England and Ireland Need U.S. Plumbers

[sms]

I spent 18 days in England and Ireland. The plumbing is something from the 19th century or earlier.

Someone needs to inform the English plumbers that there's a way to have sink with hot and cold water but only one spout as they are unfamiliar with single spouts with integrated mixing valves, either with a single handle or with separate hot and cold handles.

Actually in Ireland I saw a sink that had been retrofitted with a single spout with a single handle with a cover placed in the hole where the other spout used to be, so at least one person figured it out.

At one place we stayed I wrote up a set of instructions for flushing the toilet:

1. Remove tank lid
2. Hold blue piece "A" into white tube in center of tank with left hand
3. Move the flush handle up and down until it flushes (may take up to 20 handles moves before it flushes).

[Ashton Crusher]

Is it still like that? I noticed that back in the 70's but I'd have thought most of those sinks and fixtures would have been replaced by now with something a bit newer with a proper mixing valve. Maybe it's partly because so many euro places had those little point of use instant hot water heaters and they simply didn't want people turning on the hot water tap and figured by keeping the hot and cold separate and not mixable people just would mostly not use hot water.

[sms]

It's still like that, and someone I know said that even new installations often use the two separate faucets.

I was trying to think of a plausible reason for this. Yours may be one answer. The other thing I thought of is that many of these sinks don't extend far from the wall so two diagonally placed faucets are more practical than one that extends straight out in the middle. The one I saw that was retrofitted with a single faucet might be annoying to some users as well.

I took some photos of them:

[rbowman]

At least they probably label them correctly. Nothing like being faced with knobs marked C and F and choosing wrong.

[philo]

I'd be curious about the toilets in Germany.

When I was stationed there in the 70's the toilet bowl had no water in it and your "business" would land on a flat slab, which when flushed (a few times) would wash things down.

I figured someone could have gotten very wealthy selling them American-style toilets.

[Don Phillipson]

This may be a significant cultural difference. Americans rarely want to inspect their product i.e. would rather flush it unseen, but the older European tradition was that your poo could provide valuable information about health.

The display toilet described above is still the norm in Germany/ Denmark/Netherlands (I think.) My brother in law's flushes clean first time (but then he was in the building trades.)

[philo]

I read a book, I think it was Carl Hiaasen who wrote a book taking place on a tropical island and the natives went down to the beach each morning to take a dump and inspect each other's waste...to see if they were OK. The tides would then wash is all away.

For those who like to inspect, you can still do so if the stuff is under water...it's just not as smelly I guess.

[Tekkie®]

philo posted for all of us...

And it would end up at the New Jersey shore.

[Frank]

Years ago, at a hotel in Austria, we stayed a a place that had a toilet with a shelf in the bowl above the water line where your dump would sit high and dry until flushed. Not only that, the toilet was in the same enclosure as the shower and if you took a shower the toilet would get all wet. Think I have a picture of it somewhere.

[Tekkie®]

Frank posted for all of us...

If it's after use don't post it. I've already been scarred for life.