Re: "Improvements"

Are you saying that I should not swap girlfieinds when a better looking model (I mean younger) comes my way?

Adam

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "ARWadsworth" saying something like:

Only for a vampire.

In message , The Medway Handyman writes

Well - two moving parts

Just think for millions of years there was a totally reliable toilet with the one part (turd) being propelled down by gravity ... no more

progress, eh ?

In message , ARWadsworth writes

Depends on how much you value your gonads ...

I still have one of those. It didn't work very well, and no plumbers knew how they worked. Now I know how they are supposed to work, and it isn't as simple as you'd think. And some people are unable to flush it, or manage to get it to flush continuously. All they have to do is to pull the chain once, but they jiggle it up and down until the syphon comes off its mountings.

Wot? One of these?

We don't have many of those left in the UK. Siphons are in use in the majority of low level or close coupled toilets.

One! The handle isn't part of the siphon.

these?

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Matty F saying something like:

I don't recall seeing any of them with a trap at the bottom of the flush pipe.

How can the bell lift water if the flush pipe is open to the air?

Toilets are still in their infancy in NZ then? :-)

This is a tradional proper UK toilet;

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Matty F saying something like:

There might have been a flapper valve at the base of the cistern - or perhaps some of the old cludges might have had a trap built-in. I'm sure the flush pipes on those I've seen went straight into the rear of the pan. There's one of the old CI high-level cisterns promised to me - when I get it I'll have a close look.

I think it relied on insufficient air coming up the pipe to break the syphon in the time taken to raise the bell. ISTR that it was necessary to give a fairly sharp tug on the chain to get it to flush.

Without a "movement" there would be no need for the WC ...

I make it three. Handle, plunger thing in the siphon, and a link between them.

Not counting the southampton valve of course...

Andy

Funny i can remember my father-in-law moaning about the newfangled plastic syphons that needed a new diaphragm every few years. I still have a working highlevel  bell syphon in what was the milking shed that must be over 100 years old and never had any maintenance, ball valve excepted.   Makes a very satisfying mechanical clonk-clonk when you use it.

Not always. The bell usually had three lugs at its base, which gave a gap for the flush, and was big enough to break the syphon on completion of the flush.

Not necessary. When the chain is pulled, the bell comes above the level of the well, allowing the water level to equalise.

Bell cisterns only work for high level bogs. In my younger years most were of that type.

It doesn't lift water. It pushes water up as the bell is dropped, due to its tapering shape. Lift slowly, then release.

The action of bell syphons (those with a circular depression in their base to fit the bell) was teh opposite of modern syphons. the pull of the chain lifted the bell and the water level equalised. On releasing the chain the (heavy) bell fell, filling with water which was funneled up the bell into the flush pipe, initiating the syphon. The weight of the bell was what started the flush.