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The toilet is essential to everyone in the world, can you imagine how life would be if the toilet wasn’t invented? For us humans, the average duration that we poop is approximately 12 minutes as this study suggests. The current life expectancy globally, is 73.4 years. So, let’s do the math; 12 x 73.4 x 365.25 / 60 = 5362 hours which is around 223 days! And this rough computation doesn’t even include special cases; like days where you ate more than usual, the day you ate an expired can of beans, or when you just did a #1, or the times you’ve read articles like this whilst sitting there. We can conclude that we spend ALOT of our time sitting on the toilet, whether it be a close-coupled one, a wall hung, or the infamous squat toilet (which is common in many Asian countries). Yet this humble seat rarely receives its rightful praise, so let’s take a look on the five most popular potties in the world.
A popular held belief was that Thomas Crapper created the first toilet in the late 1800s, but the 1st toilet; the forefather of all toilets, a water closet with a raised cistern and a small downpipe was actually designed in 1596, 300 years earlier by Sir John Harrington, a godson of Queen Elizabeth I, which he designed for himself and one for his godmother. Although it did not come into widespread use until late 19th century. Before the invention of the first flush toilet, people would just simply throw their contents through a door or a window in the street. Yikes. Thankfully though, they would warn passersby by yelling “Guardez l’eau!” which became “gardy-loo” in England. What considerate folk they were.
Going back to Thomas Crapper, an English plumber and businessman, he founded the Thomas Crapper & Co. in London, a plumbing equipment company. One might associate his last name to well, crap. Some may say his name is not where the popular slang “crap” came from, as according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word had roots in Medieval Latin. Some may also suggest that when he manufactured one of the first widely used line of toilets, there were cisterns that were placed on most public toilets that read, “T. Crapper”. Elinor Evans, a writer for the BBC History Magazine writes that “People might have taken the word home with them”.
In this picture, a replica of The King’s Toilet, or “the king” Elvis Presley’s toilet, was sadly the throne that which he supposedly died on 1977. Although an embarrassing way to see death, it’s actually a common one. Reportedly, he was found face down on the bathroom floor in his Graceland mansion. A result of his horrendous choice in his diet, he suffered from chronic constipation and autopsy revealed that his compacted stool sat on his bowels for four whole months! Subsequently, this led to him straining extremely hard to have a bowel movement, an action that put excessive pressure on his heart and aorta. He was dubbed the “King of Rock & Roll”, since taking the world by storm with his music in the 50s. The toilet bowl, his final resting place sits in the bathroom of his 5.6 hectare mansion Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee.
The Space Toilet; the most expensive toilet, the title they rightfully earned when the Russian Space Administration who designed this bathroom system in November 2008, sold it to NASA, for around $20 million dollars. The toilet is specifically designed to operate in zero-gravity conditions, well duh, and it features leg braces to hold the person using it in place which was a major problem for astronauts in space, believe it or not. In the absence of weight, the collection and retention of wastes, are controlled by air pressure. We can safely say, that this toilet is truly out of this world.
The Neorest 750H from Toto, costs a whopping $10,200 dollars. Called the “Mercedes Benz of all toilets”, this Japanese toilet features heated seats, an energy saving system, and the best of them all; the self-cleaning feature in which an electronic bidet cleanses your tail with warm water, they also come with a remote wherein the users can choose front or rear spouts and adjust the pressure, position, water temperature, and even the direction. Oh, and the seats move up and down automatically as well, we could all use the extra help sometimes.
Before you purchase a toilet, feel free to browse our guide here that discusses things to know before buying a toilet (and how to avoid common problems). After, give us a call and we can help you get the toilet you want, installed perfectly.
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