50 Fun Facts About Plumbing

The word plumber comes from the Latin plumbum, which means what?

The first effective pipes in the Roman era were made of lead, and the metal's chemical symbol Pb comes from the same root.

Standardised earthenware pipes with sealed flanges appeared by 2700 BC in which civilisation?

The Indus Valley cities used standardised earthenware pipes with broad flanges, sealed with asphalt against leaks, by about 2700 BC.

Rome's first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, was built in which year?

The Aqua Appia was built in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, who also began the Appian Way that year; the city eventually had eleven aqueducts.

The Cloaca Maxima, one of the world's oldest sewers, served which ancient city?

The Cloaca Maxima drained Rome's Forum valley, beginning in the sixth century BC as an open canal under the Tarquin kings; its outfall into the Tiber survives.

The Roman hypocaust was an early form of what?

Hot air from a furnace circulated beneath raised floors and up through wall pipes, a forerunner of modern central heating.

Sir John Harington, who described a flush toilet in 1596, installed one for which royal godmother?

Harington's godmother Elizabeth I had the device installed at Richmond Palace; his 1596 book describing it was A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax.

Who patented the S-trap, the bend beneath sinks and toilets, in 1775?

Alexander Cumming, a Scottish watchmaker, patented the S-trap in 1775, the key step toward the modern flush toilet; Bramah improved the mechanism three years later.

Joseph Bramah, who patented the first practical flush toilet in 1778, is also famous for inventing what?

Joseph Bramah patented the hydraulic press in 1795, applying Pascal's principle to multiply force; he was also a celebrated locksmith whose challenge lock went unpicked until 1851.

Which of these is true of Thomas Crapper?

The English plumber's fame was inflated by a 1969 satirical biography, and the word crap is Middle English, older than his career.

What is the purpose of the U-shaped trap under a sink?

The trap holds standing water that blocks sewer gases from rising into the room; if that seal evaporates in an unused drain, the smell of the sewer comes straight through.

In a drain-waste-vent system, what is the job of the vent pipe that runs up through the roof?

Without venting, draining water can siphon the traps dry and let sewer gas into the house.

The ballcock in a toilet cistern gets its name from what?

The name comes from the ball-shaped float on its lever: as the water rises the ball lifts the arm and closes the fill valve, preventing overflow.

The banging noise in pipes when a tap is shut off suddenly is known as what?

Water hammer is a pressure surge from moving water stopping abruptly; a water hammer arrestor, an air- or piston-cushioned chamber, absorbs the shock.

PEX, the flexible red and blue tubing used in home water lines, is short for what?

PEX stands for cross-linked polyethylene; the cross-linking greatly improves impact strength and resistance to stress cracking compared with ordinary polyethylene.

White plumber's tape wrapped around threaded joints is made of which material?

Thread seal tape is PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), the fluoropolymer sold under the Teflon name; it lubricates the threads and fills gaps to seal the joint.

The Stillson wrench, the classic pipe wrench, was created by a mechanic at which Massachusetts firm?

Daniel Stillson, a mechanic at the Walworth Manufacturing Company, a Boston steam-fitting firm, devised the wrench in the late 1860s and licensed his patent widely.

The plumbing plunger was invented in 1874 by John Hawley, a New Yorker in what line of work?

John Hawley, a New York confectioner, patented the plunger in 1874; the flattened rim followed two years later, and the tool is also called a force cup or plumber's friend.

The first Roto-Rooter machine, built in 1933, was powered by the motor from what?

Samuel Blanc of Des Moines, Iowa built it around a Maytag washing machine motor after clearing a root-blocked sewer at his son's apartment, and founded the Roto-Rooter company on it.

The 'septic' in septic tank refers to what?

'Septic' refers to the anaerobic bacteria inside the tank, which break down the solids without oxygen; the tank gives only primary treatment before liquid flows to a drain field.

The Kohler company made its first bathtub in 1883 by applying enamel to what?

John Michael Kohler, an Austrian immigrant who had founded the Wisconsin firm in 1873, baked enamel onto a cast-iron horse trough and hog scalder, added four feet, and sold it as a bathtub.

The Washlet, the electronic bidet seat found across Japan, is made by which company?

Toto, the Kitakyushu-based sanitaryware maker, launched the Washlet in June 1980, and its 1982 'even bottoms want to be washed' television campaign made it a Japanese household name.

The word bidet originally referred to what in French?

Bidet was French for a small horse or pony, and the fixture took the name because one straddles it as if riding.

The 1858 Great Stink, which drove Parliament to act on sewage, was caused by the smell of which river?

The hot summer of 1858 cooked untreated sewage on the Thames's banks until the stench reached the Commons, whose curtains were soaked in chloride of lime.

Which engineer built London's main drainage system in response to the Great Stink?

Joseph Bazalgette, chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, built 82 miles of intercepting sewers that ended London's cholera outbreaks and created the Victoria, Chelsea and Albert Embankments.

The 2017 Whitechapel fatberg found under London weighed about how much?

Thames Water put the Whitechapel fatberg at about 130 tonnes and 250 metres long, as heavy as eleven double-decker buses; a chunk went on display at the Museum of London in 2018.

Fatbergs form when fat, oil and grease combine with what flushed item in particular?

Wet wipes, even those sold as flushable, do not break down like paper; they snag and bind with congealed fat, and utilities run 'bin it, don't flush it' campaigns against them.

The Tremont House in Boston, opened in 1829, is best remembered as the first hotel with what?

