by Gary Mays | Feb 23, 2013 | Bathrooms, Consumer Issues, Health Issues, Sustainable Plumbing, Toilets
Recently the highly respected magazine “The Economist” ran a cover story that asked the pertinent question if we will ever invent something as useful as the flushing toilet again. No matter which way you look at it the flushing toilet has done wonders for public health in modern society.
The humble toilet and its associated water flushing in its many variations and improvements over the years have helped to stop the spread of infectious disease. In fact a survey of 11000 doctors by the “British Medical Journal” in 2007 voted hands down that the world’s greatest medical milestone since 1840 was sanitation which of course the toilet is an integral part of. Despite all the staggering medical breakthroughs and scientific advances the seemingly mundane advance of reliable sewage and reliably clean water supply was judged the greatest medical advance.
The ancient Indus Valley Civilization were the first to use hydraulic engineering in the earliest version known of flushing water toilets. The Romans used latrines over pipes with running water that carried into the Tiber River. The Romans were the first civilised society over 2000 years ago to realise the requirements to have an integrated plumbing system to pipe in clean water and dispose of used water .
In 1596 Sir John Harrington installed a toilet for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I, who would not use it because of the noise it made. Contrary to popular opinion Thomas Crapper did not invent the toilet but he did popularise the siphon system used to empty the tank or cistern.
For most of us in Australia flushing toilets and the associated plumbing is something we take for granted. Like most of the population the staff at Whywait Plumbing have never known what it is like not to have a flushing toilet inside the house or to have on demand clean running water inside our homes or a fully functional sewer system to take away the used water.
Close to 90% of us live in an urban environment and for that we can thank plumbing, that allows us to do so safely, without fear of contracting water borne diseases.
Clean potable water is the basis for life and without it the risk to public health and the population as a whole increases. The cost to the community of plumbing failures are substantial and always have been. The recognition by “The Economist” and “British Medical Journal” that the flushing toilet coupled with reliable sewage and water supply is testament to the strength of plumbing laws, standards and licensing in not only Australia but also in Europe and North America. This is because doctors recognised the best measure of medical advance is not its complexity but what it does for the average person with respect to length and quality of our lives. The average life expectancy has increased 35 years since 1840 and roughly 30 of those years are attributable to the advances in sanitation and living conditions.
Even in today’s society, not everyone has access to a flushing toilet and in Asia alone some 2 billion people, which is over 60% of the population of Asia, live without an adequate access to sanitation such as toilets. In many places open sewers are the norm. This would not be tolerated in Australia and we are protected from it thankfully by our plumbing laws.
No matter which way you look at it “The Economist” is correct we will possibly as a society never invent anything as useful again as the flushing toilet which has improved billions of people’s lives.
by Gary Mays | Jan 15, 2013 | Climate Change, Cold Water, Health Issues, Plumbing Maintenance, Rain Water Tanks, Sustainable Plumbing, Water Filtration
Food allergies are on the rise, estimated to be affecting at least 250,000 Australian’s. According to a new study published in the United States in the December issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), pesticides and tap water could be partially to blame.
This authorative study reported that high levels of dichlorophenols, a chemical used in pesticides and to chlorinate water, when found in the human body, are associated with food allergies. “Our research shows that high levels of dichlorophenol-containing pesticides can possibly weaken food tolerance in some people, causing food allergy,” said allergist Elina Jerschow, M.D., M.Sc., ACAAI fellow and lead study author. “This chemical is commonly found in pesticides used by farmers and consumer insect and weed control products, as well as tap water.”
In the United States where 10,348 participants in a US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2,548 had dichlorophenols measured in their urine and 2,211 were included into the study. Food allergy was found in 411 of these participants, while 1,016 had an environmental allergy. “Previous studies have shown that both food allergies and environmental pollution are increasing in the United States,” said Dr. Jerschow. “The results of our study suggest these two trends might be linked, and that increased use of pesticides and other chemicals is associated with a higher prevalence of food allergies.”
It is generally accepted that similar results would be seen within the Australian population where water is treated in a similar manner and similar pesticides are utilised by farmers. To reduce the likelihood of developing an allergy the options are:
- drink bottled or filtered water
- purchase natural or organically grown fruit and vegetables
Whilst opting for bottled water instead of tap water might seem to be a way to reduce the risk for developing an allergy this is not the whole answer. More often than not bottled water is not a solution it is a problem because it is estimated about 40 percent of bottled water is in fact regular tap water.
