High Performance Toilets Back in the Day

Anytime our Indianapolis plumbers are called to take care of a toilet clog, there is always a chance that the toilet is an older or under-performing model that will continue to have problems unless it is replaced. As I was saying in my last blog, high-performance toilets could be the answer.

Modern toiletology (okay, I made that word up, but it’s one we need) calls for utilizing less water to flush more waste solids during a flush cycle. Generally, the more flushing efficiency the toilet, or “water closet” (to use actual plumbing toiletology nomenclature), has the more expensive it is. But it was not always so.

In my search for toilet efficiency, I think the best was probably the prehistoric toilet. You get the idea, no water usage, no clogs and very cheap price. Later came the Roman toilets (right) and granted, they were efficient, but cost a little more to build. They seemed to lack some privacy as well.

By medieval times the privacy issue was addressed, but costs had skyrocketed since, while the toilet itself didn’t cost too much, the price for attaching a castle to it was astronomical. Kind of reminds me of some of Carmel toilet repair customer’s homes I’ve been to.

Or as the Carmel cave man would have said when he called in prehistoric Carmel times, “Carmel fix toilet.” Sorry, I digress. As can be seen in the photo (left), there is total efficiency with that toilet, I’m mean how would you EVER clog that baby — you can see daylight!!! Of course it wasn’t too great during the winter. Important side note: it behooved the moat keeper to keep a heads up when he was working, but hey, that was the cost of efficiency for ancient plumbing.

We’ll break into the modern era of toilet efficiency next time.

Your Thought-full Plumber,

Scott