The Tremont House pioneered indoor plumbing and running water, with eight water closets on the ground floor and basement bathrooms supplied with cold running water, plus free soap in every room.

The 2014 water crisis in Flint, Michigan began when the city switched its supply from Lake Huron to what?

Officials failed to add corrosion inhibitors, so lead leached from old pipes and exposed about 100,000 people.

Hard water, which leaves limescale, is rich in dissolved compounds of which two elements?

Hard water carries dissolved calcium and magnesium salts, which precipitate as limescale when heated; a water softener swaps those ions for sodium using an ion-exchange resin.

The US Energy Policy Act of 1992 capped new toilets at how many gallons per flush?

The Act limited new toilets to 1.6 gallons per flush from 1994, down from the 3.5 gallons then typical; early low-flow models were mocked for needing a second flush.

The dual-flush toilet was first put into practical production in 1980 by a company in which country?

Caroma of Australia put the first practical dual-flush cistern into production in 1980, designed by Bruce Thompson, with full and half flushes of 11 and 5.5 litres.

John Hammes invented the garbage disposal in 1927; his company became known as what?

Hammes, an architect in Racine, Wisconsin, founded InSinkErator to sell his disposer in 1938; the company then spent years persuading cities to lift bans on putting food waste down drains.

A sump pump is typically installed where in a house?

A sump pump sits in a pit at the lowest point of the basement and pumps out groundwater or rainwater that seeps in around the foundation.

In a medieval castle, the toilet was called a garderobe, a French word that literally means what?

Garderobe literally means wardrobe ('keep clothes'); robes were hung in the privy because the ammonia was thought to keep moths away, and the chute emptied into a cesspit or the moat.

Rolled toilet tissue was popularised in 1890 by which American firm?

The Scott Paper Company of Philadelphia, founded by brothers E. Irvin and Clarence Scott in 1879, popularised toilet paper on a roll from 1890; paper had served for hygiene in China since the sixth century.

What seals the joint between a toilet's base and the floor flange?

A wax ring, a collar of soft wax, sits between the toilet's outlet horn and the closet flange, forming a watertight, gas-tight seal when the bowl is bolted down.

In which year was the United Association, the plumbers and pipefitters' union, founded?

The United Association was founded in Washington, DC in October 1889, uniting plumbers, steamfitters and gas fitters who had each organised separately through the 1880s.

The world's most famous fictional plumber, Mario, made his debut in which 1981 arcade game?

Mario first appeared as Jumpman, a carpenter rescuing Pauline from the ape in Donkey Kong (1981); he became a plumber with Mario Bros. in 1983.

'Joe the Plumber' became a household name after questioning which candidate about tax policy in 2008?

Samuel Wurzelbacher questioned Barack Obama about small-business taxes outside Toledo, Ohio in October 2008; John McCain then invoked 'Joe the Plumber' repeatedly in the final debate.

World Toilet Day, a UN sanitation observance, falls on which date?

World Toilet Day falls on November 19, the date the World Toilet Organization was founded in 2001; the UN General Assembly made it an official observance in 2013.

The Neolithic village of Skara Brae in Orkney surprised archaeologists by having what in its stone houses?

Each house at Skara Brae, occupied around 3100 BC, had internal drains running beneath the floor, apparently serving a primitive indoor toilet; the houses also had stone dressers and box beds.

In the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro, waste water from houses ran into what?

Household waste water at Mohenjo-daro, built around 2500 BC, ran through pipes into covered brick drains along the streets, which were fitted with inspection holes for cleaning.

Which ancient civilisation introduced fired-clay sewer pipes around 4000 BCE?

The Mesopotamians of Sumer laid fired-clay drainage pipes in cities such as Nippur and Eshnunna from around 4000 BCE, and their later brick latrines at Uruk sat over clay sewer pipes.

Copper piping appeared in Egypt by 2400 BCE, connecting a temple complex at Abusir to which pharaoh's pyramid?

The copper drainage pipe served the mortuary temple of Sahure's pyramid at Abusir, built in the Fifth Dynasty around 2400 BCE, and is among the earliest metal plumbing known.

How did the Romans use inscriptions on lead pipes?

Roman water pipes (fistulae) were stamped with the names of the owner, the maker and the official water grant, so that unauthorised taps could be spotted and water theft prevented.

Which BF Goodrich chemist developed a practical way to plasticise PVC in 1926?

Waldo Semon at BF Goodrich found in 1926 that adding plasticisers made rigid PVC workable; PVC pipe went into production in Germany in the 1930s and was widely used in postwar rebuilding.

Which pipe material was standard for US drinking-water lines from the late 1800s until about 1960?

Galvanized iron, iron or steel pipe coated in zinc against rust, was standard for US water lines from the late 1800s until about 1960, when copper took over with soldered joints.

Since 1997, Norwegian rules on easy replacement of home plumbing have made which system a de facto standard?

Pipe-in-pipe (rør-i-rør) runs a flexible PEX water line inside a protective conduit, so a leaking pipe can be pulled out and replaced without opening walls, as Norway's 1997 rules require.

Which 'premises plumbing pathogen', discovered in 1976, can grow in shower heads and water heaters?

Legionella pneumophila was identified after the 1976 outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia; it thrives in warm, stagnant water in shower heads, water heaters and cooling towers.

Which sizing system is used for PVC and galvanized steel plumbing lines?

PVC and galvanized steel follow iron pipe size (IPS), the old wrought-iron schedule of nominal diameters; copper tube, CPVC and PEX follow copper tube size instead, so their half-inch differs.