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Women in ancient Rome dyed their hair with goat fat and beech wood
ashes. Red and blond were the most popular colors.
Trajan’s Column is 128 feet high, which is the same height as a nine-story
building. The sculptural frieze that wraps around the column is approximately 655 feet in length—the length of about two football fields—and depicts more than 2,500 men.
The Circus Maximus, a theater in Rome, could hold as many as 250,000
spectators. New York’s Yankee Stadium holds approximately 60,000 people.
Instead of soap, Romans used oil, which they rubbed into their skin and
then scraped off with a metal tool called a strigil.
When the Roman Empire reached its territorial peak in 116 A.D., it spanned 2.5 million square miles.
Lead was used as both a preservative and a sweetening agent.
The toga, the official costume of the Roman citizen, was created using a
semi-circular piece of white wool cloth that was about 18H feet in diameter.
Many gladiators, like athletes today, chose colorful surnames to enhance their public identity. One gladiator, whose name is preserved on a funerary monument, was known as Antaios, the name of a giant from Greek mythology.
The trepan, or drill, that ancient sculptors used to create their art was also
used as a surgical instrument to bore holes into the skull. This procedure
(called trepanning) was thought to cure headaches, treat brain disorders,
let out evil spirits, and treat insanity.
Roman charioteers belonged to racing clubs or teams. The most well known were the Whites, Blues, Greens, and Reds.
Roman bath houses used an advanced heating system called hypocaust to
heat the caldarium (hot bath) and tepidarium (lukewarm bath), as well as
the floors and walls of the complex.
Romans played board games such as chess, checkers, and tic-tac-toe.
Many ancient Roman houses had flushing toilets and indoor plumbing.
Associated with Mercury, the messenger god, a caduceus (a winged stick
encircled by two snakes) came to be linked with postal workers and
journalists. The caduceus of Mercury is often confused with the rod of
Asclepius—a staff with a single serpent—which is a symbol of medicine.
Water pipes used to be made from Lead. In fact, the word Plumbing (and plumb, and plumber) actually derive from the Latin word for Lead,plumbum. (Incidentally, the periodic table element label for lead, Pb, is based on the same word).
Pipes haven’t always been made of metal. In the 1800s, both Boston and Montreal used wooden pipes; they were logs that were hollowed out and tapered at the ends. [reference]
Lead solder was used even after lead was found to be harmful to humans, all the way through the 1980s. It was believed that the amount of lead that could potentially leach into the water was too small to matter. We’ve sinced smartened up. [reference]
There are actually two common types of plungers – a toilet plunger and a sink/shower plunger. Toilet plungers narrow at the bottom to fit into the toilet drain, while sink and shower plungers have a flat rim. [reference]
Sir John “the john” Herrington is credited with inventing the flushable toilet in 1596. He called it the “Ajax” a shortened version of “a jakes.” “Jakes” was a common old slang for toilet at that time. [reference]. Unfortunately, Sir John’s designation for the flusable toilet didn’t stick, but hisname did. [reference]
In 2004, there was over 91,000 miles of water distribution piping (4″+ pipe) in the U.S. 78% of that pipe is made of PVC. [reference]
The most recognized video game character in the world is a plumber. Nintendo’s Mario (of Super Mario Brothers fame) was created by Shigeru Miyamoto, and has appeared in more than 200 games. [reference]
In Japan, some urinals have voice-activated flush mechanisms. According to wikipedia, these urinals respond to as many as 30 different languages and several terms, including “fire.” [reference]
In 1929, a series of sewer explosions occurred in Ottawa, Canada. Contrary to initial reactions, it likely wasn’t caused by Methane gas, but rather by shop owners pouring flamable oils down drains as the still-unregulated automobile industry took off. [reference]
Hot water heat recycling is the process of recovering heat from used water (primarily from sinks, showers, dishwashers, and washing machines). Heat exchanger systems can recover as much as 60% of the heat that normally goes down the drain. [reference]
The terms Facuet and Spigot were once used only in the Northern and Southern U.S., respectively. [reference]. The terms have come to be used interchangeably (although spigot is more commonly used for outdoor connections.
