WILD RIDE: TOILET TUNE-UP TIME

TOILET TUNE-UP TIME

Toilets

You will have to give us a pass on this.
     We did not know there was a World Toilet Day.
     Turns out there is.  And it’s Nov. 19.  You learn something every day.
     There’s even a World Toilet Organization (WTO) – founded on — you guerssedit –Nov. 19.  It’s been running a World Toilet Summit every year since 2001, when both the WTO and the Summit started.  There’s even a World Toilet College.
     That brought a lot to mind.  Years ago, Steve published “The Simple Virtues of Animal Manure,” an article about self-sustaining home life, from his farm in Lebanon, CT.  For example.  Not long ago, we reported news of exploding hydraulic toilets around here.  It burst into the news because of a U.S. recall.  PLI always urges home inspectors not to get into the business of trying to keep up with recalls.  Call exploding toilets an especially juicy example.
     Most of all, it brought to mind Bill Gates, regularly America’s richest guy.  Bill Gates?  The same Bill Gates who started microsoft and helped invent the personal computer?  That Bill Gates.
     “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge” was rolled out by his Gates Foundation in 2011.   The goal of the Challenge is to reinvent the flush toilet.
     Home inspectors know the flush toilet is one of those neatly simple devices that homes could not do without.  It has so few moving parts it is nearly idiot proof.

Its basic mechanism is gravity at work. It even is “self-trapping.” There’s a lot to like about flush toilets – even if one third of the world’s population, call it 2.5 billion people, does not have one.
Flush toilets were a public health break-through since the first flush toilet patent was issued in 1775. But the invention has not changed substantially since then. That makes you think there would be room for improvement a few centuries later.
The Foundation issued a challenge for grantees to design a standalone toilet unit without piped-in water, a sewer connection, or outside electricity, with facility costs targeted at less than five cents per person per day.
Last year’s winner of the “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge” came up with a solar powered toilet that turns poop into fuel for cooking. That’s some toilet.  One minor detail – it would cost at least $1,000. Not exactly a ticket to salvation for the toitletless poor in Haiti, or Harlan.
We already have natural composting “ecological toilets” that are easy to make, easy to fix, waterless, and use natural composting. People living too close to water to use a septic system are using ecological toilets all over the country. But they have $1,000 price tags too.
The odds are looking good that the winner will be the KISS rule. Microsoft grew huge with Windows, its cash cow, turning into bloatware, as it ignored smartphones. There’s a lesson there, and in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. Complicated is not cool. Keep it simple. The more complicated anything gets, the more likely it is to break – and cost more.
The go-to book on this space is Alexander Kira’s The Bathroom (Viking, 1976). It’s awesome.  If there is a Bible of Bathrooms, this is it.  Thirty years later, it’s still the only serious, scientific analysis of bathrooms – and it has been a key influence on building code standards for modern bathrooms. (Note: Some people react negatively to the pictures.)  Used copies sell for 10 or 15 times the cover price, so try a public library before you buy. Kira agrees toilets (too high), bathtubs, and even sinks (too low) could use an extreme makeover.  For over a decade there was talk Kira had a new third edition of this amazing classic in the works, but so far, no go.
Check out the next Newsletter issue for picks for Christmas books home inspectors might like to find under the tree, or read sitting by the Yuletide fireplace. Cya then.

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