When designing a bathroom layout, it is essential to consider factors such as the size of the space, function over form, and the functionality of all elements. A bathroom layout should focus on the toilet, maximization of space, and the functionality of all elements. Tools like RoomSketcher, Cedreo, Floorplanner, Planner5D, SketchUp, and Foyr Neo can be used to help create a timeless bathroom design.
Tiny bathroom remodel ideas can be achieved by using a corner sink and wall cistern to save space. A wet room can also be used in tight areas. The National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) offers best practices for bathroom design, including planning guidelines to help interior designers create bathrooms that are both functional and stylish.
The lighting scheme plays a crucial role in the overall mood and atmosphere of the bathroom, so it should be decided before signing off any designs. The position of the toilet, usually determined by soil pipe, should also be considered. A step-by-step guide to planning, designing, and building your new bathroom can save time, money, and hassle.
When designing a small bathroom, it is essential to focus on the essentials, such as sacrificing a bath for a shower and a vanity unit for a wall-hung basin. Good design ensures that the entry door doesn’t bump into the shower door or cabinet doors or drawers.
Nearly any bathroom layout plan fits into one of these 15 basic plan types. Assuming the room caters to couples, a fair-sized clear area around the basin should be provided for layout. The bathroom should also reflect its purpose and functionality.
📹 Toilets Need to Change
How often do you think about your toilet or toilet room? I’m guessing not too often…unless there’s a problem. It’s true that not much …
📹 The ANSI Measurement Standard and the Six Sketches that dictate square footage.
A look inside the newest Update of the ANSI Standard. The six sketches that rule an industry.
My wife works for a large plumbing supply and gets great employee discounts. She came home one day with a Toto (Japanese brand) bidet seat. At first I dismissed it as something we don’t need and a waste of money, but it is actually amazing. When I now use a public facility I find myself thinking “how primitive” as I rub away with a piece of dry sandpaper.
One thing about Japanese toilets I appreciate the most in homes, is the seperation of spaces. You have a room specifically for the toilet, and an adjacent connected room for the shower & bath, both can be accessed from the hallway or the connected room. And even further, the entirety of the shower & bath room is built so that the entire surface of the room is water resistance so you can shower anywhere within that room, which makes showering and bathing your children much easier, and you can save water by having multiple people shower / bathe at the same time.
Finally, someone is publicly discussing the toilet. My funniest memory of architecture school some 35 years ago was a 5 week journey in architectural history about the toilet and how ludicrous most design standards are…and yes…how opposite it is to how the human body best gets rid of the crud. Designers unit! Make a better bathroom already.
Is there a code for faucet length? It’s infuriating to me when after using the restroom I go to wash my hands, like a normal person, and the stream of water is 2 inches from the edge of the sink. It’s insane to me that is even allowed, you’re supposed to clean your hands there, not re-contaminated it with something else.
I went to school with a girl, let’s call her ‘Kate’ (can’t remember her first name! It was a while back!) her full name was ‘Kate’ Crapper, her great great great great ( . . . . ) grandfather was Thomas Crapper, and although he didn’t quite invent the toilet, he redesigned, improved and steered the already existing water closet towards what it is now the modern toilet (which still gets called ‘the crapper’ in places like the UK and Australia).
The dumbest thing about most US home bathrooms is why does shower, toilet and sink are in one room? I been to my brother’s apartment in Japan. The toilet, shower/tub, and sink are separate. Basically it’s laid out like this. In a small hallway the Washing machine is on the left, the sink in the center. The shower/tub to right, with the toilet in its own little room next to it. No he didn’t have a fancy Japanese Bidet toilet). Japanese toilets actually have a small sink on them so you can rinse your hands with the water that is flushing the toilet. If he was taking a shower, I could use the toilet. Heck if both shower, toilet are in use, I could still use the main sink to brush teeth. But that would make too much sense. In Murica if someone in your family is taking a shower and you need to use toilet real bad. Well tough luck.
Here in my city ( Curitiba – Brazil) there is a very famous weird building called Suite Vollard from 2004. The kitchen, the bathroom, fireplace and a/c are located in the middle of it, and all the rest of the apartment spins around with motors that take only 1 hour for a complete spin (each floor is independent and had voice control, 20 years ago!). This would made possible having sun light in everyroom, because here is a very humid and cold city. Sadly, the apartment was to expensive and no one ever lived there and the building was auctioned or something. I am architect too, love your articles🇧🇷
As an owner of a standard western toilet, a Japanese style bidet toilet and a composting toilet, I miss the bidet when I’m at my shack and use my composting toilet, where toilet paper is normal. When using the bidet toilet I miss the eco friendly and water saving nature of the composting toilet, and the standard toilet just has none of the benefits of the other two.