Australians spend over $500 million every year buying bottled water. Potable drinking water from Gold Coast City Council costs $3.27 a kilolitre. Bottled water here is 1070 times more expensive than the water Gold Coast City Council pipes directly to your home. Australian bottled water costs around $3500 a kilolitre and Italian bottled water around $9600 a kilolitre.
The only solution with respect to water is installing a whole of house water filtration system because Gold Coast City Council potable drinking water distribution pipe line systems contain bacteria killing chlorine. The intent is simply to provide you with bacteria-free water. Unfortunately, they’re doing more than that because every time you consume tap water from the Gold Coast City Council distribution system you are ingesting a measure of chlorine. Every time you shower or bathe in tap water you are ingesting the free chlorine gas in the water supply. The telltale signs of unacceptably high levels of chlorine? Dry flaky skin, and the odour you often detect in your shower, bath, or drinking water.
Chlorine does not kill all the bacteria in the water supply pipelines as scale still builds up inside the pipes requiring the council to regularly clean them. Far worse, chlorine is a chemical and a poison. Once ingested, it randomly targets what it kills off in your body. Simply put, chlorine kills all bacteria…good and bad. It can kill off the natural flora in your stomach. It can negatively affect your digestion. It can build up in fat deposits. It can settle in your arteries and lead to heart disease. What’s more, chlorine can cause bladder cancer as the human body is not designed to filter out chlorine. And yet for the foreseeable future, it will remain in the Gold Coast City Council potable water distribution pipe line systems.
To take control of an important area of managing your own health by purifying your water supply Whywait Plumbing strongly recommend the installation of whole of house water filtration systems to remove one major threat of developing an allergy.
by Gary Mays | Dec 10, 2012 | City of Gold Coast, Consumer Issues, DIY Plumbing, Health Issues, Insurance, Plumbing Emergencies, Plumbing Maintenance, Queensland Government, Sustainable Plumbing, Whywait Plumbing
The plumbing staff at Whywait Plumbing every day see the results of the growing popularity of DIY home renovations, encouraged by an “explosion” in television programmes on home renovation. Despite the fact that it is illegal throughout Australia for anyone other than a licensed plumber to work on potable water systems or sanitary drainage systems there is an increasing number of people embarking on DIY renovations of their homes who purchase all of the fixtures and fittings and then set about installing them connecting to the existing water supply and sanitary drainage system.
It is frightening to see the number of cross connections that occur with wrongly sized pipes being connected to the hot water supply or the recycled water supply or the rain water tank supply by mistake. Even more frightening is illegal cross connections with sanitary drainage pipes being connected to storm water pipes leading to raw sewage being increasingly discharged into creeks, streams and rivers and ultimately into the ocean. This illegal sewage discharge has a devastating effect on the environment and especially on animals, birds and fish.
These illegal drainage cross connections mean that sewage discharge water that should be piped into the sewage system is being fed into ground and coastal waters. As the amount of cross connections increase there is a growing problem causing the degradation of smaller creeks, streams and rivers that are threatening invertebrate ecosystems and depleting fish stocks. The sewage removes oxygen, encouraging eutrophication resulting in increasing growth of algae and as a result the water becomes stagnant. Invariably this changes the ecosystem and the invertebrates which results in a bland range of invertebrates being available as food source which are crucial for young fish. These illegal cross connections have other unforeseen effects such as the problem of endocrine disruptor’s, which is the impact of medications such as contraceptive pills which can change the sex of the fish.
There has always been a problem was illegal cross connections. This has resulted in local councils and water authorities undertaking smoke testing of the sewer drains to detect smoke rising out of the illegal connections. Unfortunately this only detects illegal storm water connections into the sewer or sanitary drain system. Locating sewer being discharged into the storm water system is much harder and frequently only occurs when a plumber is called to a property and finds the cause of a blockage is actually a cross connected drain. There are increasing concerns that the problem could become even greater with the popularity of DIY home renovations to blame.
