Well, since I finally broke down and became a subscriber in order to add my rude comments to the other rude comments on the message boards, I might as well contribute to updating the Dope archives as well.
While I was in Japan in the mid-90’s I and my fellow teacher-trainees noticed the urinals in the men’s restroom were built differently than they are in the USA. Since then, I’ve wondered just about every time I step up to a States-side urinal why American Standard (or perhaps a competitor) hasn’t figured out the basic physics that we noticed in Nagoya:
The back wall of the device is slightly convex, rather than concave.
The back wall of the device is angled, so the top is closer to the user.
The whole device is set lower, with the base near or at floor-level.
Now, mind you, this is a country where it is still considered perfectly acceptable for a man to stop along any street at a bush or the convex corner of a building and use it as a urinal. The salient point here is that any native Japanese male is going to be in the habit of pointing forward-and-down to water the bushes.
Both the angle and the convex design of the back wall help to encourage a stream to dissipate, flowing downward and outward from the center while diminishing in force as it moves away from the user. In contrast, American Standard’s vertically parabolic design will tend to dissipate some of the stream upward and when the portion that went up comes back down it interferes with more incoming stream, resulting in turbulence and splashback.
The vertical placement of the urinal just seems to make more sense. If you’re pointing forward-and-down, you don’t need the device to be very high in the first place, and having the top at sternum-height, as is common in The States, just seems to needlessly endanger the user’s shirt.
My colleagues and I noticed this difference in design on our first day of training – right after lunch, in fact. It still amazes me that nobody in this country has imported the superior design for use in public restrooms over here.
BTW: Have you noticed there’s been a lot of excretion-related reposts in the last few weeks?
It’s not completely unheard of. My dad was a contractor. When he was remodeling our house, Mom decided that she wanted a urinal in the children’s bathroom. She had some difficulty persuading the clerk at the hardware store, but she eventually got it.
Mom: I’d like to buy a urinal.
Clerk: You mean a bidet?
Mom: No, I mean a urinal.
Clerk: Here is a catalog of our bidets.
Mom: I have seven boys.
Clerk: Oh. You want a urinal.
Gentlemen, having been a paramedic and living in quarters with ‘the guys’, we girls would usually wind up having to clean up the wee little messes made by the boys. One man in particular, was incorrigible. No matter how the other people complained, poor guy just couldn’t hit his mark. So…one day I took him aside and gently, but firmly explained the following; when men splash on the floor or anywhere else beside the intended receptacle, women usually think one of the following thoughts…either the poor guy is too dumb to know better, or ‘it’ is too short to reach the pot…he never left his mess on the floor again.
Cecil blames poor aim for the swampy floors of male washrooms. That’s part of it certainly but far from the whole story. The other culprit is the prostate gland. Many men as they advance into middle-age and beyond will feel the effects of the growth of this little bugger, which can expand until it starts to interfere with urine flow. One of the first signs is an after-trickle which can catch you out even when you think you’ve shaken yourself completely dry. This tends to end up either on the washroom floor or running down the inside-leg of the trouser. I speak from bitter experience!
I just want to add that some of the older bathrooms in the Pentagon (probably prior to all the remodeling) had these awesome urinals that, while not strictly conical, had the same effect as peeing into a giant upside down traffic cone. I’m sure they were ancient, as a lot of them had been replaced by the standard splash-masters, but I always opted for them when I could. You cannot splash on yourself when you’re peeing into a traffic cone. I’m not sure why that never became the standard.
I did a google image search on “Japanese urinal”. Couldn’t tell about being convex back wall or sloping away, but they are set much lower to the floor, or even in the floor.
On downside of putting the thing so low is the sprinkle factor. A fluid stream remains continuous only so far, the breaks into droplets. Droplets splatter. That’s one reason to lift the seat before going in the toilet. No matter how good your aim, the sprinkle factor makes a shotgun effect rather than a rifle.
And guys? If you do happen to make a mess, wipe up after yourself. Nobody wants to sit down on a wet seat, especially a seat wet from piss, especially a seat wet with someone else’s piss.
I believe the entire original post is mixing two situations, with the ignored one much more important. Replace “urinal” with “toilet”, and the reference to host bathrooms makes sense. Do you aim for the water in the bowl, causing much noise and splashing, or do you aim for the ring of bowl above the water and below the rim, a much more difficult but quieter and smoother result-- but with much worse consequences if you miss and hit the rim, spraying on your pants and surroundings.
And by the way, ladies, there are some physiological circumstances that can cause errant trajectory. Trust me, it’s even less fun for us. I’ve heard.
I don’t know how widespread this is, but in the last few years in Southern California a lot of “water free” urinals have been installed. (Are they really totally water free? How are they cleaned? I’d like to know, but I digress.) I noticed today that these urinals do have a convex back and are closer to the urinator at the top than the bottom. I don’t know if there’s only one brand but the only name I remember seeing is Falcon.
There were some old urinals in the student union at my university; they were large bowls filled with water which extended towards the user and narrowed as they did so, such that you could actually stand with one foot on either side of the bowl. These were pretty splash-free also. I was told that they had once upon a time been “female” urinals, dating to the time when women wore voluminous skirts but no underwear; the skirts could be hiked up and the women could hover easily above the bowl. I have no idea if this is true but I suspect not.
;)Surely not?;), but yeah, we tend to leave nothing unexplored here! Repeatedly. My personal favorite being the infamous “Am I Farting Holes In My Underwear?”
If you’re a guest in my home and find the need to urinate, and you find a urinal in the bathroom, feel free to stand. Otherwise sit the hell down. Noise and misplaced aim problem solved. And a big thank you for your consideration.
There are multiple sorts of urinals. There are long ones, usable by a group, with a constant trickle flush from a pipe running across the top. (I haven’t seen any of these new in many decades.) Then there are the vertical, single-user ones. They only run water while flushing, but there is usually a half-pint or so of water standing in the drain sink. I am unfamiliar with these “waterless” urinals.
Interesting. So the key is a fixture that fits in the bottom of the urinal that uses an oily liquid to make a “seal” layer on top of the urine. The urine flows down the urinal wall, down the cartridge, and sinks below the sealing fluid. The fluid acts as a “gas barrier” to prevent odors from emanating back into the room (very necessary).
The trap in the bottom of the urinal then functions normally, using urine and the sealing liquid to produce the required head to reach over the trap lip. Thus more liquid raises the fluid level in the trap, which then drains down the pipe. The sealing liquid is separated from the drain pipe, so it doesn’t just wash away.
Well, you don’t expect ME to do something as complicated a quick google search, do you? :rolleyes:
These are very common now in public venues–I can’t say I’ve made a proper survey, but you see them at museums and sports arenas. If they really save a lot of water, great, because Southern California needs it. There’s always a plaque that claims the urinal saves “up to 40,000 gallons a year”–I’m skeptical, but even at much lower numbers they must pay for themselves quickly.
Another side issue, we installed ultra-low-flush toilets in out house (1.2 gpf) because we needed new toilets anyway and our city subsidizes the low-flow variety. I was afraid they wouldn’t work well but they really do–as well as any other toilet, and much better than the ancient toilets we had–at 6 (!!!) gpf. (Really less because I fiddled with the floaters, but still…with leakage and sometimes constant running…).
Repeatedly. My personal favorite being the infamous “Am I Farting Holes In My Underwear?”