One aspect that doesn’t come up in the article is where the toilet is placed. I’ve always found it strange that in the U.S. they apparently don’t think at all about placing the toilet not in the bathroom, but in its own little room. There seem to be country-specific differences here. In some European countries this is common/widespread and it seems to me the case also in Japan. For me, this is the far more pleasant variant, both in terms of smell, but also because the bathroom remains free for other people to use. The other US-specific obsession is of course the number of bathrooms. I don’t know of any European country where anyone thinks every bedroom needs its own bathroom.
I’m a drafstman in the US who lived in Japan for some time. Early in my career when I thought construction and design was about improving quality of life and creating great living spaces, I often, though always unsuccessfully, pushed for Japanese style dedicated toilet closets and shower rooms, zero visibility public restroom stalls with a knee wall behind the toilet to place your belongings, and spec’ed out for japanese toilet and washlet seats when it made sense. It really pains me to have to design uncomfortable bathrooms for private and public spaces just for convention’s sake
Europe’s commercial toilets typically have a button to press for a flush. These are usually higher above the typical American toilet which is low and to the side. Also, Europe uses the vacuum assist for much reduced clogging. Last, most European toilets have a two button arrangement, one for urine that uses less water and the other with more water for solid waste. Built-in bidets are common, even in many commercial toilets. No matter where you go in the US or Europe, bathrooms are too dirty with too little cleaning, although Europe’s are a bit cleaner. They are better maintained perhaps because they charge for their use.
I expect to sit down on a toilet that looks and feels more or less like the one I’m using now. If the internals are different, I’m OK with that as long as it doesn’t affect what I have to do. The one exception I would make is something I learned from travel to Italy. That is washing (in a bidet), rather than wiping. In Italy, the bidet is a separate fixture, but I’m find with it being combined in the same fixture as the toilet, especially given that it would need to be installed in existing spaces. It actually uses less water than toilet paper, as manufacturing paper is a very water-intensive process. Coaxing Americans off of toilet paper would be a gradual process, but it can be done. Also, for quite some time, Americans will want to use paper after using the bidet, not fully trusting the new method.
Public toilets in the United States are barbaric with the nasty cubicles with little privacy. The gaps on the doors, the locks that give no indication to those outside if the toilet is occupied or not. The 18 inch gap at the bottom and other undignified issues. Being very pee shy, it makes using public toilets difficult.
I’ve always thought Buckminster Fuller was a bit of a loon, but heating an entire womb-like Dymaxion bathroom to body temperature really takes the cake. If he’d ever done real experiments in ergonomics, he’d have realized the upper limit of comfort is about 86°F/30°C and ideally several degrees lower. Unless he really enjoyed the smell of his own waste, I also hope that confined space came with powerful extraction ventilation.
America needs a redesign on home bathrooms altogether! But how to do it without it looking pretentious..lmao Side note, this makes me think about bathtubs here in the states. Why do we accept tubs that are short and narrow? Why don’t we have a soak tub that can go up to the neck or shoulders when we sit in it? Make Bathrooms Enjoyable Again!
Thank you for covering this subject. Thinking about history, I’ve always considered waste management through plumbing has allowed for great human advances. It was great to hear about ideas from buckmaster Fuller Corbu and others. The Japanese and particularly the Toto company seem to be the real innovators of toilets these days, from the well-known bidet seats to being the first ones to come up with a toilet that would work on only 1.6 gallons and meet the efficiency requirements introduced in the ’90s. I will remember the shelves in the German toilets when I visited there in 1988, which I coin the scheißeshelf. However according to the Feli From Germany website these are starting to go away.
I’m a plumbing & fire fighting engineer. I currently design plumbing systems for small scale projects in the US. I still do not comprehend why you guys DON’T provide a jet handspray adjacent to the water closet to clean your butt hole, instead of toilet paper. Like, you easily have the resources to do that, but you choose to use toilet paper instead? 🤦♂🤦♀🤦
I need 3 upgrades to toilets as they are: – reduced maintenance / no skid marks – no splashing when dropping one – backup mechanisms to keep it work during water and power outages and all this in the most cost effective manner, no fancy extras needed and it’s literally made to eat sht, no need for it to look good XD
The European public sidewalk pay toilets had a bad outcome for my sister-in-law when visiting Rome. After a single use, the door locks shut, sprays of water on the inside clean everything up for the next customer. She didn’t know about that function, darted into one as a person left so as to save the fee. The door locks, the cleaning cycle engages! She laughs about it now, back then, not so much!!
