I spec'd waterless urinals for a LEED project I am doing, but a new guy on the team says they are terrible and wants to use low flow urinals instead. I have no first hand experience with waterless urinals, and wondered if anyone has used them / been to a bathroom that has them.
Is the smell bad? Do they require a lot of maintenance?
I've used them! And yes I did bend over to smell...it didn't smell any different than a typical urinal (sweet smelling piss) otherwise i cant help you much
reedtimothy...had the same problem on our current job... the client
wanted waterless urinals..but at the last moment switched them back
to the standard typical urinal. i think the first wave is always difficult
to spec since you don't know about performance over time, ease of
purchasing required fluids etc...but once they are more common i
can't see why they won't be commonplace.. any building doing proper
maintenance (ie cleaning your bathrooms at least twice a week) should
be able to keep these from smelling up the joint.
basically i think the main thing holding these back is perception.
there is some periodical maintenance you have to perform (replacing some "sealant fluit" cartridge every X weeks)...my previous office had them, they worked great, but you would "know" when it was time to replace the cartridge...
i guess if the cleaning crew is not informed about cartridges and when to change them, you would get some really bad results...
I have used waterless urinals (you see them a lot here in LA). My pee ends up splashing back on my leg...not to mention the fact that I always tend to dribble some...
Thanks for all the responses. The current thinking is that if we can reduce our water consumption by 30% with low flow urinals, we will use them. If the low-flow puts us under the 30% mark, we will use the waterless. Right now we are on the cusp of the 30% mark.
i don't think they smell bad, but in concept they are a little gross. there's a ski resort near me that has them, and its a little disturbing to see all these dudes walk away from the pissers without flushing.-
we have em at the office and i'm always hit with a cloud of piss smell when i open the door to the bathroom. kinda sucks. mdler is right about the splash. we have one high one and one low one and everyone uses the low one because if you piss in the high one you'll come out of the bathroom with splash stains on your pants.
i was drunk in a holiday in once, and peed on this gold floor drain in the bathroom, well it turns out my friend was in the other stall next to me and he got a little bit too much of the spray..... needless to say i didn't have to flush.
abra - I've seen those toilets before and they are awesome!
For those who don't know - the fly is painted on the porcelain, at the exact spot where there's the least amount of splash-back. If you're a guy, that's all you need to know. Everybody aims for the fly, even if you know it's fake.
i remember back in 94 they had similar ones in the loos of clubs with saddam's face. That was cool, boy i miss saddam now! those toilets now have little relevance except as collector's items
cleaning urinals is a waste...and no fun either. my fraternity used to have urinals (which we rarely cleaned)...inevitably, we would get fruit flies hangin' the things and everytime you'd take piss, you'd stir up a small swarm of flies. great fun.
if you are going to have unisex bathrooms what is the point of stalls? has not the mystique been shattered at that point? don't women know men have a penis and women have vagina's? come on we're all grown-ups here!
In the fifties there was a time when they made female urinals. Mies and Phillip installed them in the Seagram building. They did not really work but looked alot like the entry from eastcoaster.. There are alot of the waterless ones around LA. Maybe I am just more careful but I have not had them splash back except when I really had to gooooooo. They also have not smelled but do need to be maintained with some type of service contract. Probably best for institutional, commercial or givernment users where they can build the maintenance into the general fund or slush fund or what ever.
It's very difficult to maintain waterless urinals. The toilets and pipes have to be cleaned with harsh chemicals and with no water, the acid from the urine erodes the pipes. The flip side is that you use less water. If the building has some form of rain water catchment or grey water reuse, you might as well stick with a a low-flush urinal.
Thre must be many interesting engines at the patent section at Google, my guess is that this issue is one that most of all ,been profiting from academic scientific models ; countless of systems must be out there .
I heard about mechanic throving the reciliants away , throws more than 200 meteres been acomplished from what I know, by innovative frensh engineers solutions ; in deserts souer pipes seem a bit silli, but as there are huge emty arears, throwing dirt for once, is in fact a scientific solution. Reality though prove, that engineered engines not alway's, throw it's ballast, the exact right direction ,
They don't smell as fresh as a standard urinal with a big mint cake in the bottom. However in low volume use with daily cleaning they aren't too bad. In high volume areas, like sports stadiums, they would stink terrible. Remember than nothing is washing the piss off the porcelin until the janitor cleans it off, or the atmosphere evaporates it.
they do stink. Mostly because you have to change the filters frequently which most clients won't/don't do, also the filters are quite expensive particularly if you are spec-ing them for a large building.....something a client should be informed of before spec-ing.....
My school has them in the men's washroom. I've been wondering why do they use these. The whole corridor smells, and the fact that the restaurant is on the same corridor. Isn't it unhealthy?
I've been to a state park that was using them in south east NM. During the winter, they weren't so bad. But in the summer, you could damn sure smell them.
i was reading that most cities don't do troughs any more for sanitary reasons, at least in the city projects.
anyone have any experience w/ composting toilets? we've found that code allows it but most people are skeptical about going anywhere near their own dookie. which is ironic cos when they were 1 - 2, they were probably going to town wiping everywhere and laughing.
have used waterless urinals, no smell. i think it depends on the maintenance.
drunk or not i find urinals are such a miserable failure anyway that you either wet your trousers or find a few drops on the floor from what hits the hard surface and returns.
My only issue with them is the occassional splash on your pant leg etc.