In the United Kingdom the problem is more pronounced as they have no plumbing licencing system resulting in almost anyone being able to undertake plumbing work. Dr Robert Keirle, pollution programme manager at the Marine Conservation Society, recently stated, “As DIY has become more popular over the years, aided by an explosion in property programmes on television, the problem has been growing. People see a pipe, think it’s the right one to attach to, and untreated water from washing machines, but also toilets, ends up going to the wrong place. It is also probably a result of the times we live in, with people unable to afford to call in tradesmen to do the plumbing.”
This same statement can also be attributed to Australia with the DIY enthusiasts unaware of the dangers they create by doing it themselves. Unfortunately most plumbing is out of sight in the walls, floor or underground resulting in the out of sight, out of mind impression. Unfortunately this is not the case and one result of not using licensed plumbers to undertake the work is that if there is ever an insurance claim resulting from the illegal plumbing work the likely scenario is that the insurance policy will prove to be null and void. This results in unfortunate home owners being out of pocket to the tune of many thousands of dollars all due to the deluded self belief that it is okay to do it yourself.
The natural human instinct of the DIY enthusiast’s is that its only me and what effect will that have, because of course one cross connection does not have a particularly dramatic effect, but in reality it is death by a thousand cuts to the environment. In reality it is like having a sewage treatment plant that does not work and just sends everything out to sea. Very simply there is an increasing amount of people undertaking DIY home renovations who think the law does not apply to them and do not understand that there is a huge difference between the pipe connecting to the sewer and the pipe that gets rid of rain water into the storm water system.
by Gary Mays | Jul 3, 2012 | Bathrooms, Consumer Issues, Health Issues, Plumbing Maintenance, Sustainable Plumbing
Traditionally toilets flushed 11 litres or 3 gallons of water every time they were flushed with the water all flowing along through a drainage system that was designed for large flows of water. Unless a drain was broken or roots entered the drain it was not common for a drain to block. That was of course until the advent of reduced flow dual flush toilets.
Now that toilet only flushes 4.5 litres of water on a full flush and 3 litres of water on a half flush into the drainage system. Coupled with reduced flows from every other tap this has produced a situation where drains designed for large flows of water have had the water flow reduced by 60% in most cases.
The increase in blocked drains due to the reduced water flows has been a big boost for plumbing companies such as Whywait Plumbing with drains clogging up for no other reason than lack of water flow. Often there is a dual problem of incorrect fall on the drain which creates high spots in the pipe leading to the drain becoming clogged at that point.
In Singapore scientists at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have invented a new toilet system that will reduce the amount of water needed for flushing by up to 90 per cent compared to current toilet systems. Dubbed the No-Mix Vacuum Toilet, it has two chambers that separate the liquid and solid wastes. Using vacuum suction technology, similar to those used in aircraft toilets it uses 0.2 litres of water for urine and 1.0 litres of water for solids.
The No-Mix Vacuum Toilet installed in a standard public toilet which is flushed 100 times a day, is expected to save 160000 litres of water a year. The NTU scientists are now looking to carry out trials by installing the toilet prototypes in two NTU public toilet facilities. This trial is important due to the issues that plumbers are already aware of with the drains blocking at 4.5/3 litre flushes so a 1.0/0.2 litre flush is expected to exacerbate this problem in existing buildings.
The No-Mix Vacuum Toilet with it’s two chambers that separate the liquid and solid wastes also will turn human waste into electricity and fertilisers. The No-Mix Vacuum Toilet will divert the liquid waste to a processing facility where components used for fertilisers such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium can be recovered. At the same time, the solid waste will be sent to a bioreactor where it will be digested to release bio-gas which contains methane. Methane is odourless and can be used to replace natural gas used in stoves for cooking. Methane can also be converted to electricity if used to fuel power plants or fuel cells. ‘Grey water’ (used water from the laundry, shower and kitchen sink) can be released back into the drainage systems without further need for complex waste water treatment, while leftover food wastes can be sent either to the bioreactors or turned into compost and mixed with soil, resulting in a complete recovery of resources.
The No-Mix Vacuum Toilet uses will be limited in traditional buildings but will be useful for eco resorts, new housing estates, hotels, resorts, and especially communities not linked to the main sewerage system or unable to be connected and so require their own sewerage facilities.