No, I’m afraid you haven’t convinced me at all, especially with your layman’s ideas about wastewater treatment. Centralised wastewater treatment is far more cost effective than decentralised, and the sludge generated is already used for fertiliser, so you’re not getting any benefit by switching to a composting toilet. How would a composting toilet work in a city anyway? It’s a nice solution for an off grid toilet system, not a serious challenger to a centralised sewer system. There are also stricter and stricter standards regarding water quality, and how would you enforce these with wastewater treatment decentralised down to the household scale? Regardless of your poor take on wastewater treatment, you have essentially made no argument in this article. All you have done is lay out the fact that toilets have evolved over time, and made the inflammatory claim that “Toilets Need to Change”. Why? What needs to change about them? What are the problems with the current system, and what are some proposed solutions to said problems? How do you expect to convince people to accept your changes? As a persuasive article, this has utterly failed to convince me that the idea even needs to be considered.
One: STOP Using the Word Differently Abled! I am DISABLED and my Disabilities are Part of my life! Two: Not everyone can squat over a toilet especially if they are DISABLED and so they need to have access to something that will give them the ability to use the restroom safely. Three: The minim standards the ADA sets for restrooms are way too small for many wheelchairs and for example I have a tray that I have on my chair that I use and when I go into a restroom in public I have nowhere to put my tray so I can safely transfer to the toilet. I have to look for a single-use restroom with the toilet and sink that is designed for only one person not all of the stalls lined up. Most of those have a place like a shelf where I can place my tray so I can go over and transfer to the toilet and use the restroom then I can transfer to my chair. After that, I can go directly to the sink where I can gain Access to the sink where I can reach it and wash my hands. After this, I can dry my and then place my tray on my chair and I am clean, When I have to use a restroom that has a line of stalls I have to put my tray back on my chair with dirty hands then I can’t access the sink to wash my hands. Many different people with DISABILITIES have many different Access Issues and Needs and what most people think is good Access is not very good for many. There are many changes that need to be made and they needed to be made YESTERDAY!
I’m not so convinced that the mixing of human “waste” and water is sanitary. It splashes, vapourizes, and smells and sounds nasty. People often look at composting toilets as dirty, but not all of them are. Dry toilets that separate liquids from solids, don’t have a problem with smell. You can even get them in designer porcelain. There’s no splashing, no sounds, and any smell is easily removed with a quiet duct fan. There are even composting solutions that take several decades before needing emptying (eg. Clivus Multrum with composting worms). Some servicing is required, but it doesn’t have to be unsanitary if well designed. One drawback is that it’s not easily retrofitted, as it typically requires a container in the basement. But it can scale up. If you ever visit the Bronx Zoo, check out their toilets. It would be interesting to hear the story of how and why we ended up with water closets. Abby Rockefeller wrote an essay once, telling the story of how it came down to a choice between two camps. One camp saw human “waste” as a resource that should be collected at the source, processed and used as fertilizer. The other saw it as a problem that should be transported away with water to centralized treatment plants (“dilution is the solution”). We all know who won. It only becomes a problem when you mix urine and solids with water, creating nasty stinking sewage. Keep things separated, and it will be so much easier and sanitary to deal with. What we call waste is in fact an extremely valuable resource.
Biggest problem with current toilets is that since around 1979 they switched from using about 5 gallons per flush to using only 1.6gpf. To accomplish that economy the throat got narrower and the likelihood of clogging increased greatly. I’d like to see a return of the 5gpf toilets even if it would mean using gray water rather than drinking quality water in them
Until every toilet is adequately elongated and height adjustable (and includes a proper fitting lid for sealed flushing,) we will never know peace. Just kidding, but it kinda made me pause a moment in wonder. Then hit me near the end how one might consider things like Twitter as the public toilet equivalent for mankind online. The consumption of alll the internet is processed and purged into it. A necessary fixture, once it’s true function is realized.
I thought this article is going to be about future of toilets, mindblowing concepts that are eco-friendly, have intergrated bidet and extremely ergonomic (knees higher than hips), but it’s like history and some thought on present. Fillers filled with fillers. Like bachelor’s thesis. Misleading title, waste of time for me.
My partner and I live in the UK. Last summer, we went on holiday in Italy and decided to make it a road trip. As a result, we drove through quite a few countries in Europe along the route. We drove through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland, if memory serves me well. By the way, the alps are amazing. Anyway, during our long drive, we stopped at different service stations to go to the bathroom, grab a bite, etc. I can say, the toilets varied enormously, from country to country. From the dirtiest to the cleanest were as follows: Belgium. France. Italy. UK. Luxembourg. Switzerland. And, at number one. Germany. And, when I put Germany as the cleanest, let me stress, they are, BY FAR, the cleanest. Not only were they clean, they were immaculate. And, remember we’re talking about motorway service stations that reek of urine in the UK. The toilets in Germany are self cleaning. I couldn’t believe it when I saw my toilet cleaning itself when I entered the lock up. At first, I had no idea why the seat was moving around on its own. 🤣🤣Most European countries (apart from the UK, I think) charge you to use their toilets, Germany included. But, at least you get your money’s worth in Germany. Also, I’d like to add, Germany was the friendliest country we drove through.
problem with composting toilets is the passing of medications through the bowels. So much of those meds, vitamins, etc simply pass right through and then whatever we use that waste for (in a garden for example) would cause contamination of those items to then get into our food. I was a water and wastewater lab tech for many years and we only test to the billionth but these items get down to the trillionth.
