Alexander Cummings patented the water
closet in much its present day form in 1775 but Thomas Crapper
was a businessman, flush with success, and he promoted and
popularised its use and his is the that name that stuck -
so to speak.
While many names have been coined for the humble lavatory
over the years the equipment itself has changed little since
Alexander Cummings efforts all those years ago. A bowl you
sit on, a tank full of water to flush it and a U bend full
of water to stop the gases from the sewer coming up the pipework.
Aussies have expressive words like thunderbox and dunny, Englishmen
go to the long drop, navy types go to the head and soldiers
visit the Khazi. Americans on the other hand must always be
constipated and tired, they never go to a toilet but often
need a restroom.
No but seriously we should respect our humble bog. It carries
on working day in and day out and generally gives little trouble
in spite of having two important mechanisms that can easily
fail. The inlet valve and the flush mechanism. Murphy’s
law says that they will fail just at the wrong time.
You know what it’s like, you go to a fancy do at your
bosses house and feel the need to find the little boys (or
girls) room. You use the tut but then, oh dear, the flush
doesn’t work. You lift the top off frantically trying
to find out what is wrong while someone comes and tries the
door handle. The comfort room becomes a discomfort room.
The inlet valve is the valve that opens to refill the cistern
after we have flushed the john. It’s the bit that drives
us mad by going sssssssshhhhhhhhttt loudly when we have felt
the “call of nature” (what sort of a phrase is
that?) in the middle of the night. Modern toilets have plastic
float valves which tend to be quiet and reliable but serious
toilets still use ball valves or ball cocks whose basic design
has been in use for probably a hundred years. Made from brass
with a plastic ball as a float they are simple and reliable
but do have a tendency to make those loud sssssshhhhhht noises.
The flush mechanism on the other hand is the part that releases
the water. In the old days operated by a long chain hanging
from an overhead tank these days they have leavers on the
side or push buttons on the top or in the front. With the
advent of double flush water closets these mechanisms are
more complicated than before. Generally speaking this is the
mechanism that tends to give most problems. If your toilet
constantly runs water and the cistern doesn’t fill it
is usually the flush mechanism that is causing the problem.
In Britain most modern toilets have a lever mechanism that
never seems to work very well. You always seem to have to
press the lever in a way that gives some momentum to sort
of encourage it to work. In Australia most toilets have front
or top button mechanisms which are reliable and work well.
Here in Bali however most older loos have flushing mechanisms
that are both primitive and unreliable. A spindly lever pulls
a thin chain that lifts a rubber flap to release the water.
Levers bend, chains break and the rubber flaps perish to give
an ongoing series of problems. People constantly keep them
going by lifting the lid and “tinkering”.
Good advice is don’t mess around but fit new parts.
Better advice is to install a more reliable model. You could
go for a traditional one, as a local man recently said “the
best toilets are the local ones, they never go wrong”.
True and a good solution if you don’t mind squatting
and flushing with a little pan or if you don’t want
to read the newspaper.
Thankfully there are more appropriate solutions. These days
modern privys are available in Bali that are of better design
and far more reliable than their predecessors. You will probably
need to check alternatives out before you buy one. They come
in all shapes, sizes and colours and can be very expensive.
Beware, if you pay a lot for your WC you can be pretty sure
your luxury loo will require expensive parts of it goes wrong.
A rather elegant toilet recently set the owner back Rp500,000
for a new seat. Unfortunately price does not necessarily relate
to quality, I saw a very fancy fake marble one recently (yuk)
that after only a short time looked terrible and, more importantly,
performed little better than it looked.
Broken toilet seats are a common problem in Bali because people
who have spent their lives squatting can’t get used
to sitting. They step onto the seat to squat and break the
seat. You may have noticed that the convention here appears
to be to leave the seat up (have you ever witnessed one of
those ridiculous arguments between husbands and wives about
not putting the toilet seat down?). Leaving the seat up is
a good idea if you don’t want it broken! (the seat I
mean not the marriage).
A final piece of advice - don’t put toilet blue in your
toilet cistern. As any housing authority will tell you, that
pretty blue water attacks rubber. It not only damages the
rubber seals in the toilet mechanism but it also attacks the
rubber seals in pipework. In Britain and Australia, where
waste is carried from most houses to the sewer in ceramic
pipes with rubber seals, toilet bluing agents make external
pipes leak, tree roots follow the source of water into the
pipes and block them up. Digging up the pipes and replacing
seals can be very expensive. It is far better to put up with
clear water.
With that I must finish, I need to see a man about a dog.
Phil Wilson
Phil Wilson a project director for Focus Consulting and a
partner of Mr Fixit property maintenance services. Opinions
expressed are those of Phil Wilson. If you have any questions
or comments related to property maintenance he can be contacted
at the office on 0361 288 789 or through the website at www.mrfixitbali.com
Copyright@2007 Fixed Abode
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