How Americans Destroyed Indoor Plumbing

tucker.liberty.me

9 points·jhildings··6 comments

I feel dumber for having read this. What are this guy's credentials? Why should I consider him qualified to write such a polemic on American plumbing?

The water toilet is actually a pretty lousy device. We've had sanitary and odour-wise competitive dry toilets for a while now that don't waste water and energy.

Ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine-diverting_dry_toilet

If you are looking for something that's still technically less mature, look into showers that recycle & treat water (instead of heating and dumping a constant stream of it)... A recent entrant is described here: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/170784-recycling-closed-l...

Somehow I think this person is not a very good plumber.

I disagree. I do plumbing on the side, and I have seen with my own eyes how water heaters, for example, built in the 50s could easily last 50 years. Those built in the 70s were good for 20 to 30 years. Those built in the last decade rarely last more than 6 years. We are increasingly building junk, making lackluster, inferior products purely for the sake of finance and commerce. There is no profit to buying something once.

That's not at all the point he was arguing, tho. His entire article is about BIG GOVERNMENT and how low flow toilets and showerheads are categorically inferior, which is very different than 'stuff today is cheap and poorly made.'

Not at all. The only reason things are as they are today is for the lusting of dollars. Force people to use toilets that die inside a few years, with the cover being environmental concerns, meanwhile companies sell sell sell. Is the concept of politicians only working FOR companies alien to you?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com