Toilets

I have to admit about being very anti green when it comes to toilets. (How about that for a sentence with many layers of meaning?) I think it is very important to conserve water and an easy way to do a great work in the world is to have a low flush toilet. On the other hand, I have never seen a low flush toilet that it wasn't necessary to often flush multiple times, which defeats the whole purpose after a while.

A toilet is amazing technology that, when it is right, can work for decades without any problems. One must consider one's position in the world, orientation of a house and movement of groundwater and flooding. Except for the power toilets we had in Morgan Hill, most of the power is generated by gravity and the stored energy of suspending water where it wouldn't usually go. Generating the pressure to raise up water by using the simple water pressure of the city's water lines. Even the power toilets we had generated power by simply stretching a rubber diaphragm using the cities normal water pressure. Simple and brilliant. But, when problems occur, I would rather be in the next state.

Regardless, stopped up toilets are Dad's job. Designing rectangular drains when plungers are almost all circular is evil. And almost anything you do with a toilet that is out of the ordinary is disgusting. These are things we don't talk about in public (and probably shouldn't in a blog) but can be a huge issue in moving. I have great respect for plumbers who can figure out how to get beyond all that. Anyway, I am all for toilets that have storage tanks as big as the Hoover Dam and to hell with water conservation. Oh, did I mention that I have spent a lot of time fixing our stopped up toilets in the last couple of weeks, actually since we moved in.

Bother!