I am in the Philippines where there are a variety of toilets, but all are lower to the floor as you sit on them, even the ‘American Standard’ offering in my master bathroom. Additionally while the Japanese definitely have the most tricked out bidets, hose mounted bidet sprayers, as well as units mounted under the toilet seat are ubiquitous where the more modest bucket and pail are no longer used, Even the way water flows into the toilet to evacuate the crap is different (and the bowls use far less standing water) here. The US toilets are not really seen anywhere else. I have traveled. In Europe you can find toilets with ledges allowing you to inspect your offerings before you flush. They also use less water in the bowl than do the US design.
In Australia our toilets are still wash down, have a low water level, don’t seem to clog as much as USA ones, I never heard of an Aussie toliet overflowing, don’t have a shelf like you showed for the Germany ones. We never went away from wash down to syphon toilets and they seem to work better and use less water that the modern USA toilet
The current trend in the UK is to fit low flush toilets to save water. Sounds great but there has been an increase in blocked toilets and that is because the low capacity in the flush simply doesn’t get everything cleared out of the pipes. As a result the pipes accumulate “material” inside and eventually they block. People then think that there is a problem with the way the WC’s were fitted. Many have realised that the best way to sort the issue is to set the water level to fill the cistern to a much higher level which defeats the idea of having a low flush toilet in the first place!It’s just another case of technology being changed to suit the current political agenda. The Heat pump is another example of building technology that isn’t fit for purpose but say that out loud in front of the “converted” (who are usually wearing 5 layers of clothing) and they will treat you like a war criminal.
We got our bathroom remodeled about 15 years ago. Great guy from the plumbing supply house sold us a toilet that was maybe a few inches higher off the ground and told us that we would appreciate it when we are older Both of us have arthritis and other things and seldom use the lower toilet in the powder room. Wish that I would have installed a receptacle between this toilet & vanity to supply power for one of the fancy Japanese things.
My gripe about s – toilets with limited water is you have to flush multiple times and plunge frequently, that piece of art the previous user left, greets you, smells, and visually hit you in the face when raising the lid, mainly they don’t hold the lever till it gurgle. Thomas Crapper was a salesman who put his name on someone else’s device. If you were of a middle eastern religion, you had to face a certain way, as well as enter the bathroom facing a certain way, also you didn’t use TP, you used sticks, to fling off Klingons.. its why they wear heavy cologne.. now there is a ass deodorant (Lume) geez, just after a poo spray came out 10 years ago.
Doesn’t it frustrate when in the middle of a long comment, the article ends and goes to the next? You loose your entire comment. So here goes again: 1. toilet numbers: I once assessed the toilet capacity between sessions in a large conference facility. The M was undersized by a factor of about 5, based on an observed turn around per urinal af about 90 seconds, and hand wash of about 5 minutes, then queues for the hand drier. Most people just walked past it rather than wait. The F was undersized by a factor of 10! So there’s a rethink needed here based on surveyed throughput times. Urinals: always need privacy/hygiene partitions between urinal stalls. No peeping and no splashing between! Disabled Person’s Toilets: a client once had to race out of a meeting as his colostomy bag came unstuck from his belly. Content poured out into his trousers. He raced for the DPT with his gear bag. He had to change, toss out the soiled underwear, wash his shirt, hang up his outer clothes, put his bag somewhere. There was no shelving and only one coat hook. DPTs need ample shelving, other disabilities require equipment and appliances related to toileting. He had to use vast amounts of paper towels in the process. The shelving needs to be about 18 inches deep, shelves at both wheelchair and standing heights. The rooms need at least two coat hooks of ample size also at wheelchair and standing heights; probably more! There also needs to be a call bell for assistance (or to summon medical aid). 2. The math of groups.
Even in rich countries like the US, low water use toilets (and low or zero water use urinals) are becoming increasingly important due to drought and climate change. Bidets got a moment in the sun in the US due to the pandemic. Finally, there is some small pushes for gender neutral bathrooms in public spaces. But, I wonder in what other ways bathrooms could be improved in the US. For example, self-contained water treatment might not be super relevant in most municipalities, but water treatment in the US does have issues with fat building and people flushing inappropriate solids. Could a semi-pretreated system help address these problems?
11:06 These are also really common at highway stops in Germany (Serway is what they’re callred iirc). These are some of the best public toilets out there imo, cus they’re pretty much always clean; something which can’t be said with every toilet. One issue is though is if somehow someone manages to poop on the rim and not into the bowl itself, I dont have to explain how that could get messy.