There are more than 10 different types of common end-user plumbed-in fixtures. Can you name them? They include, at least, toilets, urinals, drinking fountains, sinks, bathtubs, showers, ice makers, humidifiers, plumbed-in coffee pots, eye wash stations, washers, dishwashers, and fountains. [reference]
The Chicago Water Tower was one of the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago fire of 1871. Now a historical site, It is the only building from this time still standing in the area. [reference].
The fire sprinkler was invented in 1864 by Henry Parmelee to protect his piano factory. He patented the idea, but by 1883 had only successfully had the system installed in 10 factories. [reference].
At 140 degrees, it takes 5 seconds for water to burn skin. At 160 degrees, it takes only 1/2 of a second. [reference] Home hot water systems should be set to no hotter than 125 degrees.
Albert Einstein was named an honorary member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union after saying publicly that he would become a plumber if he had to do it all over again.
The world’s most famous plumbers are probably video game superstars Mario and Luigi, of Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers series.
Copper piping, which is the #1 material used for plumbing work in today’s world, is the same material that the Egyptians used to lay their own pipe – some 3000 years ago!
Archeologists have recovered a portion of a water plumbing system from the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. The evidence of indoor plumbing in palaces has dating back to 2500 B.C.E.
Since 1963 (the year CDA was established), more than 28 billion feet or about 5.3 million miles of copper plumbing tube has been installed in U.S. buildings. That’s equivalent to a coil wrapping around the Earth more than 200 times. The current installation rate now exceeds a billion feet per year.
In a typical home, more than 9,000 gallons of water are wasted while running the faucet waiting for hot water. As much as 15% of your annual water heating costs can be wasted heating this extra 9,000 gallons.
Though we all have heard the many slang-words of which his cognomen is probably responsible for, the truth is… there is no hard evidence anywhere that English plumber, Thomas Crapper, was the inventor of the modern-day amenity that often bears his less-than-flattering name (it’s believed Crapper may have bought the patent rights from another man – Albert Giblin – and marketed the concept as his own).
If a drip from your faucet fills an eight ounce glass in 15 minutes, it will waste 180 gallons per month and 2,160 gallons per year.
A low flush toilet can save you up to 18,000 gallons of water per year.
In the tomb of a king of the Western Han Dynasty in China (206 BC to 24 AD), archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old “toilet” – complete with running water, a stone seat and even a comfortable armrest! The finding: marked the earliest-known water closet, which is quite like what we are using today, in the entire world.
The Earth has somewhere in the neighborhood of 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons (326 million trillion gallons) of water on the planet. Roughly 98% of our water’s in the oceans of the world, and therefore is unusable for drinking because of the salt content. That means only around 2% of the planet’s water is fresh, but 1.6% of that water is locked up in ice caps and glaciers. Another 0.36% is found in very deep, underground sources – meaning only about 0.036% of the planet’s total water supply is found in lakes and rivers (our main supplies of drinking water)!
In November 1800 the second President John Adams (1797-1801) and his wife Abigail moved into the White House.
...since there was no plumbing of any sort, servants had to lug water into the house from a spring in Franklin Park, five city blocks away...
In 1829 (when Jackson took office), the Committee on Public Buildings had decided not to pipe running water to the White House, opting to concentrate funds on the North Portico. During that period, most hotels and private mansions had indoor plumbing, particularly in the bathrooms and kitchens. Springs, cisterns and wells fed the system.
By 183 1, the Commissioner of Public Buildings purchased a bubbling spring at Franklin Square in order to pipe water up to the White House in trunks or wooden pipes made of drilled-out logs. As the ponds were dug and the laying of pipe got under way, the engineer decided to substitute iron pipe for the wooden . This was for fire protection, not convenience to the household. A fire engine, purchased by Monroe, was kept with the White House coaches.
By the time ground was broken in the spring of 1833, water was still provided by two original wells located in the breezeways between the house and wings. Laborers dug three reservoirs: one at the Treasury, one at the State Department, and a third at the White House.
The system was largely functional by the end of May 1833.
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