Why is it that you can never flush solids down a (male) urinal. Yes, I know there is often a plastic barrier in place. But even when there is absolutely no plastic screen in place, it is impossible to flush anything except urine down the urinal. I usu. don’t put anything solid in it myself. But people before me often put gum, cigarettes, etc. And these things never go down when I flush. Why is this?
As a beer drinker, I have spent almost a total full year of my life in front of urinals by my reckoning…
A cross section picture would help, but in a nutshell, there is not enough water coming down from the top to force everything out of the small collector area to shoot it out to the sewer pipes. Very few urinals let more than a small cascade of water down into the s-shaped configuration.
If you wish to experiment to see what I am trying to convey, find a drain in your house where you can see the standing water in the s-trap. Put a cigarette but in and slowly pour twenty gallons of water in. The water will flow out of the other side of the s-trap but the butt will stay floating on it’s side. Likewise, a piece of gum will sit on the bottom. If you dumped a five gallon bucket full of water in, I assure you the gum and butts would whoosh out.
I assume the urinal designers thought saving water is better than an uncontaminated urinal.