Toilets - Huge Range available at Heat and Plumb at amazing prices! |
 |
|
Buy Toilets at Heat and PlumbThe Different Styles of Toilets...
Toilets come in a variety of shapes and sizes to suit your needs. Toilets have become much more than just a functional item - modern day toilets have become a statement of style which set the tone for the rest of your bathroom.
Types of ToiletsToilets not only come in a huge range of styles - but there are also quite a few different toilets to suit your bathroom needs. The different styles of toilet are...
But before your do - you many be interested in the article below about 'The History of the Toilet'... History of the ToiletThe invention that has had the most impact on humans - is the invention of modern toilets. Rather, it is the toilet (with a concomitant waste treatment device) that has made possible high density human population. Consider what life in a large city would be like if everyone in a 50 story apartment tower had to use the same outhouse. Or worse, if everyone emptied their chamberpots off the balcony as was still commonplace less than a hundred and fify years ago. It would bring a whole new meaning to the phase "morning rush hour".Without the toilet, high density cities would not be possible. And yet, perhaps because of it's simiplicity and ubiquity, it is assumed the toilet has been around for a long time. In fact, the toilet is a relatively modern device developed in the same era that begot train travel and wire communication: the industrial revolution during the middle and late nineteenth century. And as with much of the industrial revolution, England was the cradle. Because the patent offices of England and the United States have maintained several hundred years of records for patent applications, the inventors of sanitary equipment are fairly well documented. Credit for the invention of the toilet is usually bestowed on Sir John Harington, a relative of the Queen, as far back as 1596. It was claimed two models were actually made and used. But none survived, if they even existed at all. Crediting Harington for inventing the toilet is the same as anointing Leonardo Da Vinci as father of the helicopter. Conceptionally they may have had a good idea, but making it actually function is something entirely different. Approximately two hundred years later in 1775, Alexander Cummings received an English patent for putting a water trap under a bowl. This was a major advancement towards a true functioning toilet yet nothing changed in the general market. In fact, until iron foundries improved cast iron pipe and potteries improved terra cotta pipe in the 1800's, if there had been a functioning toilet, it would have been placed in the outhouse anyway. The most efficient first generation toilet was the simplest. A bowl with a hole in the front or back and a p-trap beneath filled with water to seal the house from sewer gas. Basically what Alexander Cummings had designed a century prior. In configuration, it is little different than a typical kitchen sink. Yet it is a major improvement over devices that used values or pans to seal the bowl from the malodorous putrefaction seeping from the septic pit. These first generation toilets came to be known as "wash-out" water closets. Several companies in England were selling them as early as the 1870's. One company, Thomas Twyford of England, is given credit for the first all-ceramic toilet. The "dolphin" wash-out was exhibited at the 1876 world's fair in Philadelphia, although it is not certain that Twyford was the manufacturer. These new English wash-out toilets proved very popular where municipalities had installed water and waste lines. Toilets were exported to the continent and America spawning interest by local manufacturers. The wash-out while a major advancement over an out house or chamber pot, still left much to be desired. They were not efficient. If all the waste did not go through the p-trap, putrification odors would result. Manufacturers and inventors continued to search for improvements. The first improvement was combining the pool of water in the bowl with the p-trap. These toilets, known as "wash-downs", were on the market shortly following the wash-out. However, both wash-outs and wash-downs often failed to consistently remove heavier waste from the bowl. By the end of the century, sanitaryware manufacturers had discovered that by diverting some of the water from the cistern to the bottom of the bowl, a jet flush was created that pushed waste out and if they changed the shape of the p-trap exit it would act like a siphon pulling the waste out. Modern flush toilets (as seen in the right below) were born. English historians credit a pottery in Chelsea, the Beaufort Works, as the first to develop a toilet with a flush tube to the bottom of the bowl in 1886, although an American had received a patent in America 10 years earlier for a similar concept. Most of the elegant embossed and decorated toilets found in old mansions or in architectural antique dealerships are wash-out type toilets. By the turn of the century when manufacturers had perfected the siphonic flush type toilet, styles in vogue had changed. There was a reaction against the heavy decoration on all household objects that Victorians had favored. Modern (early twentieth century) manufactured objects were sleek yet simple. But changing tastes alone does not account for the complete lack of artistic expression that inflicted the sanitaryware industry after the nineteenth century. As great a factor was the change in manufacturers. The pioneers of the industry came from the English ceramic industry involved in tile production as well as table china. Royal Doulton, a house still known for fine china was one of the first and largest makers of wash-out toilets. Another very early and successful English manufacturer of water closet ceramic fixtures was Twyford which had been making teapots two hundred years earlier. These companies were developing modern manufacturing methods, such as dust pressing tile or porcelean enameling cast iron, yet they traditionally competed on style not manufacturing proficiency or efficiency. They often had the words "art pottery" or "art tile" in the companies' name. The greatest achievement was to have a design that would win Royal Family approval. The pioneering companies that first brought toilets to market were more a company of artists than engineers. They put their names boldly and proudly on the products they created. One English company, Thomas Crapper, has more than any other been remembered in name at least as his name became indistinguishable from his product. (Sources also claim that the slang "John" for toilets came from the John Douglas company of Cincinnati putting his name on his toilet for the American market, but actually there were several manufacturers with John in their name.) But as the founding artist/owners died and their companies consolidated into larger companies, managers and engineers replaced the artists and attention was extended to mass production instead of artistic expression. And thus the difference between a "top of the line" toilet and a home improvement store toilet is mostly the price on the invoice. The sanitary potteries of England and America in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century manufactured toilets that varied a great deal in color decoration, shape and texture (embossing). For more information and pictures about these style characteristics Further Toilets Articles Greener Toilets make for a Greener Bathroom Bathrooms used to be simple; however, now with toilets at the forefront of the economic infatuation, toilets have become much more complicated. The Fish Tank Toilet If you’re looking for an innovative, contemporary way to enhance and boost your bathroom this could be the perfect answer, a new fish tank toilet! |
|
Looking for specific Toilets? Narrow Your
Search for Toilets from the following...
© Heat and Plumb 2009 - Heating and Plumbing Supplies - Toilets Specialists