# Two questions about European plumbing **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2023, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526 "2023-07-25T08:29:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/21 "2023-07-25T16:31:13Z")
> [@jjakucyk](#): > > > [@veryfrank](#): > > > > two separate faucets, one for hot and one for cold > > This was common in the US until about the 1930s. My 1925 house has this arrangement in the bathroom sink. I’ve gotten used to it. In the summer like now, the water flowing from the cold tap registers 84 degrees on my Thermapen thermometer. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/22 "2023-07-25T16:36:43Z")
In most places urinating against a church wall would be considered blasphemous. The St. Catherine Chuch in Brussels has a pissoir where you piss against the churches’ north wall. I very much try to do so every time I am near that church. That is the kind of recommendation I was thinking of. No picture, but [cite](https://www.lonelyplanet.com/belgium/brussels/grand-place-ilot-sacre-1342453/attractions/eglise-ste-catherine/a/poi-sig/404862/1342453). BTW, in that very same church, during the pandemic: [![](https://i.imgur.com/eCYVPzV.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/eCYVPzV.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/23 "2023-07-25T16:50:08Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > They had two separate rooms, one with a toilet and sink, and one with the shower, at opposite ends of the apartment. I’ve never lived anyplace where one couldn’t touch the shower from the toilet, so this stumped me. Just the opposite in a hotel in Florence… once you got past the idea that the hotel was some business that bought only one floor of a multi-storey building (complete with beam-me-up tiny elevator) they’d installed modern toilets and a shower. There was no shower stall or curtain, or even a lip - the shower was the two feet or so beside the toilet. The whole room was tiled, but there was no provision to avoid spraying the toilet and the roll of toilet paper. I took it off the roller and put it up high. Also a bad design, the water seeped toward the doorway. I think it was Neal Stepehenson who has a character contemplating that the same sort of tech and industry to produce it emerged in separate areas about the same time, so things we think of as “normal” would be their different design in those other countries, rather than direct copies of what we see. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > For example, I noticed that the shopping carts at Tesco in the UK In Australia, when you are finished with your shopping cart in the parking lot, you put it in the stall marked “trolley park”. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/24 "2023-07-25T17:07:48Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > the shopping carts at Tesco in the UK (and at IKEA in the US) have all four wheels able to spin about a vertical axis, Unless you’ve got the one that jams. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/25 "2023-07-25T17:24:50Z")
That occurs in the US, too. More than once I’ve gone back and exchanged a cart with one wheel that didn’t swivel and/or turn freely. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/26 "2023-07-26T00:43:20Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > So you went to Europe for three weeks and what surprised you the most was inside the toilet in your hotel room? Where did I say that? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/27 "2023-07-26T04:21:10Z")
The plumbing surprise I had in Ireland was that the drains for the bathroom were on the outside of the house, on the exterior wslk. That wouldn’t work where I live, with temps below 0 Celsius from November to April. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/28 "2023-07-26T14:31:38Z")
I’m old enough to remember two-faucet systems being common in the US, especially in public restrooms. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/29 "2023-07-26T14:35:18Z")
This is why Britons laugh when Americans use “bathroom” as a euphemism. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/30 "2023-07-26T14:41:07Z")
I’m Canadian and tend to use “washroom.” When I lived in the states that was as much a giveaway as the way I pronouced my "o"s was. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/31 "2023-07-26T19:11:19Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > The plumbing surprise I had in Ireland was that the drains for the bathroom were on the outside of the house, on the exterior wslk. That wouldn’t work where I live, with temps below 0 Celsius from November to April. I remember seeing this on older buildings in London, too. Same idea as electrical wires being run in couduits mounted on the wall - simplest retrofit. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/32 "2023-07-26T19:29:48Z")