I’ve lived in Japan for about 20 years. Just recently built a house… prior to that, I thought the numerous functions on a toilet were just silly gimmicks, even the heated seats. Anyway, things like the sphincter wash (おしり) is really useful. However, I do have a warning! Don’t set the strength too high (強). Go for more low spray (低). Also, clinch your muscles in that area so you don’t get an enema.
I like your articles but if I can leave some critique, I feel like your academic side is shining through a bit too much. I feel like in the 3 minutes I’ve watched so far, you haven’t provided any information at all, it’s just a very flushed out introduction to toilets, which might be in place for an academic paper but on Youtube it’s just you and the viewer. We know what a toilet is. We’ve heard of different kinds of toilets. Let’s hear the interesting stuff faster
The current regulations on public toilet requirements are inadequate and outdated. It has been known for a long time that women are underserved while men are over served. The division of toilets based on gender is unnecessary. All toilets should be equally accessible and located in stalls that are far more private than current designs. The sink area can be open.
I once heard the story that the German figure of speach: “Ein Geschäft machen” in english: Making a business proposal comes from business talks on roman communal toilets where they often talked business. Further evidence to they story would be that “Ein Geschäft machen” can also be a slang for pooping. But to be honest I don’t know if it is true or not. But even if it isn’t, it’s a fun story.
The Romans did not clean up using a sponge at the end of a stick. That would be the equivalence of a future civilization finding our toilet and deducing we cleaned our bottoms with the toilet scrubber. Just like our scrubbers, the sponges were used to clean the toilets, not butts. They were humans just like us, not idiots.
I won’t bash innovation. however, i will argue that people need to consider local needs when they think about this. Not some global standardized “you can only have this” bologna. I live in the US. The west coast has driven water policy for our entire country for a long time now. I don;t live there. I understand they have water issues. They should indeed work on ways to conserve or otherwise improve those issues. I live somewhere that if we ran out of water, the world is probably over or something. Conserving water is a joke here. Protecting it from contamination is in the forefront. People talk about how new designs don;t work, we should reinvent the wheel, all this stuff. My 1974 baby blue kohler has never plugged on me once in 22 years of living in my current home. I replaced the float valve with a solid brass unit ten years ago. It works perfect. Sit height is about 3 inches higher then new ones. The bowl is bigger, probably bigger then the “elongated” new ones. AGAIN, there is no concern about water where I live. Why exactly should I worry about a new design, especially when so many new designs are terrible? I am always blown away with how our new technology and designs are supposed to be so innovative, and that we have progressed so far scientifically and yet we can’t design things that work, can;t be logical about implementation, regulate away good ideas for greed reasons, and so on and so forth. “We need to be more green!” Repair ALWAYS has a smaller footprint then replace when it comes to machines, but we have become a throw away society and use increasingly smaller “conservation” gains as justification to throw away items that would just be starting to be broken in a few decades ago.
Not the best title my dude. This is an interesting history of the toilet, but I don’t see any thesis regarding what is wrong with toilets currently nor what they should be next, other than a throwaway sentence at the end that they shouldn’t be an afterthought. The point of the article, which was presumably that “toilets need to change”, shouldn’t be an afterthought either.
Let us hope that we have some visionary bureaucrats in the city planning and bylaw enforcement to permit new developments and improvements in functional toilet designs to be put into use! Did I just say “VISIONARY BUREAUCRATS” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Like that will ever be a requirement of determining if the authority having jurisdiction is competent. You only need horse blinders on when reading the words of the code and the ability to think that common sense doesn’t exist when applying your interpretations. I had one health authority force me to remove the graspable edge tile around a swimming pool because because he said that knife edges were not permitted around an infinity pool. The infinity edge was 25cm wide at the top with a graspable edge on the 5 foot deep water side. A Ø2.5cm raised half circle. That was his call and others using the same code outside of his jurisdiction took no exception to having a safe graspable edge for people to hold onto. BTW: excellent content. I suspect that I may have added some inspiration for this in my last rant. Keep up the inspiring work!
Thomas Crapper (September 1836 to 27 January 1910) was an English plumber and businessman. He founded Thomas Crapper & Co in London, a plumbing equipment company. His notability with regard to toilets has often been overstated, mostly due to the publication in 1969 of a fictional biography by New Zealand satirist Wallace Reyburn. Still a funny name for a plumber though.
