Every toilet – let’s talk beautiful, every toilet – depends on two basic components to rinse our stamped porcelain. The first is the siphon – a curved tube that controls the water level in the vase, preventing it from drying out or overflowing. The second is the water discharge, which goes down with great force and makes all the dirt literally go down the pipe. In Brazil, a flush uses an average of 6.8 liters of water. Very? “The lower consumption of water per action does not always mean greater savings. With 4 liters of water, for example, less energy is created, which may force the user to flush the toilet again. Then, it would be 8 liters in a single use”, says engineer Orestes Marracini Gonçalves, from the University of São Paulo (USP). 🙂
1. The first essential component for the operation of a toilet is the siphon. This curved tube makes the water level in the vase always constant. If you pee, for example, the water rises up to the curve of the tube and then flows into the sewer.
2. Squeeze time: someone pressed the toilet. The button triggers a lever system that pulls a plug at the bottom of the toilet’s water tank. With the hole opened at the base of the water tank, the water flows towards the vase at full speed.
3. The water released by the flush runs through a circular pipe, built in the ceramic of the toilet bowl. This pipe is completely perforated, which causes the water to be poured equally all around the vase to clean the internal walls of the porcelain.
4. The force of the flush creates a whirlpool in the toilet water, causing all the dirt to be swept out of the toilet and look for a place to drain. The only outlet for the 6.8 liters of water and excrement is to head towards the siphon.
5. The energy of the water jet causes the flush water to flow quickly through the siphon, carrying away the debris. Afterwards, the water returns to the same height in the siphon and in the toilet, keeping the water level constant and preventing the sewer smell from invading the bathroom.
6. After flushing, it’s time to fill up again. With the cap back at the bottom of the water tank, the water begins to fill the container until a lever attached to a float stops the water inlet, interrupting the filling when it is full.