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This is wild. You really only need the first and (weirdly) last paragraphs though: > "New toilets on the Navy’s two newest aircraft carriers clog so frequently

This is wild. You really only need the first and (weirdly) last paragraphs though: > "New toilets on the Navy’s two newest aircraft carriers clog so frequently that the ships’ sewage systems must be cleaned periodically with specialized acids costing about $400,000 a flush, according to a new congressional audit outlining $130 billion in underestimated long-term maintenance costs." > ... > “The pipes are too narrow and when there are a bunch of sailors flushing the toilet at the same time, like in the morning, the suction doesn’t work,” said Oakley. “The Navy didn’t anticipate this problem.”

mjevans 7y ago
Root cause: Insufficient engineering safety margins. Solution: Re-engineer a new solution, retrofit.
- anovikov 7y ago
  This isn't an apartment block. That's a combat ship. If they see a problem they might even fix it with administrative measures like locking out a part of bathrooms to limit their peak load, that's it. There are strict space and weight concerns, especially as any weight on a ship, especially top weight, pulls a lot, lot of other weight with it...
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    They actually did what the other guy is saying, though.
RandomBacon 7y ago
>suction I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I operated such a system on a US Navy ship. I have mixed feelings about it. There are rubber flappers that needs to be replaced often to maintain the vacuum. It's just a simple piece of rubber in an easy-to-produce shape. The price per flapper in the inventory system was $200-something.