The History of Flushing, Part 1
The Guy Who Invented the Toilet Was…
Flushing Out the Finalists
Championing Low-Consumption Technology
How Low Can We Go?
Toilet flushing. So common, so everyday. It's easy to forget that indoor flush toilets are barely a century old, even younger than the origins of American Standard, the world's largest and best-known toilet company. In fact, when the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company was founded in 1875, the norm was still the chamber pot and the outhouse, although history records the first flush toilet in 1500 B.C., at the palace of King Midas.
In the eons that followed the Midas flush, however, waste elimination practices ebbed and flowed, along with our understanding of engineering and sanitation. Luckily, every era had pioneers like American Standard who refused to take toilet problems sitting down, constantly advancing toilet technology towards a clean, safe, clog-free flush.
THE HISTORY OF FLUSHING, PART 1
Disposing waste products has long been a significant health problem, which is why it is said
that plumbers protect the health of the nation. Before the health implications were understood,
advancements in toilets were driven by the simple desire to eliminate dirt and odors
from castle and home:
In the 6th century B.C., Babylonians learned to go with the flow, harnessing the power of gravity through latrines. Waste dropped into subterranean pipes that used water to carry the waste away. Call them gravity-led toilets.
A few hundred years after the Babylonians, during
the engineering advancements in the Roman
Empire, public latrines were used along with water
that washed the waste into sewers.
In the Middle Ages, castles and monasteries used something akin to an indoor outhouse. Castle residents perched on a throne that consisted of a seat with a hole. Waste dropped down a pipe and exited the building through a protrusion in the castle wall, dropping onto the ground or into the moat surrounding the castle.
During the Renaissance, complex piping systems were out and beautiful chamber pots were in, making up in form what they decidedly lacked in function. “Flushing” consisted of picking up these beautifully designed and colorful pots and simply hurling waste out the window. On the plus side, no clogging. On the down side, Black Death.
In 1596, Sir John Harington, the godson of Queen Elizabeth I, invented a water closet with an actual flushing mechanism. The story goes that the Queen never used it, believed to be the first recorded instance of a flush that was so noisy, even good performance wasn't worth it.
Over the next several centuries, chamber pots continued to reign in popularity, followed by outhouses. The latter were especially prevalent in the United States because our rugged American forefathers preferred doing our business outdoors and our busy American foremothers were glad not to have to clean up after them. Thomas Jefferson was one prominent exception. He fashioned a waterless privy at his home in Monticello that used an indoor chamber pot connected to the outside by a series of pulleys, which were operated by his servants.
THE GUY WHO INVENTED THE TOILET WAS…
No, not Thomas Crapper. Although long-credited as the father of the flush toilet, this account
was officially challenged by a 1969 biography of Crapper, as well as others.
Patent records show that it was actually Edward Humpherson,
a one-time apprentice with Crapper, who invented the first
pedestal, wash-down water closet in 1884 in England.
Humpherson's other patents include:
- an improved lead pipe joint and an improved waste
water preventer in 1885;
- a siphonic flushing cistern in 1888;
- a pedestal water closet in 1891; and
- an automatic or intermittent siphonic flushing apparatus in 1892.
By comparison, Thomas Crapper has no listed patents pertaining to the design of a water closet suite. He did, however, have a better name than Humpherson.
FLUSHING OUT THE FINALISTS
The era of the Industry Revolution witnessed numerous attempts at creating a flushing toilet,
with many patents issued in addition to Humpherson's, primarily in England. The "wash-out"
toilet had a hole in the front or back of the bowl, with a trapway shaped like the letter “P” (no
pun intended). Like the p-traps still used today underneath sinks, water filled the bend to
seal the house from sewer gas.
The P shape eventually changed to an “S,” the familiar toilet trapway shape we use today. When the toilet flush lever is pushed, water fills the bowl, rising on the upward leg of the trapway until it spills over the top or the “weir” into the downward leg of the S. The rush of water running downhill pulls waste and water out of the bowl, a process called “siphonic action.” Narrowing part of the downward leg of the siphon trapway strengthened that vacuum effect, while gallons of water rushing into the bowl helped push all the waste cleanly from the toilet, even through the narrow chokepoint.
