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Reminds me of building codes for waterless urinals. Here is California the building code requires them to be plumbed with incoming water even though no water is

by kijeda 11y ago

Reminds me of building codes for waterless urinals. Here is California the building code requires them to be plumbed with incoming water even though no water is needed, as a sop to the plumbing community. "Provide water distribution and fixture supply piping, sized as required elsewhere in this code, roughed-in immediately adjacent to each waterless urinal fixture installed."

aroch 11y ago
Surely flushless urinals still need to be cleaned and having piped in water is both more efficient and safer (no sloshing water buckets around)?
- maxerickson 11y ago
  The ones I've seen aren't visibly hooked to the incoming plumbing (it's just porcelain all the way to the top).
- Johnny555 11y ago
  The janitor gets water from a wall mounted faucet or from the sink in the janitor's closet to clean the urinals, the capped off pipe above the urinal does nothing except make the installation more expensive. At one new building I worked in, they had to put in standard water based urinals to pass inspection then replaced them with waterless urinals for their LEED certification -- presumably now the codes allow for waterless urinals, but apparently still require the plumbing.
logfromblammo 11y ago
Such a measure allows waterless urinals to be more easily replaced by water-flush urinals. Given the extent to which I despise low-flow toilets, for their propensity to be clogged by even the most modest of turds, I am glad to see that someone is thinking ahead on the possibility that the current popularity of no-flush urinals may fade in time. This code makes converting new construction to flush urinals similar in cost to re-converting old construction that had been previously converted to no-flush. It seems like a good idea to me, especially for public buildings, but even so, it is completely wrong for a government to force this one upon everybody. This is the kind of thing that gets wielded as a hammer against off-grid aficionados that install composting toilets, because they do not wish to connect to the muni water supply and sewers. Laws that increase the minimum cost of doing something are a very significant barrier to innovations and locally appropriate technologies.
- CarVac 11y ago
  Clearly you are using an inferior low-flush toilet. I have a 1.2 gallon model (American Standard Champion 4) that has never once failed to work in a single flush, and a _lot_ of toilets fail me. Including the monstrously high-volume ones they have in the British Isles.

by kijeda 11y ago

aroch 11y ago

Surely flushless urinals still need to be cleaned and having piped in water is both more efficient and safer (no sloshing water buckets around)?

maxerickson 11y ago
The ones I've seen aren't visibly hooked to the incoming plumbing (it's just porcelain all the way to the top).
Johnny555 11y ago
The janitor gets water from a wall mounted faucet or from the sink in the janitor's closet to clean the urinals, the capped off pipe above the urinal does nothing except make the installation more expensive. At one new building I worked in, they had to put in standard water based urinals to pass inspection then replaced them with waterless urinals for their LEED certification -- presumably now the codes allow for waterless urinals, but apparently still require the plumbing.

logfromblammo 11y ago

Such a measure allows waterless urinals to be more easily replaced by water-flush urinals. Given the extent to which I despise low-flow toilets, for their propensity to be clogged by even the most modest of turds, I am glad to see that someone is thinking ahead on the possibility that the current popularity of no-flush urinals may fade in time. This code makes converting new construction to flush urinals similar in cost to re-converting old construction that had been previously converted to no-flush. It seems like a good idea to me, especially for public buildings, but even so, it is completely wrong for a government to force this one upon everybody. This is the kind of thing that gets wielded as a hammer against off-grid aficionados that install composting toilets, because they do not wish to connect to the muni water supply and sewers. Laws that increase the minimum cost of doing something are a very significant barrier to innovations and locally appropriate technologies.

CarVac 11y ago
Clearly you are using an inferior low-flush toilet. I have a 1.2 gallon model (American Standard Champion 4) that has never once failed to work in a single flush, and a _lot_ of toilets fail me. Including the monstrously high-volume ones they have in the British Isles.