Indoor plumbing without electricity

Discussion in 'Research' started by Lea`Brooks, May 21, 2016.

  1. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    What about the person living next to a river and having a water wheel that runs the pump?
     
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  2. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    You are wasting your time, I'm positive I know who you arguing with... and you can't win an argument that involves anything medicine related.

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    Ya'll are arguing two different points.

    @GingerCoffee - Your argument is based around the problems caused by early cities, where disease became a huge issue. There were no where near that many deaths due to disease before cities became that large.

    @doggiedude - Your argument is based around when people first ran into a monolith and decided a bone could be used as a weapon. We didn't have to worry about contaminants because we hadn't done horrible things to where we lived yet.

    Chances are i did nothing here except throw in in some fuel, flan the flames, and walk away thinking i made the world a better place, but i had to try :)
     
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  4. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    Well I think the answer is pretty simple, you don't put sewage in the same water source you use to drink and bathe? You just shit in the water that flows downstream to your neighbor. :)
     
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  5. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Perfect!!

    My MC is actually the queen, so she has plenty of servants. And I just read that a hand pump can work as deep as 350 feet. So if one pump brings the water up to ground level, and the other brings it up another few floors, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

    Using this instead. :D It has everything I need -- only rich people can afford it, the water is still boiled and treated, and the maids don't have to lug pots of water up the stairs. Perfect! Thanks so much!
     
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  6. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Yay!
     
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  7. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Not upset, just enthusiastically vested in correcting medical misinformation. It's my second hobby after writing.

    [sidetrack - Ginger's mission] Non-evidence based medical beliefs suck up billions of dollars in the US market alone and the spread of false information about medical care (quite often by word of mouth) is responsible for an untold volume of needless morbidity and mortality. I just hate to see false beliefs perpetuated on social media.

    It's nothing personal. You shouldn't take it that way. I'm a perpetual corrector of false information when it comes to my area of expertise.

    You said "Waterborne bacteria are not normally found in rain water or water that is moving rapidly. ..." and someone might have believed that was true. That's dangerous to leave uncorrected.

    Then you said, "humans survived without antibiotics or boiling water without dropping dead," and that is also problematic. The next world catastrophe we are facing may not be a new virus, it's possibly going to be the spread of antibiotic resistance. And if we could just get potable water to the large sections of the world that don't have it childhood mortality would significantly decline.

    Sorry. Not intending to offend. [/sidetrack]
     
  8. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    About this part, I too have drunk from many a wilderness water source. I'm also an advocate of know before you go, and there are plenty of places I've camped where I used iodine and filters.

    If one knows the area is free of giardia, then one can drink from small streams people are not likely to have contaminated. But "rapidly flowing" is not the criteria.

    Rather than having a blanket attitude we shouldn't be such wooss, it's best to understand how infectious diseases are transmitted and be more selective in what one does and doesn't avoid.

    "I didn't die" is problematic because those who did are not here to tell us. :bigconfused: ;)
     
  9. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Actually, not exactly, but I'll stop belaboring this.

    I'm afraid microorganisms have always been at the top of the food chain. Though you are correct that small bands of people who remain isolated are less likely to suffer many pathogens spreading among them.

    Yep. :-D
     
  10. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    If you want to get even more creative:
    South Africa: The Play Pump - Turning water into child's play

    It was a failed project because repairing it became an issue, but still, what a great idea using playgrounds as sources of energy.
     
  11. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    Hey, that's really cool!
    I had to pack out a guy who did that once. He'd been backpacking for a week with his buddies, they all brought filters, but he said he didn't need one.

    When we got the call he'd had diarrhea for three days, and was so dehydrated he couldn't walk. We loaded him up with anti-diarrhea suppositories and stayed with him for a couple of hours. He managed to hold down his fluids, but the weather was getting bad and he wanted off the mountain, so we loaded him up and packed him out. We'd carry him on the stretcher for a bit, and then he'd have to hop off after an hour or so, and just shit up a storm in the bushes. So then we'd stick more pills up his ass, load him up with a fluid IV and keep going.

    I think it took about 14 hours to get him out, while soaked his socks with his own shit, and spent the whole time on a stretcher in delirious pain.

    I had a friend who was a hunting guide, brought out this guy from Florida. They were up in the Rockies, hiking near a stream. The guy leaps off the trail so he can guzzle up the water, talking about how clean and clear it is. My friend is telling him all about giardia and beaver fever, and the guy is telling him, "It's fine the water is moving."
    My friend is like, "You've clearly never been in the mountains before, but whatever. You're paying my bill, even if SAR has to come."
    They hike up the trail 25 feet, to find a dead dear rotting in the river. It's neck had broke, maybe a couple of hours old. They'd chased off some scavenger, though. Something had been eating it, and it's entrails were exposed, bleeding into the water.
    My friend said his client spent about 15 minutes throwing up. I can't remember if stuck on the trail, but I'm pretty sure the Florida guy just decided to go home.