So now odors were gone. Black Death was long gone. Outhouses became a punch line. Life was good.
Until it became clear that a nation of toilets flushing away millions of gallons of water every single day might have its limits.
CHAMPIONING LOW-CONSUMPTION TECHNOLOGY
The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 1992 restricted household toilets to 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf)
beginning in 1994. Initially, the amount of water changed, but the toilets didn't, ushering in a
new era of bowl scrubbing, clogging, plunging, mopping and cursing, not necessarily in that
order.
Pressure-assisted flushing briefly got things moving again by the mid-1990s, generating power from above so the trapway could open up to eliminate clogs. Unfortunately, startled Americans could suddenly relate to Queen Elizabeth's experience. Nighttime nature calls made your business everyone's business in the neighborhood.
By the dawn of our current millennium American Standard and others were furiously at work to improve toilets for reduced noise and fewer overflows. Instead of continuing to modify conventional flushing systems, American Standard went back to the drawing board, which was now a computer screen and sophisticated hydraulic computer modeling.
The result was the breakthrough technology in the gravity-fed Champion® Flushing System, introduced by American Standard in 2003, the first of a new era of high-performance toilets. With power generated quietly from a proprietary Flush Tower, Champion kept water moving at the highest possible speed, doing its part to relegate plungers to the dustbin of history along with chamber pots and outhouses.
The next-generation Champion® 4 toilet from American Standard further improves on
Champion's industry firsts, such as:
- A funnel-shaped piston-action Accelerator™ Flush
Valve that forces the water to accelerate as it enters
the bowl. Instead of a typical hinged flapper, the rigid
plastic piston action allows 360 degrees of water to
be released in less than a second, with
nothing to impede the flow of the water. The seal
shuts and seals firmly but quietly in less than a second. View video.
- The record-breaking four-inch flush valve that pushes
water into the bowl three times faster than a standard
two-inch flush valve, allowing more water to
enter the bowl faster, scouring the sides clean before
powering waste and water out as quietly as any
other gravity-fed toilet.
- Hydraulic reengineering that eliminates chokepoints. The fully-glazed siphon trapway is the industry's largest at 2-3/8 inches, accepting 70 percent more waste, paper and whatever else people (read: children) might try to flush than the standard two-inch trapway, virtually eliminating the need for plungers.
HOW LOW CAN WE GO?
Most recently, toilets have emerged on the market that flush with even less than 1.6 gallons
of water. Called high-efficiency toilets (HETs), they only use 1.28 gpf, or 20 percent of low
consumption 1.6 gpf toilets.
While many HETs rely on a complicated dual flush mechansim to reach an average of 20 percent less water usage (push 1 for, well, 1; push 2 for…you get the idea), American Standard's FloWise® toilet was the first gravity toilet to use less water on every flush using familiar one-flush performance, qualifying for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ building projects. FloWise uses Champion 4 flushing technology to achieve the simple single flush.
In January 2007, the U.S. Environmental Projection Agency
instituted a new voluntary partnership program called
WaterSense(SM). Similar to the EnergyStar® label for appliances,
WaterSense helps assure consumers the water
conservation products will perform as promised. HETs are
the first to qualify for the label, and the FloWise toilet is one
of the first HETs to qualify.
And the innovations won't stop here. With the new mandate to save our water resources, American Standard and the modern pioneers of plumbing will continue to strive to create new technologies that provide both high performance and conservation.
Find An American Standard Distributor.
Search all American Standard Toilets
Sources:
Plumbing & Mechanical magazine's “History of Plumbing”
www.victoriancrapper.com
www.toiletology.com
Images:
Courtesy of BNP Media, Plumbing & Mechanical magazine and the "History of Plumbing" CD, now available here at the BNP media store, sponsored by American Standard.
Have you joined the American Standard Pro Champion League?
- Cash Back
- Feedback
- and a No Callback Promotion