Plumbing

Plumbing is a system that conveys water for a wide range of applications, including heating and cooling, waste removal, and potable water delivery. Plumbers use pipes, valves, plumbing fixtures, tanks, and other apparatuses to move water from one place to another. Trades that work with plumbing such as boilermakers, plumbers, and pipefitters are referred to as the plumbing trade.

The term plumber comes from the Latin word plumbum for lead and the term plumbarius for lead worker. The earliest plumbing involved use of wood or earthenware, but later most plumbing parts were made of lead. Plumbers are skilled workers who understand the mechanics of water distribution and the use of specific plumbing parts in and out of a building.

Plumbers of the past handled everything that involved supply and waste. They knew how to solder, install and repair piping, how to reinforce roofs, gutters, sewers, and drains.

Brief History

The art of plumbing dates back to 4,000 BCE, according to archaeologists who discovered copper water pipes in the palace ruins of the Indus River Valley in India. They also found that the Egyptians used copper pipes to build elaborate bathrooms inside the pyramids as well as intricate irrigation and sewages systems in 2500 BCE.

On the island of Crete, the remains of an ancient (3,000 years old, at least) plumbing system was discovered at the site of an ancient palace of Knossos with a bathtub made out of hard pottery that looked similar to the shape of a cast-iron bathtub of late nineteenth-century America. A water closet with a seat and crude flushing device from 1000 BCE was also discovered. Rainwater cisterns from 1500 BCE, which allowed storage of rainwater until it was needed for washing, bathing, cooking, and drinking, were found on the island.

Between 500 BCE and 455 CE, the Romans developed some of the most advanced techniques in ancient plumbing systems. In addition to their aqueducts, the Romans built underground sewer systems for long distances, public and private baths, lead and bronze water piping systems, and marble fixtures with gold and silver fittings. They used lead pipes, which at the time made vast improvements in sanitary conditions.

Plumbing techniques and innovations were introduced in major European countries starting in the sixteenth century. In England, Sir John Harington, Queen Elizabeth’s godson, invented the first flushing water closet, and in Versailles, France, Louis XIV ordered a cast-iron main plumbing line to carry water about fifteen miles from a pumping station outside the palace to the fountains within the palace grounds.

The prize for the first underground sewer goes to the Americans who installed it in 1728 after health officials in New York responded to complaints about the smell of open sewers. This was followed by the installation of the first underground public water main in 1830 that was used for firefighting.

The National Public Health Act was passed in 1848, and drainage piping systems were installed in structures to help transport sewage away from the buildings to a collection location.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, most homes and small buildings in the United States had water heating units; laws were passed in many areas of the country requiring plumbing systems to be installed with a minimum number of fixtures. The water closet was invented around 1900, and by 1932, 350 new water closet designs were submitted to the U.S. Patent Office. A siphoning water closet that became standard in the United States was first produced by Charles Neff and Robert Frame.

By 1961, all buildings and facilities in the United States, including public restrooms, had to be accessible and functional for the physically handicapped. In 1966, due to a shortage of copper, nonmetallic plastic piping was introduced for modern plumbing systems.

Plumbing Today

There were many innovations in plumbing products over the years, but none was more exciting than the introduction of the water closet. Sir John Harington, godson to Queen Elizabeth, set about making what he termed a "necessary" for his godmother and himself in 1596. He was teased by his peers for this strange contraption and never built another one, although he and his godmother used theirs undisturbed.

Over two hundred years later, another tinker, Alexander Cummings, took up where Harington left off by inventing the Strap, a sliding valve between the bowl and the trap. The concept caught on quickly, and in 1777, Samuel Prosser received a patent for a plunger closet.

Thomas Twyford revolutionized the water closet in 1885 when he built the first one-piece trapless toilet. What made this design unique was that it was all china rather than the more common metal and wood contraptions. Twyford worked on perfecting his design for the rest of the decade.

About this time, the first flush toilet was invented. The innovation was attributed to Thomas Crapper, a plumber and inventor from Yorkshire, England, founder of Thos. Crapper & Co. Sanitary engineers succeeded in receiving patent approval for all nine inventions he developed: four drain improvements, three new water closets, one for manhole covers, and one for pipe joints.

But despite the reputation afforded him until this very day, Thomas Crapper did not invent the famous toilet. What he did develop was what was called the "Silent Valveless Water Waste Preventer," a system allowing a toilet to flush effectively when the cistern was only half full. The actual toilet was patented by Albert Giblin in 1889.

The first Americans to be awarded a patent for a water closet were James T. Henry and William Campbell who introduced their own version of the plunger closet in 1875, but this was rejected by some of the industry’s earliest pioneers.

The number of patents granted from the late 1850s to the mid-1890s for water closet designs grew as the need and potential market for an improved model were realized by more and more inventors.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, water closet innovations in America were coming on a nearly daily basis. Between 1900 and 1932, the U.S. Patent Office received applications for 350 new water closet designs. Two of the first were granted to New Englanders Charles Neff and Robert Frame. They were the first to produce a siphoning wash-down closet that would become the norm in America in later years.

Bibliography

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"27 Historical Events that Shaped Modern Plumbing Systems." Ivey Engineering, Inc., 25 July 2012. Web. 20 June 2016.

"Plumbing History." The Plumber.com. The Plumber.com, 2016. Web. 20 June 2016.

"The Men that Made the Water Closet." The Plumber.com. Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine, July 1994. Web 20 June 2016.

"Thomas Crapper: Myth & Reality." The Plumber. Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine, June 1993. Web. 20 June 2016.

"The History of Thomas Crapper." Thomas Crapper & Co. Ltd. Thomas Crapper & Company, 2016. Web. 20 June 2016.

"The Men that Made the Water Closet." Plumbing and Mechanical Magazine. Plumbing and Mechanical, 12 July 2000. Web. 20 June 2016.