I mean, what’s wrong with having a simple gravity-drained hole? Why don’t all urinals function without water?
The main function of water is not to give your waste a comfy pool to swim around in. Water keeps sewer fumes and smells from coming up through the hole.
As I understand it, waterless urinals use a type of oil which urine will pass through, sealing the soiled water from air. As even sven said, its all about keeping your sewer behind the curtains.
Yeah, we’ve got them here. The oil prevents the awful stank of urine from permeating everything. As a purveyor of odiferous pee, in my experience, they work pretty well.
I don’t want your customer list or nuttin’, but just who do you sell this to?
What’s a waterless urinal? A ceramic-plated outhouse?
What are you guys talking about? Maybe they just haven’t reached the NY/NJ area yet?
I’ve used the, They still smell.
They have reached Citi Field in Queens, according to this article in today’s Times.
I’ve seen these recently at a local public washroom. Whenever I’m there I think that I should look it up to see how they work, but always forget when I’m not standing in front of it. Thank you for reminding me.
Interesting concept, but I wonder what it is like to clean out after the urine has been sitting there fermenting for the day. I would think that with the addition of new warm pee, the bacteria would be quite comfy.
Odd.
Can the oil catch fire if somebody tries to light it?
With a normal urinal, urinanic cristals from on the drain line. And a normal urinal has water to dilute and wash away the deposits somewhat. With the water less urinal I think over time it will require changing the main drain lines.
Anyway with the low flush urinals drain problems are more common.
Doctor: Does your urine burn?
HD: No, but …
We have them where I work. They are a great improvement on the old-piss-in-a-bucket technology.
First, they look just like a real urinal, so you’ll never guess where that awful stench is coming from. It’s coming form the day old urine all around the inside of the thing that does not get washed off because there’s no water!
Secondly, they use “technology”. Sez so right inside. It’s basically a dry urinal with an oil-filled cartridge in the hole. Oil lighter than water, water goes down, oil stays on top to keep out smells.
Thirdly, when the technology fails (meaning the blue oil leaks out) you can still keep pissing. That is, if you don’t mind splashes of blue all over your trousers. Before long you have what amounts to a porcelain bucket of piss - yellow with pretty blue dots of oil floating around.
It took about a month for them to refit the senior executive bathrooms to regular urinals. The rest of us schlubs get to live with the smell so our building can get a good “green” rating.
Thanks for the links, Ichbin Dubist. Sounds pretty weird. I can’t wait. :dubious:
Local plumbers union in Philadelphia raised such a stink when waterless urinals were put into a new high rise that someone caved and let them install plumbing just in case it was needed.
Water does a couple things. As noted, it helps act as a trap to prevent the entry of sewer gas into the living area. Second, by flushing even a urinal with water, you help remove the splashed about urine in the urinal, reducing the smell of stale urine.
They are advantageous because without flushing, they reduce water consumption, which is something we are seriously going to have to start thinking about doing whenever and whereever we can.
We have had waterless urinals in my office about two years. There was a stink problem at first. But it has been corrected. The only real problem for me has been that now I sometimes start to walk away from regular urinals without flushing.
They have them in this weird cowboy bar we sometimes frequent, and people still put cigarettes out in them with no apparent problems.
Bulls ain’t nothin’. You’re not a real cowboy till you can ride a flaming urinal to Boston and back.
“He Rode A Blazing Saddle…”