I have read far too many comments and am surprised that my bone of contention with the “modern” toilet has not been mentioned. All I want is a toilet that prevents the back-splash one receives when dropping a load. It is most unfortunate that our bodies’ sequence for releasing waste is backwards. We, generally, have to pee before we poop therefore, our anus or buttocks or both receive a urine-infused back-splash of water. Nasty! We can either have an invention (Bubbles forced to the surface to reduce or eliminate the poop-splash, perhaps?) or continue to flush twice, once after we pee and another at the completion of our business which defeats the water-saving features we, now, see in toilets, not to forget the initial flush before we sit on a public toilet to ensure we have a fresh, clean bowl of water at the beginning of our chore.
this is a nice history of the toilet. But IMO something is highly overlooked, the use of our most precious resource to flush “away” vital nutrients that could be reused. All this technology and science we have now why are we still using the outdated version of the toilet. Science has clearly found ways to reuse our waste which cuts down on the amount of resources needed to transport it and to filter it. There’s clear problems with the way we use our water for the amount of humans we have relying on it for their daily needs. Time to start shifting.
People talk about communal toilets like they only existed in ancient days. When I was in high school, not all that long ago, we played an away football game and the toilets for the away team were literally 20 feet from the lockers. No stalls, no dividers, no curtains, just toilets in a line sitting next to each other with the urinals behind them, so the toilets weren’t even against the wall. Did some of us on the team use the toilets while the rest of the team were lounging around waiting for the game… the answer is yes. It was an interesting experience.
You made no mention whatsoever of the ‘hole in the floor’ squat toilets that you get even in the Stade de France in Paris, or the arabic way of using water from a hose and hand instead of toilet paper. And the stupidity of having the washbasin outside the cubicle meaning that if your hands are covered in shit or germs, you have to touch loads of things before you get a chance to wash them. And I know what the shelf is for, but I’m sure many people don’t, and you didn’t explain it. Overall a rather limited perspective.
We think we wouldn’t use communal toilets for defecating today, but that’s actually what we still do. The cubicles aren’t enclosed at the top and bottom. Sight is only one of our senses. We still hear and smell ourselves and other people. There’s no mystery there. Especially if someone’s diet is a bit “spicy”. A blind user today is in exactly the same position as a blind Roman user. I think we worry too much about things we all do. That said, I’m glad we’ve moved on from a sponge on a stick!
The gut is said to work better, squatting (and I can anecdotally verify that for me at least, this seems to be the case). So probably the first improvement we need to our toilets is to at least make it possible to choose to squat, not sit. This is how an original “wild human” would’ve done things, so it makes sense that this is what we’re optimised for. And then there’s the rather obvious fact (when you just think about it) that washing is cleaner than wiping. At least making that possible would let people find out for themselves. The above two requirements could probably be achieved by the design of a new kind of “lid”? – One that facilitates what is for many people an awkward posture, just because we’re couch-adapted, now. It might need support rails, and “shallow squat support” for those not yet ready to do a full squat. A combined benefit of squatting and washing, both, is that the spot that needs to be cleaned when you’re down in a spot is quite small. The adjacent skin surfaces don’t get soiled. Most times the cleaning can be achieved with a very small quantity of water. (I used to wonder how people managed washing like this in a desert, and it’s simply a matter of the amount of water needed being less than you’d need to make a cup of tea, often.) I only use toilet paper these days when I have to, and don’t feel very clean when finished. I suppose this is just a kind of excess of fastidiousness in this one aspect of hygiene, but still, once you’ve gotten used to washing, you don’t generally want to go back to paper smearing.
I have certain…phobias?…about basin shapes. Maybe it’s just subjective aesthetics. For example, I strongly dislike deep sinks, or toilets. I much prefer gently sloped sides, though really wide or flat sink bottoms are verging on dumb. I also don’t like under-hung sinks, where the countertop comes over the sink lip. I don’t like “stuff” hanging in a toilet bowl – I find it really gross and off-putting – even tho I’ve discovered bidets and like them, I can’t stand seeing the nozzles. I think the greatest innovation has been the blue glow of the toilet nightlight. Partly for finding it in the night, but pools of light have always been comforting to me – street lights, parking lots, etc.
Brilliant is a scam. YouTube has a lot more educational content compared to Brilliant and it’s free. Furthermore, most people who sign up often still get charged additional months if they cancel. Also, Brilliant doesn’t treat content creators very well on their platforms. You basically paying a ton of money for a mediocre educational platform.
Composting toilets sound like a good idea, in theory. But who wants to go outside just to use one, or to have a giant box of decaying, eh, waste, in, or directly attached to, one’s house, no matter how good its positive ventilation system is. What we need are vacuum toilets, which would be integrated into a system that could also provide central vacuum ports for cleaning, and would direct all the waste into an outside or underground composting box. It would still seem a little “weird” to most home buyers, but a lot less weird than the sit-on-a-box composting toilets environmentalists have been pushing since the 1960s.
tip from an elektrican: place your fuse box close to your houses toilet(s) but not in anny wall witch comprises them. the complications betwen your elektrican and plummer is not worth the hazle at all. also NEVER bring a cord extention of anny kind to use in a bathroom. they are often seperatly insulated from the rest of the house and thus dangerus if a fault ocurs outside the bathroom. there is no sutch ting as a water-safe elektrical device water will and do condensate into EVERYTHING. just 1/10th of a degree tempature difrence and suficent time there will come water
The main thing that annoys me about US toilets vs European/UK is that they’re designed in a way where your waste hits the water directly, instead of hitting the bowl and sliding down. I HATE getting splashed, and it only ever happens in the US. Plus, peeing is so much louder in US toilets, it’s weird.
