In Praise of Plumbers

[Ecurb Noselrub]

In my humble opinion, indoor plumbing is the one thing that most contributes to modern civilization, even more than electricity. 200 years ago, in rural life (which most life was), if you wanted to poop or pee, you generally had to go to a stinking, bug infested outhouse, separated from the rest of the house for obvious reasons (hopefully, down wind). Even Monticello, the advanced home of the genius Thomas Jefferson, had a glorified outhouse at a lower level of the home that just drained out into a field. If you wanted to get a drink, you had to go to a well and draw it up, again a distance from the house. The kitchen was off site, as well, due to the risk of fire (because there was no indoor water). Bathing involved bringing water from the well to a metal tub, often outside. Washing clothes? Go down to the creek.

Indoor plumbing changes all that. We flush the poop and pee away and there is very little stench. Water for drinking, bathing, and everything else is right at our fingertips. If I had to do without electricity or indoor plumbing, I would go without electricity, even though it runs a very close second to plumbing as far as advancing civilized living.

So, the next time you gripe and bitch about how much plumbers cost, consider the alternative.

[Dark Lightning]

True enough water Vs electricity. As for paying plumbers, up until last summer when we had our kitchen remodeled, I did the plumbing except for main drain line cleaning. $150, give or take. I did have to have the furnace repaired. Guess I could've gone online and found some troubleshooting guide, but a call to a local heating guy, who came out same day and went and got the component and installed it was easier. I don't do much home repair now, given that the arthritis in my knees precludes kneeling or squatting. I'm not happy about it, either.

[billy rubin]

i dont have indoor plumbing, at least, no toilet

my house was built dry, with a handpump on a dug well outside the kitchen.

at some time in the past someone hammered a line from the cellar into the well and installed a shalliw water jet pump, so there is a kitchen sink. then the previous owner installed a bathtub in the downstairs bedroom. i put a laundry sink into the bedroom too

still no toilet . that was an issue with five little kids in snow country, so we put together a sawdust toilet  and a big compost pile which we still use.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

So, billy, it is hard to imagine having the Internet but no toilet. Do you have some sort of philosophical thing going on there? My brother, a successful attorney, refused for years to have AC, but at least he had indoor plumbing. Then, when he figured he had punished his wife enough for marrying him, he built a new home with AC. But no toilet? Why?

[billy rubin]

no, we moved to ohio and were trying to find a place to live. i was in california running the bees in the almonds and cherries, and the wife and kids were already in ohio looking for a place to buy. itwas a long story, but eventually she found 50 acres for sale for 100K. too much money for us, so she walked into the hayfield and talked to the seller on his tractor and he agreed to sell 25 acres for 50k.

i walked around the outside of the house one time, butnever went inside until afterwe bought it. it was a $50 per month rental house, 100 yearsold, on a hilltop in a hayfield. a dump. it had rudmentary water, but there was a dead rabbit in the well so the watersmelled bad. a shovel-coal furnace in the cellar for heat, and ancient 1910s wiring.

there are two chimneys, one in the living room for a coal stove, and another in the kitchen for a wood burning range.

but there was never any water except for the hand pump outside the kitchen door, until somebody put a pump in the cellar.

theres no philosophy or ethics on the toilet. its just what was there. we have a really nice outhouse, with a concrete floor. now thatthe kids are gone we havent had to move it. we kept a kerosene lantern in it for heatin the winter.

its still right there over a brand new hole, but we mostly use the sawdust bucket these days. only three of us, so we empty it into the compost pile when it fills up and put in a fresh one. we have two piles, one to fill up and one to decompose from the previous year. we use the compostin the garden.

one of these days we might put in a septic system, but frankly, if its up to me, i wont bother.

[Dark Lightning]

In your own small way, Billy you're helping Mother Nature. We try by conserving water and electricity. We use way less of both than anyone around us, based on the numbers they share. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, though.

[billy rubin]

well, i attempt to live as low on th eenergy scale as i can.

im a vegetarian, we live out inthe country and try to grow as much food as we can for ourselves, and so on.

butwe use lots of electricity, which i dont like. we could go more wind, but solar wouldnt do a lot. i have  a windmill on the long term plan.

mostly we re still enmeshed in the dominant culture. id like to step off the treadmill, but it isnt easy.

but every single small step makes a difference. every one.

anything you can do is importsnt

[billy rubin]

and everything is a contradiction. i make my living in the oil fields, loading produced water from tanks on well pads and delivering it to wells being fracced, where its pumped right back down into the same formation it came out of. but id prefer a renewable energy economy.

its interesting to look at ordovician water coming out of the ground and to realize that what youre pumping has trilobite pee in it, but not fish pee, because fish hadnt yet been invented.