Associate Professor Wang Jing-Yuan, Director of the Residues and Resource Reclamation Centre (R3C) at NTU who is leading the research project, said that their ultimate aim is not only for the new toilet system to save water, but to have a complete recovery of resources so that none will be wasted in resource-scarce Singapore. “Having the human waste separated at source and processed on-site would lower costs needed in recovering resources, as treating mixed waste is energy intensive and not cost-effective,” Prof Wang said. “With our innovative toilet system, we can use simpler and cheaper methods of harvesting the useful chemicals and even produce fuel and energy from waste.”
The development of a No-Mix Vacuum Toilet has great potential for use on the Gold Coast in the development of tourist facilities in environmentally sensative areas where traditional sewerage systems cannot be installed.
by Gary Mays | May 21, 2012 | bathroom renovation, bathroom renovation cost, bathroom renovation regret, Bathrooms, City of Gold Coast, Consumer Issues, Plumbing Renovation, Sustainable Plumbing, Whywait Plumbing
Updating a bathroom is a great way to add value to your home. A well-designed, modern bathroom can make your home more attractive to potential buyers and increase the overall value of your property. But just how much value can a bathroom renovation add to your home? According to recent studies, bathroom renovations can add more value to your home than any other type of room renovation. This is because a bathroom is one of the most essential rooms in a house, and a well-designed, modern bathroom can make a big difference in how potential buyers view your home.
Spending money to create a stylish, modern bathroom will increase the value of your home more than spending the equivalent amount of money anywhere else in your home. For example, if you want to sell your home, the $20000 spent with Whywait Plumbing to revive your bathroom will increase buyer interest and your asking price. However, if renovated correctly, you can expect to get twice as much back as you’ve invested. The increase in value is frequently two to three times that of spending comparable sums on bedrooms or lounge rooms.
When planning a bathroom renovation, it’s essential to keep in mind the latest trends and design elements that are popular in the current market. This can include features like walk-in showers, double vanities, and heated flooring.
It’s also important to consider your home’s overall style and aesthetic when planning a bathroom renovation. This can help ensure that the new bathroom fits in seamlessly with the rest of your home and adds value in a way that is consistent with the style and design of your property.
Bathroom renovations do not have to take weeks or cost tens of thousands of dollars. Frequently all that is required is new taps, a fresh coat of paint and a well-placed new mirror to open a bathroom up.
You should know that any renovation work will put your bathroom out of action for a few days requiring alternative bathroom arrangements. However, if you have some basic decorating skills, then it is something you can manage yourself, as you can save a great deal of money by undertaking your own redecorating.
Despite what the nice man at Bunnings may tell you, be aware that you are required by law to hire qualified contractors for some tasks. This is mainly for plumbing and electrical functions, as you can undertake painting and tiling yourself if you feel competent.
Updating to a completely renovated, modern, stylish bathroom is the ultimate solution. In reality, it is expensive as it requires stripping back the bathroom to bare concrete floors and stripping the wall linings. If budget is not an issue and you have a second bathroom to use while undertaking the renovations, then it is the way to proceed, as the end result is a brand-new bathroom.
But if you’re willing to learn about what is available, do the decorating yourself and how things work, you can save thousands of dollars using a few simple ideas to add depth and dimension to an existing bathroom. Four inexpensive yet straightforward ideas are:
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Upgrading the taps, spouts, and other fittings, such as towel rails in your bathroom, can significantly affect how your bathroom looks. Moving from outdated accessories to modern, sleek designs will give your bathroom as much of a facelift as replacing the bath, shower and vanity in many instants.
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Rethink your lighting, as most bathrooms only use a single light source, which radiates from the middle of the ceiling. Installing several light fittings as mood lighting in various key points will give your bathroom an entirely different feel. You can also change how the lighting works by adding mirrors to reflect the existing light at different angles, which opens up darker corners.
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Changing the colour scheme in your bathroom can turn it into a whole new bathroom. How much it costs to do so will depend on how radically you want to change things. A new shade of paint is an advantageous and relatively inexpensive way to recolour your bathroom compared with retiling. Upgrading your shower doors and adding a feature wall of tiles will work well with new colours to create a fresh feel.
Simple bathroom renovations, provided that you approach them from the right direction and manage it properly, do not need to involve any stress and can be tremendously rewarding financially and personally. The key to a stress-free bathroom renovation is to know what is required and to have a clear idea of what you want before you begin.
Overall, bathroom renovations are a great way to add value to your home and make it more attractive to potential buyers. With the right design elements and attention to detail, a bathroom renovation can be a smart investment that pays off in the long run.