I am disabled. Don’t say “differently abled”. It’s a phrase that exists solely because able people think “disabled” is a dirty word, and I find it insulting to have the word “disabled” viewed that way. It’s part of the life I live. People shouldn’t dance around parts of my life. Same goes for all the similar words and phrases like “handicapable”.
I was like “oh hey maybe bathrooms don’t need to be the most unpleasant room ever that would be nice” until I heard the word “sustainability”. Not that I’m against sustainability in principle, just that the word has become so meaningless and usually involves making things not work as well as they used to.
As I’ve gotten older, I found my knees don’t work as well. A grab bar is a must. When we bought this home, we replaced the toilets. Fortunately, my daughter got one for me that’s high enough for adults and can flush almost anything. I’ve since bought a bidet seat for it. Why aren’t such conveniences common? We shouldn’t have to seek them out.
0:25 I hate that this myth is always perpetuated. These toilets are the design immediately in post-war Germany and disappeared in the 1970s. You won’t find them in any building of the last 40-50 years and I have not seen one since my childhood. Allegedly, these designs were chosen due to the position of the water pipes in post-war housing, but I do not know whether this was really the reason.
Bad enough that American public toilet stalls have huge gaps around them, allowing looky-loos a peek while you’re captive on the pot, and low-flow toilets that require plunging after nearly every use, but as a more mature woman–and all that goes with that–if you take away my bathroom privacy, you’re in for a fight! :face-orange-frowning:
With the Earth’s population going from about 1 billion people in 1900 ( when modern toilets were first used) to its current 8 billion, it is only logical that the World must develop a new & less water usable way to dispose of human waste! We can’t continue to ‘flush’ millions or billions of gallons of fresh water down the drain, just to flush the toilet!
Huh? what’s the point of this article? It feels like I’m just forced to listen to a university essay about the history of toilets. Lots of unnecessary references used in this article to fill the 10 min mark. Modern toilet bowls are definitely water efficient and environment friendly than before and it keeps on evolving, not changing. what you need to be aware of is your toilet habit. Learn how to use a handheld bidet instead of exclusively wiping your ass with a toilet paper. It will definitely save a lot of trees. Our present toilet design is just fine.
I don’t understand why urinals still exist, they’re hard to keep working,some men don’t know that they have to flush so they don’t stink. I also don’t understand the problems people have with bathrooms, why do they have to have stalls/ be gender specific, these wheelchair accessible one seaters already fix that problem, i have never had a huge line at the bathroom at school because not everyone is using the bathroom at the same time. The same with showers at school, we weren’t even required to shower at my school.
Louis Rossman rants sometimes, not about toilets themselves, but about the fact that we wipe the dirtiest part of our bodies (butt) with dry paper. I agree. How is that clean? We wouldn’t wash our face with just some dry tissue but after using the bathroom we use dry toilet tissue. Bidets should be more common for sure.
This man has clearly never been to Europe if he believes that Europe has a “robust network of public toilets.” Also, I’ve lived all over Europe and I can assure you that they do not have any better toilets. Also, the shelf toilet he references is not German, but Austrian. And those shelf toilets suck.
Goddess Fortuna in ancient toilets to ward of evil? why? did they think evil is going to go up their ass to play havoc… anyway even today all of this systems needs reinventing entire sewage drain toilets systems… re -formed rebuild all over world…with absolute hygeine cleanliness which can keep on going for another couple of hundred of years…
We need to have Asian style toilets, the kind that you squat on, instead of sitting on. When you squat on the toilet instead of sitting on it, your gut becomes perfectly aligned for the elimination of waste. You don’t need to push and strain. So you don’t have constipation or hemorrhoids! If you have problems with elimination of waste, try a squatting toilet. You won’t regret it.
Why is the toilet displayed at 0:23 shown as an example of a German toilet? This is NOT the average toilet in Germany. If you see this toilet in a normal house or apartment, it’s mostly because the plumber was a complete idiot. This kind of toilet belongs in something like a hospital and serves the purpose of examining one’s stool.
Let me get this straight I dog a hole drop a tank in my ground for piped poop and water. Then a truck comes and emptys tank, the truck parades it around thru the city collecting crap then, it’s put on a barge and sailed to an island where it is burned??? Or put into a giant pile??? I’d rather incinerate on site and cut out all that. Saving water.
