“First Class” Plumbing Trivia: Second Edition

You loved our first edition so much, we just had to give you more. As always, we love sharing our knowledge and experience with you! Welcome to our “First Class” Plumbing Trivia: Second Edition. From all of us at First Class Plumbing & HVAC, enjoy!

1. Ancient Crete's King Minos (18th century B.C.) had the world's first flush toilet. He is the source of the popular nickname for the toilet, “the throne”, as he “ruled from his porcelain throne.”

• TRUE
• FALSE

2. Toilet paper, sold as individual sheets, didn't appear until 1857. How did people clean themselves before that?

3. The Kohler Co., founded by John Michael Kohler and Charles Silberzahn in 1873, began life as an iron and steel foundry, producing such items as cast iron and steel farm implements, castings for furniture factories, and ornamental iron pieces including cemetery crosses and settees. A breakthrough came in 1883 when John Michael applied enamel to a cast iron horse trough to create the company's first bathtub. The company has been primarily in the plumbing business ever since, known for plumbing fixtures.

4. This well known German physicist was made an honorary member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union after he announced that he would be a plumber if he had to live his life all over again. Who is he?

5. The floating mechanism in your toilet’s water tank that controls the flow of water is called a__________.

1. Float Anchor
2. Basin Buttercup
3. Ballcock

6. In the technology capitol of the world, Japan, some urinals have voice activated flushing mechanisms.  The urinals respond to several commands, including “fire”.

• TRUE
• FALSE

7. President Richard Nixon had set up a White House Special Investigations Unit to plug intelligence leaks in the governmental processes associated with the Vietnam War.  The members of this convert group were popularly called what?

8. Over $100,000 were spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind.  

1. Front
2. Behind
3. Tied

9. If you have a leaky faucet that drips twice per minute, you’ll waste how much water in a

week?

10. The “Bathroom” has been named many different things in many different places.  Here are a few of our favorites. Which one is fictitious?

A. The Egyptians: the House of Horror

B. The Romans: the Necessarium

C. The English Tudors: the privy or house of privacy

D.  The French: “La Chambre Sent”, or the smelly house

E. The Israelis: the house of honor

ANSWERS:

1. false. The people of Skara Brae, Britain's oldest known Neolithic village, had their own primitive flush system some 1,200 years before Minos.
2. With whatever was available.
3. True. They are also well known for the invention of the first drinking fountain in 1888 under the original trademarked name, the “Bubbler”. The colloquial word "bubbler" is still widely used in Wisconsin and several regions of the United States.
4. Albert Einstein
5. The correct answer is C, Ballcock.
6. True
7. The “plumbers.”
8. The answer: three out of four people have the flap in the front.
9. One gallon.
10. This is actually a trick question. Interestingly, all of the names listed have all been used by each of the cultures cited.

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