Skills For "Living The Era"

[LizzieMaine]

They also said that people who live in old houses don't use toilet paper at all.

Gee whiz. My house was built in 1911. All these years I been doing it wrong.

 

[Tango Yankee]

How To Install a Telephone


To test the ringer, try this: dial 981-XXXX, the XXXX being the last four digits of your phone number (land-line phone number, that is.)
(Note: 981-XXXX is a standard "ringback number" used by many phone companies formerly part of the Bell System. Depending on your specific phone company this number may not work - if not, consult this list for other numbers that may work in your area.

Well, thanks, Lizzie! This post inspired me to finally get around to getting my Western Electric 500 from 1955 to ring. It worked OK, but didn't ring for incoming calls. Now, it does.

My oldest granddaughter then showed her younger sister how to dial a rotary dial phone. She's dialing my cell phone as I type.

Regarding the 981-XXXX number, the 981 exchange happens to be the same as my cell phone. Dial the 981 exchange (in the 740 area code area) and you'll get a Verizon cell phone.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Gregg Axley]

Gee whiz. My house was built in 1911. All these years I been doing it wrong.

I'm glad a house built in 1955 allows it.

 

[vitanola]

. They also said that people who live in old houses don't use toilet paper at all.

UTTER NONSENSE!

plumbing waste systems have always been designed for toilet paper. I've lived in old homes for much of my life, I've restored quite a number of them, and I'm intimately familiar with pluming codes and practices going back into the middle of the Nineteenth Century, and must assure you that any properly installed water closet is capable of handling toilet paper. I've never known any old house owner that had to do without toilet paper, even in homes in Roxbury MA which were plumbed in the 1870's as had been the home that I lived in. Lead supply and drain lines, valve-hopper water closet. The plumbing worked well enough until the new standpipe was installed, increasing water pressure to the point that some of my faucets (which were of the ground stop-cock variety) would not reliably shut. A pressure reducing regulator corrected that problem.

 

[Big Man]

... They also said that people who live in old houses don't use toilet paper at all.

If the owners of the house hire a plumber to do any further work on their house, I sure hope they don't hire that clown.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or even worse, let him use the bathroom.

 

[dhermann1]

The Fedora Lounge is absolutely positively the most educational website on the internet.

 

[CONELRAD]

UTTER NONSENSE!

That's what I thought. I couldn't believe that that could be the case, but I also thought that a plumber ought to know more than me. And, unfortunately, my house was built in 1980, so I don't have any first hand experience. I have no idea where they got that idea, but apparently two of them both agreed on it.

If the owners of the house hire a plumber to do any further work on their house, I sure hope they don't hire that clown.

I'll make sure to let them know.

 

[Shangas]

The idea that a lavatory system was designed not to be used with toilet paper of at least one kind, is absolutely ludicrous. Unless there's a hose attached to the toilet, then it's designed to be used with loo-paper.

 

[sheeplady]

We're all doomed if no one in a house older than 100 years old is allowed to use toilet paper.

I'm going with a badly plumped house since it's on a sewer line. Rip it all out and start over.

My mother's first home was moved twice- once because it was state housing and moved to a private lot about a mile away from it's original location, and the second time it was moved to allow a highway to be built. We always used toilet paper there and never had a plumbing problem. Now I don't know if it was re-plumbed after the move, but likely it wasn't.

 

[St. Louis]

There are actually several toilet paper museums out there, some real, some virtual. Here's a link to the celebrated "vintage collection" of bathroom tissue (actually quite educational.)

You can also purchase a perfect 1850s replica of medicated paper. Last year I gave some to various brothers, who claimed to appreciate it.

 

[CONELRAD]

The idea that a lavatory system was designed not to be used with toilet paper of at least one kind, is absolutely ludicrous. Unless there's a hose attached to the toilet, then it's designed to be used with loo-paper.

We're all doomed if no one in a house older than 100 years old is allowed to use toilet paper.

