American and English Urinals
Aug. 12th, 2009 04:03 pmUrinals generally consist of a tall porcelain slab against the wall merging into a bowl at the bottom at a convenient peeing-height. See picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinal.
Traditional British urinals have a hole in the bottom, and a common cistern which pours water through all of the urinals every so often. Some American urinals are similar, except that the flush is operated by a handle.
The British system is what I'm used to, and perhaps marginally quicker. And means you don't have to touch a handle which may be contaminated with other people's penis-cooties, although most British men don't seem to worry about that.
It has the disadvantage that the urinal isn't guaranteed to be washed between every use.
I'm not sure which is more water efficient: the British system will flush regularly even if few people have used the urinals, but the American system will flush every time.
Fancy Technological Urinals have infra-red sensors which automatically flush when someone stands in front of them for a while, and then moves away, which I'm not used to yet, but seems to be reasonably reliable.
However, the majority of American urinals don't work quite as well as this: they fill up with urine, and are only emptied when they're flushed, so they rely on American males and clueless foreign males remembering to flush them, and if not, the next person gets a mildly unpleasant sight. Why is that? A hole in the bottom seems like the simplest urinal technology imaginable -- why didn't more toilets explore that solution, even before the fancy infra-red version was invented?
Traditional British urinals have a hole in the bottom, and a common cistern which pours water through all of the urinals every so often. Some American urinals are similar, except that the flush is operated by a handle.
The British system is what I'm used to, and perhaps marginally quicker. And means you don't have to touch a handle which may be contaminated with other people's penis-cooties, although most British men don't seem to worry about that.
It has the disadvantage that the urinal isn't guaranteed to be washed between every use.
I'm not sure which is more water efficient: the British system will flush regularly even if few people have used the urinals, but the American system will flush every time.
Fancy Technological Urinals have infra-red sensors which automatically flush when someone stands in front of them for a while, and then moves away, which I'm not used to yet, but seems to be reasonably reliable.
However, the majority of American urinals don't work quite as well as this: they fill up with urine, and are only emptied when they're flushed, so they rely on American males and clueless foreign males remembering to flush them, and if not, the next person gets a mildly unpleasant sight. Why is that? A hole in the bottom seems like the simplest urinal technology imaginable -- why didn't more toilets explore that solution, even before the fancy infra-red version was invented?