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Topic: What is it with British toilets  (Read 30217 times)

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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #45 on: January 12, 2011, 11:13:03 PM »
Hey uhhhh sorry to burst your bubble. Who ever said some toilets require pumping was slightly mis informed, I have lived here my whole life and been all over the UK and NEVER had to pump a toilet, broken on the other hand, that is plausible.

We are not quite as primitive as you might think :-).


Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #46 on: January 12, 2011, 11:25:30 PM »
I don't think anyone was suggesting it was primitive, but different.  I have found pumping not to work, but there is definitely a different "touch" to the levers that flush most toilets here.


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #47 on: January 12, 2011, 11:28:25 PM »
Hey uhhhh sorry to burst your bubble. Who ever said some toilets require pumping was slightly mis informed, I have lived here my whole life and been all over the UK and NEVER had to pump a toilet, broken on the other hand, that is plausible.

We are not quite as primitive as you might think :-).

I've lived in the UK my whole life as well and since this thread was started a few days ago, I've realised that, actually, a lot of toilets in the UK don't flush first time and you have to pump them. Not so much household toilets (although the toilet in my flat will only flush properly if you hold the button down for several seconds), but public toilets can be awful for that...in the last 10 days I've found I've had to pump the flush in toilets in London, Bristol, Exeter, and also at an M5 service station!


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #48 on: January 13, 2011, 01:07:28 AM »
in the last 10 days I've found I've had to pump the flush in toilets in London, Bristol, Exeter, and also at an M5 service station!

You get around!  ;)
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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #49 on: January 13, 2011, 03:19:27 PM »
I do prefer the public toilets in the UK better than in the US for the simple reason the doors in the UK don't have the space all the way around so people can see you like in the US. When I visited my Mom in the US this September I felt like I broke my tail bone because her toilet was so much lower than what I have in the flat, it was embarrassing to explain how I hurt myself :)


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #50 on: January 14, 2011, 02:17:37 PM »
I do prefer the public toilets in the UK better than in the US for the simple reason the doors in the UK don't have the space all the way around so people can see you like in the US.

Ah yes, this has been discussed before and I completely agree with you.  I'll never understand why US public stalls have those unnecessary gaps around the doors.  Since we Americans are apparently obsessed with bathrooms maybe I should put this on the "things to like about the UK" (or whatever it's called) thread?!   ;D

You get around!  ;)

Yes, and see how we've corrupted ksand into an unhealthy interest in flushing mechanisms?  [smiley=laugh4.gif]
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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #51 on: January 14, 2011, 02:24:39 PM »
Ah yes, this has been discussed before and I completely agree with you.  I'll never understand why US public stalls have those unnecessary gaps around the doors.

Yeah, I hate that about US toilets - at first I thought it was just in the airports (maybe a security thing or something), but there seem to be gaps around all US public toilets. I always feel self-conscious about it, that people can see me through the gaps :P.

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Yes, and see how we've corrupted ksand into an unhealthy interest in flushing mechanisms?  [smiley=laugh4.gif]

It's terrible, isn't it?  :P... after reading this thread, now all I can think about when I use a public toilet is whether or not I've had to pump the flush  [smiley=laugh4.gif].


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #52 on: January 14, 2011, 02:29:38 PM »
It's terrible, isn't it?  :P... after reading this thread, now all I can think about when I use a public toilet is whether or not I've had to pump the flush  [smiley=laugh4.gif].

 ;D
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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #53 on: January 14, 2011, 02:38:10 PM »
I've lived in the UK my whole life as well and since this thread was started a few days ago, I've realised that, actually, a lot of toilets in the UK don't flush first time and you have to pump them. Not so much household toilets (although the toilet in my flat will only flush properly if you hold the button down for several seconds), but public toilets can be awful for that...in the last 10 days I've found I've had to pump the flush in toilets in London, Bristol, Exeter, and also at an M5 service station!

I was beginning to wonder if pumping the flush was part of your training for the Met Office?!
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in...

- from Anthem, by Leonard Cohen (b 1934)


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #54 on: January 14, 2011, 02:43:30 PM »
I was beginning to wonder if pumping the flush was part of your training for the Met Office?!

Lol - that would be an interesting lecture... maybe it could be used to try to demonstrate the Coriolis force or something (the whole 'the Coriolis force means that water always drains anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere' theory... which isn't actually true anyway)?


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #55 on: January 14, 2011, 02:49:05 PM »
Lol - that would be an interesting lecture... maybe it could be used to try to demonstrate the Coriolis force or something (the whole 'the Coriolis force means that water always drains anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere' theory... which isn't actually true anyway)?