That's what I thought, because it's just common sense, but common sense also says that you should listen to people who are specialists in a field of which you know nothing. I really have no idea where they came up with an idea like that, and I only heard it secondhand, but I'd never heard anything of the sort, and just sounded downright crazy to me.

Come to think of it, I've used the bathrooms at my great aunt's ancient house in South Carolina, to no ill effect, many many times.

 

[St. Louis]

My bungalow was built in 1929, and the Roto-Rooter man who came to fix an, ahem, problem caused by several, ahem, enthusiastic house guests told me that I shouldn't use modern fluffy "soft" TP, but rather the thinner 1-layer style tissue that more closely resembles the older kind. He says the old plumbing can't take ithe bulk caused by the modern thick kind. And that's all I'll say on that particular subject.

 

[Shangas]

My solution - flush often during each session, before you're done. It relieves the overall load on the system, regardless of its age.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My bungalow was built in 1929, and the Roto-Rooter man who came to fix an, ahem, problem caused by several, ahem, enthusiastic house guests told me that I shouldn't use modern fluffy "soft" TP, but rather the thinner 1-layer style tissue that more closely resembles the older kind. He says the old plumbing can't take ithe bulk caused by the modern thick kind. And that's all I'll say on that particular subject.

I worry more about modern plumbing in that regard than older plumbing. There isn't a week that goes by where I don't have to unstop a toilet at work because some patron incapable of reading signs has deposited a bit too much bulk into the system, and our plumbing was installed in 2005. People who try to flush diapers -- either the infant or the adult variety -- should be required to ruin a good pair of shoes while sopping up three inches of backed-up water from the bathroom floor.

At home I use plain old ScotTissue. No embossed designs, no fluffy rub-it-against-your-face-and-swoon texture, no animated teddy bears leaping out of the wrapper with every roll, no color, no fragrance, nothing but form following function, and I've never had a clog.

 

[dnjan]

I worry more about modern plumbing in that regard than older plumbing. There isn't a week that goes by where I don't have to unstop a toilet at work because some patron incapable of reading signs has deposited a bit too much bulk into the system, and our plumbing was installed in 2005. People who try to flush diapers -- either the infant or the adult variety -- should be required to ruin a good pair of shoes while sopping up three inches of backed-up water from the bathroom floor.

I suspect your work problem is related to low-flow toilets. Some require a fairly high pressure/volume supply line, which isn't always available.
Not that the patrons don't make the problem worse ...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yeah, we have a pump that's supposed to compensate for the low-flow, but it has a screen that's constantly getting clogged with stuff that's not supposed to be flushed. I used to clean the toilets in our gas station when I was a teenager, and I cleaned up some pretty awful messes, but nothing to compare with what we get from the modern system. Low-flow causes more problems than it solves.

 

[jamespowers]

Low-flow causes more problems than it solves.

It truly does. I still keep my 1920s toilet because it blasts the stuff down the drain like a fire hose. The other thing that bothers me are low flow showers. I want to blast all the crud off not just rinse off. Geez.... I'll keep my high flow shower too.

 

[dnjan]

The other thing that bothers me are low flow showers. I want to blast all the crud off not just rinse off. Geez.... I'll keep my high flow shower too.

A plumbing supply person did me a major favour a number of years ago. He told me that inside the Grohe shower head that I had there was an o-ring that served as the flow restrictor. Remove the o-ring and it's back to a real shower again.
Couldn't hurt to check you low-flow showerhead for a similar, small o-ring.

 

[jamespowers]

A plumbing supply person did me a major favour a number of years ago. He told me that inside the Grohe shower head that I had there was an o-ring that served as the flow restrictor. Remove the o-ring and it's back to a real shower again.
Couldn't hurt to check you low-flow showerhead for a similar, small o-ring.

Oh, I certainly don't have them at home but hotels love using them. I took them out of the fawcets at work too.