Excuse me for being a bit thick, but why do our toilets have U-bends? What purpose do they serve? Surely if the waste went down a straight pipe we'd need less than the standard 8 litres of water to flush it down?
I'm trying to save water at the moment, so does anyone have an answer for me?
Without a U-Bend any nasty
Without a U-Bend any nasty smells built up in the fall pipe would come straight into your bathroom. The well of water acts as a stopper. It also means if you drop something heavy (wedding ring, etc) down you can retrieve it. That mostly applies to sinks but somewhat to toilets.
I think the BIGGEST reason for a toilet U-Bend is that it builds up pressure to reduce blockages. If the water could just run straight away you would have an even, light pressure to push the waste away. With the U-Bend it means the bowl has to build up a certain amount of water before pushing the waste out, this will create suction to minimise the chance of anything being left behind.
There is no perfect solution for saving water on your toilet from what I can see. We recently had our high tank switched for a low, smaller tank. Now the toilet gets blocked on almost a daily basis because theres less water and it comes out slower, there isn't enough water to create that pressure. It means we have to flush 2 or 3 times so in the end its not saving water, its probably using more and worse - sometimes the ONLY way to unclog it is to use biological washing powder. So in the end using less water is actually more harmful to the environment. :-(
u bends
I believe the u bend creates the pool of water at the bottom of the loo which prevents the smell of the sewers coming straight into the house. I used to live in a squatter camp in South Africa where all the houses had pit toilets (basically a big cement-lined hole in the ground with a seat on top). Opening the lid released a swarm of insects and a stomach-curdling smell. Hope you haven't just eaten, but you did ask...
Thank you
Yes, the delightful sewer-odour - I thought it'd be something obvious like that. And I see about the pressure build-up, too. Ah well. Thanks for answering :¬) I guess we'll have to sort out the water usage somewhat higher up the chain, as it were, and have some kind of greywater recycling thingy to fill the cistern in the first place.
It's amazing the random questions that pop into your head while yer in the bath sometimes...
BATH? Tut tut, you are
BATH? Tut tut, you are supposed to have showers to conserve water. ;-)
In all seriousness though, if you did everything some people expect you to in order to conserve resources you would be putting your own health at risk. Like washing your clothes at 30C, it just doesn't work. Not to mention you increase the need to use Biological again.
That said I'm somewhat against the conserving electricity business. It seems to just be an excuse for the government and businesses to not turn their lights off at night or build more environmentally friendly power generation methods. I might take it more seriously when I see the bigger wasters (government and businesses) making an effort. Also it doesn't help when the products I own NEED to be left in standby or they lose their settings, I can't be retuning the TV every day as the extra time spent doing that with the TV turned fully on would waste more than it does leaving it on standby overnight. People just do not think these things through.
Bathing
Ha ha ha, rumbled! Yes OK I confess our shower broke a while ago and I've been too idle to try and fix it. Saving energy, one might say ;) But I do have very shallow baths, and then use the water on my plants and in the toilet cistern! Please let me off guv...