It's funny you say that, because I was just researching that very thing!  (mind thinking on a similar direction!)  Most of the reliable stuff out there says no it's not true, the water in the toilet bowl - opposite directions/opposite hemisphere thing.

However, when I was in Brazil back in 1985-86, in the periphery of my consciousness, I kept noticing something was different whenever I flushed - before finally realising the water was spinning down the bowl in a different direction than that to which I was accustomed.  And I asked my friend there, who had also lived in the US, & she said that yes it did.  Now I want to know why it did - if the Coriolis-toilet bowl thing isn't true?!

I swear that I saw it.  Is it just different plumbing systems or something?

Just further going to show how obsessed we Americans are with toilets!  [smiley=laugh3.gif]
« Last Edit: January 14, 2011, 02:52:25 PM by Mrs Robinson »
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in...

- from Anthem, by Leonard Cohen (b 1934)


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #56 on: January 14, 2011, 03:09:30 PM »
Now I want to know why it did - if the Coriolis-toilet bowl thing isn't true?!

I think it's more to do with local factors (such as the properties of the water itself and the shape of the toilet bowl) than the Coriolis force - Coriolis only really causes air/water to rotate noticeably over extremely large distances (hundreds of kilometres) - so for example, a hurricane moving up from the tropics towards the US will rotate anticlockwise due to the Coriolis force (while a tropical cyclone in the southern hemisphere will rotate clockwise), but the force is unlikely to be the main cause of the direction of rotation of water in a toilet bowl (in theory it has an effect, but that effect is small compared to the other forces involved - it seems that perhaps the initial rotation may be due to Coriolis, but it then is amplified into a vortex by other forces such as the conservation of angular momentum and gravity).

(P.S. I hope I got that right... it was from a quick bit of online searching!)


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #57 on: January 14, 2011, 03:24:22 PM »
I was a bit obsessed when I first moved here for the opposite reason.  For some reason I could never get my toilet to flush until I realized I was pushing down for slightly too long.  I needed to let go more quickly, not hang on to it.  When I learned to flush quickly and not hesitate I could get it first go, before that it would sometimes take 3-4 tries--very embarrasing!


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #58 on: January 14, 2011, 04:04:02 PM »
Us toilets are also easily fixable.  It is a flap on a chain.  Not working, look inside the tank, the flap and chain are disconnected or there is grit under the flap that stops the seal, or make the float is broken.

Here you open the tank and it has the giant siphon rubber thing and it just more difficult to fiddle with and fix yourself.


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Re: What is it with British toilets
« Reply #59 on: January 14, 2011, 05:47:07 PM »
I think it's more to do with local factors (such as the properties of the water itself and the shape of the toilet bowl) than the Coriolis force - Coriolis only really causes air/water to rotate noticeably over extremely large distances (hundreds of kilometres) - so for example, a hurricane moving up from the tropics towards the US will rotate anticlockwise due to the Coriolis force (while a tropical cyclone in the southern hemisphere will rotate clockwise), but the force is unlikely to be the main cause of the direction of rotation of water in a toilet bowl (in theory it has an effect, but that effect is small compared to the other forces involved - it seems that perhaps the initial rotation may be due to Coriolis, but it then is amplified into a vortex by other forces such as the conservation of angular momentum and gravity).

(P.S. I hope I got that right... it was from a quick bit of online searching!)

Now you've made me think of something else!  Are northern hemisphere hurricanes anticlockwise?  (I know the southern hemisphere ones rotate in the opposite direction.)  Because I thought it was that tornadic activity (funnel clouds) in the northern hemisphere are anticlockwise and the hurricanes are clockwise - or is it that the energy feeds into a hurricane anticlockwise so the winds go clockwise or something?

Maybe I've got it wrong somehow.  I am certain about the tornadic rotation though because we were told to shelter towards the northeast under a building, growing up.  Hedging your bets with tornadoes usually traveling from the south/southwest direction.  Although our storm cellar was separate from the house.  Just like in the Wizard of Oz!

(I took a couple courses with Joe Eagleman back when I was young - not sure if the name will ring a bell for you over here, and nowadays, or not?)

ETA - See I'm giving you more homework!  ;D  Where are you going to be working once you've finished your training?
« Last Edit: January 14, 2011, 06:03:40 PM by Mrs Robinson »
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in...

- from Anthem, by Leonard Cohen (b 1934)


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