> [@jjakucyk](#): > > the two separate taps allowed you to meter out hot or cold water to get the right temperature > > … > > This was born of an era where (I am theorizing) you didn’t necessarily trust drinking straight out of a stream of water, or putting your hand into a stream of water, you’d want to see it first to make sure there wasn’t crud in it, or that it wasn’t too hot or too cold. Specifically in the UK, mains cold water is (and was) generally drinkable as it was. Hot water traditionally came from a hot water storage cylinder (heated by an electric immersion element or an indirect heat exchanger coil fed by a gas or oil fired boiler) - to maintain the pressure of the hot water in the cylinder, there was usually a cold header tank above it in the roof space. Often this tank was not covered - so dust, dirt, invertebrates and sometimes birds and rodents could fall in there and die, but that was sort of OK because nobody drank the hot water - ‘you don’t drink the hot water because of this, but because you don’t drink the water, we don’t need to change this’, was the sort of rationale. I’m not going to defend any of that, but that’s what it was. Many houses still have this configuration of plumbing. Mine does, in fact. The house is older than the plumbing, but the plumbing is also very old. Mixer taps were originally not used because it was illegal to connect mains cold water to anything else, in case a drop in mains pressure caused the local (possibly contaminated) stored water to be siphoned back into the mains pipes. It still is illegal actually, but the problem is solved by check valves nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/33 "2023-07-26T21:37:53Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > They also make a very good wine or beer cooler if you fill it with water and ice! I hope you were joking here! 🤮 Of course, my dog thinks the toilet is the absolute best place to get a fresh drink of water. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2023, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/34 "2023-07-28T20:12:39Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > European and UK plumbing has baffled me ever since my first visit there. First time in London, I was staying with friends in their flat in Streatham. They had two separate rooms, one with a toilet and sink, and one with the shower, at opposite ends of the apartment. I’ve never lived anyplace where one couldn’t touch the shower from the toilet, so this stumped me. In 1970-71, I lived for a year in (a small suburb of) the town of Fribourg, Switzerland in a brand new building (in fact they were finishing the garage as we moved in) that had separate rooms for toilet and tub. The room with the toilet had a washstand, but cold water only. So even 50 years ago, they would have thought this reasonable. There was no shower. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2023, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/35 "2023-07-28T22:00:06Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > He said something to the effect of “When Churchill traveled to the U.S, he was so amazed at how water came out of one faucet, he wrote about it in his memoirs!” Huh–this is actually _almost_ true, except that he was visiting Moscow! > **[The Hinge of Fate](https://books.google.com/books?id=m4KpV6XAbZsC&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA429&dq=%22mingled%2Bto%2Bexactly%2Bthe%2Btemperature%2Bone%2Bdesired%22&hl=en)** > > The British prime minister's dramatic account of how the Allies turned the tide of World War II.In the first half of the book, Winston Churchill describes the fearful period in which the Germans threaten to overwhelm the Red Army, Rommel dominates... [![](https://i.imgur.com/E1ni6py.png) ](https://i.imgur.com/E1ni6py.png) He was also clearly impressed with washing one’s hands in the flowing water as opposed to a full basin. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2023, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/36 "2023-07-29T21:20:28Z")
I can confirm this is standard, and I don’t think there is much possibility of freezing even in the coldest conditions. The residence time of waste water in the soil pipe is extremely short as it falls vertically down to below ground level to join the sewer line. And it regularly gets flushed out with warm drain water from the shower, bath or bathroom sink, which would effectively deal with any layer of ice starting to build up on the inside of the pipe. It occurs to me though that the condensate line from the heat pump, which runs horizontally with a very slight fall before teeing into the soil pipe, may be at risk of freezing. Perhaps the same defrosting cycle that prevents the evaporator from freezing delivers warmish water to the condensate line. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2023, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/37 "2023-07-29T21:24:37Z")
> [@jjakucyk](#): > > the two separate taps allowed you to meter out hot or cold water to get the right temperature. This wastes a ton of water, This remark surprised me. Where I come from, it is leaving the taps running down an open drain that is considered to be wasteful of water (especially hot water). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2023, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/38 "2023-07-29T21:30:02Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > I can confirm this is standard, and I don’t think there is much possibility of freezing even in the coldest conditions. The residence time of waste water in the soil pipe is extremely short as it falls vertically down to below ground level to join the sewer line. Where I live, the sewer lines have to be below the frost line (+6 feet) to avoid having the sewer lines freeze. If we had outdoor drains, even if the waste water didn’t freeze in the drains on the outside of the house, the sewer lines would be above the frost line, so there would be freezing in the sewer lines, which then would cause back-ups of frozen waste in the outdoor drains. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2023, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/39 "2023-07-29T21:41:20Z")
I’m pretty certain that filling a basin uses more water. Similarly a shower uses less than a bath. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526/40 "2023-07-29T22:22:52Z")
Depends on the shower. We put in a power shower and that thing drained the hot water tank in no time. Felt amazing though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-european-plumbing/987526.md?page=3)