    Final thought: I have seen deer, moose, bear, and buffalo; all wander out into the middle of a stream, and take a giant steaming crap directly into the water.

    But sure, that fact that you've never gotten sick is proof that we all live in plastic.
     
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  12. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Maybe that's my problem, I have a distorted view of the world from seeing the worst infections.
     
  13. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    We all have distorted views, the best we can do is try and understand what the other person is trying to say.
    Also, don't hit on girls that obviously have boyfriends in the bar, that one may have distorted my view in an irreparable manner.
     
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  14. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    :D
     
  15. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    I grew up in a house in a small town that had indoor plumbing independent of electricity. Our well was (oddly enough) uphill of our house and so our plumbing was gravity-fed.
     
  16. JoetheLion

    JoetheLion Member

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    During the mid to late 19th century there were a couple of ways you could heat large quantities water in a domestic environment that didn't require electricity. Gas powered geysers were used in early bathrooms (the first ones were pretty dangerous and could explode if not properly maintained. Boiling water and hot metal flying about. Nasty), and another was a back boiler, which was built behind, and heated by, the kitchen range. Back boilers were still in use in some rural areas here in the UK right up until the 1970s. The farm cottage two doors up from my parents house had one.
     
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  17. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I think the "rule" has to be supplemented a bit. It is more likely than not that you won't get sick if you're out in the wilderness and drink water from a source like a mountain stream above certain areas. However, because the risk is so easy to address, it makes sense these days to do it. If the stream is below the point of highly-traveled areas, like camp sites or herds of animals that are kept in the area, etc., then it really makes sense to treat or filter it because the risk the water will have a problem is higher. If you're above those areas, you probably (note the word) don't have much to worry about. But why take the risk, regardless?

    I agree, though, that if natural water sources that haven't been artificially impacted, like streams above the areas of campgrounds, herds, and the like, were a substantial threat, human history would have been quite different. When I was growing up, and in college, we hiked and camped in Colorado and California a lot, and at the time we never thought twice about drinking from streams. Never became sick. But we were well away from trafficked areas, away from farm animals, and the like. If you're in those areas the risk of getting sick is quite small, though I wouldn't say non-existent.
     
  18. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I like @ChickenFreak's idea. The other way, similar to @doggiedude but not requiring tanks on a roof, is similar to what the Maya did. They simply worked with gravity and natural water sources. They had conduits for running water, some of which appear to have built up enough water pressure to run a fountain. That kind of pressure coming into a properly-piped house could certainly deliver water. If you had enough pressure coming in, you could deliver it to the third floor. I believe one of the Maya sites (Palenque, I think) fed the system off underground springs, and they had a fairly sophisticated way of dealing with that water. No electricity, batteries, or gas needed.
     
  19. JLT

    JLT Contributor Contributor

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    Of which the funniest write-up had to be this:

    http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1133/how-did-fountains-work-before-the-invention-of-electric-pumps

    Does your technology include the possibility of windmills? They were all over the place in pre-electrification America, particularly in the West where gravity or artesian wells couldn't be counted on.

    And there are non-electric ways of purifying water, such as solar heating. You can find more information by Googling the subject.
     
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  20. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    You don't have to go back to Roman times. Just go back to wealthy homes in the USA in the mid to late 19th century. Before electricity. Indoor plumbing and fixtures like showers and bathtubs existed, and water was heated by conventional means, usually attached to large cookstoves in the kitchen.

    http://www.livescience.com/17972-1850s-bathroom-preserved.html

    As part of research for my novel, I obtained the Dover edition copy of Mott's Illustrated Catalog of Victorian Plumbing Fixtures. This was originally published in 1888. It's an excellent resource, and as with all Dover books, will be extremely affordable, especially if you go for a used copy.

    There was a discussion of this issue on another site I just discovered. This was a useful contribution, and I have copies of both of the catalogues mentioned.


     
    Last edited: May 25, 2016
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  21. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    How does a folding bathtub work?

    Edit:
    Possibly like this thing?
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2016
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  22. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Great stuff, @Jack Asher ! I've never seen a photo of an actual folding tub before. Only the drawings. What a contraption. My immediate question (besides what is it doing in that modern kitchen ...okay the wood paneling matches, but....) is how do you empty it? I suppose if you have 'water works' you would just pull the plug and it would go down the drain? But if it folds up, where IS the drain? Would be great to see more photos of the interior, etc.

    I love old Victorian contraptions. They are many indeed.
     
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  23. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Folding tubs, who knew? :p
     
  24. JoetheLion

    JoetheLion Member

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    Wow, and I see it has a built in gas powered geyser. No obvious holes for drainage, I guess it empties by tipping it up, which must require a bit of muscle. Probably why they're no longer a thing.
     
  25. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    I'm thinking a "geyser" is a hot water heater?
     

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