How does the toilet work?
The water, toilet, toilet, toilet bowl, toilet, porcelain throne. No matter what we call it, it is one of the inventions that I am most grateful for and where many of us have surely spent countless hours either reading, playing with cell phones, talking on the phone or simply reflecting on life and its endless joys and sorrows.
The first records of the existence of a WC date back to 2800 years ago, where the first type of toilet was registered under the reign of King Minos of Crete. Then, even in China, remains of a toilet were found in a tomb of an emperor of the Han dynasty, which dates back to 206 BC and 24 AD.
TOTO CST743S#01 Drake Round Bowl and Tank, Cotton White
But it is no longer until ancient Rome when a sewage system was finally invented for people to use their latrines to make their needs, and these were thrown out to the Tiber River. The evolution to this occurs already in the middle age, when they begin to use the "pellets" which were made of ceramic or metal. The most curious of these fights, was that after use, the content that was inside was not discarded to a sewer but commonly only thrown out the window (I do not know why I remember the song hopefully rain coffee).
As early as 1596, the grandson of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir John Harrington, gave him a WC invented by him, with a cistern system (pulled from a chain) (for the other he gave her a coffin as well). Already between 1775 and 1800, the system is patented, and people realize that poor sanitary conditions brought diseases, which is why the first laws begin to emerge, and studies on the implementation of sewage systems and toilets in homes and hotels. Finally it is in 1910 where the design of the WC is changed to the one we currently use of a pond and a cup.
Nowadays technology has also been incorporated into this wonderful invention, and this is how in Japan there are toilets with systems to heat the edge in one sits, as well as to do a cleaning to the rear, using jets of water.
Parts of a WC
If one uncovers the pond cover, and looks inward, you will see all of these parts that appear in the figure. It is likely to be somewhat different in yours, depending on the age of your WC, but it is mostly composed of 3 parts:
- The cup siphon
- The mechanism of water flow
- The filling mechanism
The siphon
There are some simple experiments you can do at home to learn about the operation of the siphon. The first one is using a glass of water, if you pour it into the cup it is probably nothing happens, and if you then pour up to 25 glasses, surprisingly nothing will happen either. This is because as you see in the image, the siphon will take care of throwing away the excess water, if the level goes up a little. But when we pour 6 liters of water at once, what happens is that the siphon tube will fill and cause a suction which will evacuate all the contents of the cup and listen to the classic sound it emits. (especially when it starts to suck air and starts to sound like gargles) At this point I think several has happened that when they cut the water in the house the only way to throw the chain is looking for a bucket there and having to fill it up little by little in the sink or in the tub.
The mechanism of water flow
The purpose of the tank is to act as the bucket of water, which consists of expelling a sufficient amount of water and at the proper speed in the cup to activate the siphon. We could say that the pond acts as a capacitor, which takes around 30 to 60 seconds to accumulate water, and then in just 3 it expels everything.
The handle that is in the majority of the toilets is united by a chain to the valve (cap), and that when being thrown what it does is to allow that the water happens through the hole of the pond that generally has a diameter between 5.08 to 7.62 cms. When this occurs, the water travels through 2 parts, first most of the water goes through the main duct that goes directly to the cup, then the rest of the water comes out through small holes around the cup that have as function throw away the rest of the things that were there. (It loads me when "something" sticks there and does not come out with anything, and you have to apply the brush)
The filling mechanism
Once our tank is empty, it is the turn of the float, which has as mission to give the order to the filling valve to inject water into the pond. The float will deactivate when it reaches almost the top of the pond where it will block the filling valve. But if for some reason the float or the valve fails, theoretically our pond will overflow, but that is where our secret agent overflow tube will make the excess water, go directly back to the sewer.
Bonus - Myth
Many will have seen the chapter of The Simpsons where Bart and Homer want to see if in the different hemispheres the flow of water goes to the left or to the right. But the main reason to determine where the water will flow, does not depend on the hemisphere where we are, but simply on how the manufacturer arranged the exit direction of the holes around the bowl.