Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

Thanks Mr. Crapper

Al Letellier
Al Letellier Member Posts: 781
I was raised in a plumbing family and I remember my great-grandfather showing me how to build a trap......a lead one...from scratch !!!! We in the trade today just don't realize how good we have it....we can buy a tool off the shelf to do almost anything or any job, piping goes together like an erector set and we do the job in 1/3 or less time. Next time you rip out an old bathroom or an old heating system, step back first and admire the workmanship and craftsman ship that went into designing and building it. We just demo'd some old bathrooms in a factory building that had suspended drain piping 15 ft in the air....6 toilets, 4 trough urinals and 10 lavs...all piped with galvanized screw pipe.....some of it 4" !!!!! How many guys today would stay in this trade if that were the norm today?????

<A HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=248&Step=30">To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"</A>

Comments

  • Tom_35
    Tom_35 Member Posts: 265
    Thanks Mr. Crapper

    Thank you Mr. Crapper and the Scott brothers---

    Just finished watching Modern Marvels tonight on the history of plumbing. Those folks in midevial times didn't have it so good. Watching how plumbing evolved is pretty dang interesting.

    Would be nice if some of our customers knew how rough the corn cobs were as compared to our "modern" cleansing methods are now. My Dad told me that he used corn cobs when he was a boy and later graduated to the Sears catalogues---and this TV story tells how they were prepared.

    A remodel job we are providing the radiant heating and the HVAC on is going to have the toilets that were shown that have the built-in bidet, air dryer, and heated seats. This is the same customer that didn't think it would be worthwhile to have radiant throughout the addition and want it in the shower floor and walls only. They can't "see" the radiant, so it takes the back seat to all the marble, flat screen TV's, therapy room, endless indoor pool, excercise room, elevator, etc.

    Go Figure--

    Tom A
  • Al Letellier
    Al Letellier Member Posts: 781
    old plumbing

    I was raised in a plumbing family and I remember my great-grandfather showing me how to build a trap......a lead one...from scratch !!!! We in the trade today just don't realize how good we have it....we can buy a tool off the shelf to do almost anything or any job, piping goes together like an erector set and we do the job in 1/3 or less time. Next time you rip out an old bathroom or an old heating system, step back first and admire the workmanship and craftsman ship that went into designing and building it. We just demo'd some old bathrooms in a factory building that had suspended drain piping 15 ft in the air....6 toilets, 4 trough urinals and 10 lavs...all piped with galvanized screw pipe.....some of it 4" !!!!! How many guys today would stay in this trade if that were the norm today?????

    To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"
  • singh
    singh Member Posts: 866


    It was good to see that they showed the very first plumbing systems in India, built by the Harappa civilization way before the Romans.

    My ancestors had invented a seperate room, now called a bathroom, connected the drains used for showering and body waste,pitched them down hill and tied them into other homes via a main sewer clay pipe and then out into a stream.
    Running water was a problem, still had to carried by had into houses.

    Got to give that to the Greeks, they used uphill streams and figured a way to pipe it in. The Romans then copied and built the aquaducts and large bath houses that they are associated with.
  • Dave Yates (PAH)
    Dave Yates (PAH) Member Posts: 2,162
    public socialized potty paradise

    The Roman men would visit, in group fashion, a bench of marble with seats cut out that wrapped the perimeter of the room. (It was much like how women all go together when we're out as a group.)

    No toilet paper back then - they had a common stick with one end wrapped in wool or fabric and kept it in a bucket of salt water for rinsing and "sanitation". Imagine a prankster in the group passing the stick and the phrase about getting the wrong end of the stick was no doubt born!

    To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"
  • bb
    bb Member Posts: 99
    too funny

    Mr. Yates.., but thanks for a laugh so early on a Friday morning. Makes me glad I grew up when I did!

    bb
  • BillW@honeywell
    BillW@honeywell Member Posts: 1,099
    The Kohler bathtub factory...

    Watching that monster machine pick up orange-hot bathtubs, and then sprinkle the porcelain beads on them, resulting in a beautiful new tub, or the molding machine that stamps a new fiberglass tub out of folded sheet of raw material that looks like a tarp. How about the molding & finishing operation for the toilets? One thing that caught my eye was the ornate bathtub with the equally ornate coal-fired water heater attatched to it. Must have been interesting when the servants had to stoke the fire. Discovery is the best channel on TV, IMOH.
  • Aidan (UK)
    Aidan (UK) Member Posts: 290
    Thomas Crapper

    His company is still going.

    http://www.thomas-crapper.com/productrange.asp
  • Matt Clina
    Matt Clina Member Posts: 90
    Plumbing History

    Last Christmas we did an overnight in Newport, RI and took a tour of some of the mansions. The Vanderbilt's bathtubs all had four spigots. They had hot and cold running freshwater and seawater. The seawater was believed to have therapeutic benefits.

    I was surprised that the hot seawater didn't corrode the pipes, but I guess when you only use your mansion for 6 weeks a year, it lasts a little longer.

  • Tom_35
    Tom_35 Member Posts: 265
    wrong end of the stick

    Dave, that phrase made me think of a story thst an old man told a group of us young guns years ago. I'll share it with you.

    There was an old man that drank heavily and would usually be close to passing out by early afternoon. The man telling the story said that he and a group of friends saw the old drunk passed out, got a stick and wrapped some sort of cloth around it, went down to the outhouse and thoroughtly dipped it.

    They then returned rubbed the cloth all over the drunk man's hands and arms. They then started tickling his nose with a feather...you can imagine the rest of the story. He told us that the old drunk never found out who shared the stick with him though.

    Tom A
This discussion has been closed.