People can buy the More advanced toilets but many just don’t want to pay extra. I have a topper bidet which is really nice for the price I got. Helped a lot during the toilet paper shortage. Some people spend a ton on toilet paper. So it could pay for itself. If you are the type to use a lot. I rarely need to buy new toilet paper since it lasts be a long time. I still wipe bec they arent perfect. But, helps a lot.
The entire wastewater system needs to change in the modern world, and the toilet is only one small part. I was dismayed that you didn’t cover the need for urine separation as part of the composting toilet. The human waste stream flowing from toilets to treatment facilities sequesters an unfathomed amount of minerals, nutrients and critical nitrogen needed for the health of plants and animals. We need to “change” our thinking of the toilet in terms of more effective reclamation and earthly reintroduction of important biomaterial to begin and sustain the re-invigoration of our usable soils.
Toilet seats should be higher off of the floor. Let people use a stool-like platform if they are too short. Doing things as is, keeping them low, is hell on the knees of taller people with bad knees. I have to do deep squats – past 90 degrees – when I first wake up in the morning. That is a ridiculous ask of anybody with bad knees or anybody over 50. It is also a problem in some public bathrooms with wide designs because I can’t even reach the wall with my hands to ease myself down and take the strain off of my knees. I really want to punch the person who thinks this is OK. If that sounds painful, well that would be the whole point. If the people choosing this situation don’t mind causing pain for members of society, then those people should get to feel pain.
Ok, you got me – I’ll watch this, but if you start campaigning for those Asian toilettes (the ones where you have to squat to use them), then I am out as I hate those things! Can’t even use them properly IMHO if you are wearing pants (which most men happen to do)! You’ll probably end up soiling yourself!
I’m on board, everything but the toilet has evolved. Number 1, who in the hell thought they should be made of WHITE porcelain, that’s as dumb white underwear. Number 2, you shouldn’t have to get off the seat to clean up, cause when you stand, the cheeks go together to make a bigger mess. C’mon engineers, get busy !
Yeah some ideas are really quite obviously advantageous and many will probably find their way into our homes, eventually. Change is incremental and the pace slow. But some – Bucky Fuller’s, notably – are pie in the sky concepts that would be prohibitively costly even in ideal circumstances, and completely out of the question in smaller homes. Unique and personal toilets for evey member of a household, indeed. Visitors? Growing people? Glory-hunting architects seem hell-bent on making “names” for themselves rather than making livable spaces.
ok thers one you did not ralk abuot and thas the uothouse thay wer around even befor batroomsis tho thay wer uot side to mosth maied fo wood and over a holin the ground to and some had water cuz the holl for them had ben dig in the ground deep to the point it offend end wer thers was water to but mosth uothouse sis also did not hav water and wer juts a holl in the ground wer one did the biznetsis hav a nices day
My bathroom is three separate spaces in a straight line separated by a door. First is the sink room with the mirror, shelves and dirty clothes storage, then separated by a door is the toilet and shower, first the toilet and then behind a plastic sliding door the shower. There is a window by the shower that is convenient to open after using the toilet, so no need for active air extraction like the bathrooms in my parent’s house that all sit on the inner part of the structure and have no windows.
i just want a toilet that is filled with grey water. the water from washing dishes, laundry, bathing, and washing my hands. with a back up option of using fresh water but in routine situations the water would only be preused water. essentially i want to downcycle my water until its properly dirtly. if its halfway dirty its not living up to its full potential of carrying waste away from my house.
I think all things in life should be looked at and questioned. If we come to the same conclusions after questioning then it only reinforces the idea. In regards to toilets specifically, I’m personally pretty content with the American style of toilet. The ideal toilet for me would be the Japanese style that has a baked in Bidet but as eluded to these are creature comforts. For example my work around is just to use some wet wipes or to ensure I take a shower afterwards. That being said everything I’m saying is comeing from the perspective of a developed society who already has infrastructure in place to process my waste. I fully support the Gates project of coming up with ways to deal with waste safely for places where it’s impractical for that infrastructure to be put in place. I would not necessarily want that for here in the US and I don’t really want to go with a squat style approach(even though I know it’s better from a biological standpoint) since there are certain things I’m just used to/ more comfortable with
Funny story: in a big rail station near me, they tested the concept of selling tickets to the restrooms in a vending machine, which you pay for electronically. It’s cumbersome for many and completely useless for some, yet the station or city saves salaries because they don’t need to have coin trays frequently emptied. I don’t know how the project is going but I hope it’s been ripped out after all.
I always felt our bathrooms over here in Europe needed some work. First, a Muslim guy told me that they wash themselves after finishing, and it didn’t take me long to realize just how superior of as solution that is. Second, I always felt toilets were just not suitable for men, and those public bathroom urinals were far superior. Using a toilet when peeing is incredibly impractical, and I can’t wait to build my next bathroom, as it will surely include something like a urinal, but with a water hose as well.