I have never noticed a smell
However Treehugger had a recent post on a new type of waterless urinal, that would seem to take care of this issue
I second all of the eariler posts about the difficulty in maintaining waterless urinals. Even with well-trained maintenance staff, they smell (plus, you can't keep people from dumping other liquids in there, which will screw them up.).
Just finished a LEED-CI upfit; the biggest water savings were actually from the metered faucets. In fact, we had 60% water reduction with the faucets alone; the urinals had very little impact on the final numbers.
The cartridges trap "urine solids," which is just nasty any way you look at it.
treehugger reports that it is splash free...if only they realised that the urinal splash has been men's excuse for not shaking enough for at least a generation. One step forward two steps back!!
Aug 16, 07 7:07 pm ·
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waterless urinals
I spec'd waterless urinals for a LEED project I am doing, but a new guy on the team says they are terrible and wants to use low flow urinals instead. I have no first hand experience with waterless urinals, and wondered if anyone has used them / been to a bathroom that has them.
Is the smell bad? Do they require a lot of maintenance?
Any help would be appreciated.
bldgblog...just had a little post on how bad the smell was...i don't know first hand...
I have used them once.
They didn't smell bad and continue to work well. There was a lot of hesitation from the contractor for they had never installed them before.
I've used them! And yes I did bend over to smell...it didn't smell any different than a typical urinal (sweet smelling piss) otherwise i cant help you much
reedtimothy...had the same problem on our current job... the client
wanted waterless urinals..but at the last moment switched them back
to the standard typical urinal. i think the first wave is always difficult
to spec since you don't know about performance over time, ease of
purchasing required fluids etc...but once they are more common i
can't see why they won't be commonplace.. any building doing proper
maintenance (ie cleaning your bathrooms at least twice a week) should
be able to keep these from smelling up the joint.
basically i think the main thing holding these back is perception.
there is some periodical maintenance you have to perform (replacing some "sealant fluit" cartridge every X weeks)...my previous office had them, they worked great, but you would "know" when it was time to replace the cartridge...
i guess if the cleaning crew is not informed about cartridges and when to change them, you would get some really bad results...
I have used waterless urinals (you see them a lot here in LA). My pee ends up splashing back on my leg...not to mention the fact that I always tend to dribble some...
I know that the Plumber's Union hates them and have threatened to go on strike or refused to install them...
sheinals, woot woot
that thing looks like it's going to gobble you up...
waterless urinals....isn't that what guys call a beer bottle on your nightstand?
I spent a summer doing as-built drawings of campus and had to measure every square inch of every bathroom...boys are gross.
Thanks for all the responses. The current thinking is that if we can reduce our water consumption by 30% with low flow urinals, we will use them. If the low-flow puts us under the 30% mark, we will use the waterless. Right now we are on the cusp of the 30% mark.
i don't think they smell bad, but in concept they are a little gross. there's a ski resort near me that has them, and its a little disturbing to see all these dudes walk away from the pissers without flushing.-
le bossman - you seriously flush the urinal?
Not only is that an insane waste of water, but it's also dirty as fuck. YUCK!
the defiant fly stops the splashes for all those precision dicks...
we have em at the office and i'm always hit with a cloud of piss smell when i open the door to the bathroom. kinda sucks. mdler is right about the splash. we have one high one and one low one and everyone uses the low one because if you piss in the high one you'll come out of the bathroom with splash stains on your pants.
i was drunk in a holiday in once, and peed on this gold floor drain in the bathroom, well it turns out my friend was in the other stall next to me and he got a little bit too much of the spray..... needless to say i didn't have to flush.
he hated me for the rest of the vacation
good ol' goldschlager
abra - I've seen those toilets before and they are awesome!
For those who don't know - the fly is painted on the porcelain, at the exact spot where there's the least amount of splash-back. If you're a guy, that's all you need to know. Everybody aims for the fly, even if you know it's fake.
Genius industrial design.
i remember back in 94 they had similar ones in the loos of clubs with saddam's face. That was cool, boy i miss saddam now! those toilets now have little relevance except as collector's items
They stink. Go with the low flow instead.
these are not waterless but are cool as hell, and the new Guthrie by Jean Nouvel has them!
i used it and the sound is awesome!
oh..they are stainless steel prison urinals...
cleaning urinals is a waste...and no fun either. my fraternity used to have urinals (which we rarely cleaned)...inevitably, we would get fruit flies hangin' the things and everytime you'd take piss, you'd stir up a small swarm of flies. great fun.
Does anyone have any ideas of a good way to incorporate urinals into unisex bathrooms? Should there be separate urinal stalls?
if you are going to have unisex bathrooms what is the point of stalls? has not the mystique been shattered at that point? don't women know men have a penis and women have vagina's? come on we're all grown-ups here!
what's a penis and what's a vagina?
what's a bathroom?
In the fifties there was a time when they made female urinals. Mies and Phillip installed them in the Seagram building. They did not really work but looked alot like the entry from eastcoaster.. There are alot of the waterless ones around LA. Maybe I am just more careful but I have not had them splash back except when I really had to gooooooo. They also have not smelled but do need to be maintained with some type of service contract. Probably best for institutional, commercial or givernment users where they can build the maintenance into the general fund or slush fund or what ever.
i prefer pissing outside anyways
the gsd has waterless unrinals
bunch of grad students working at all hours+water-less urinals=no (perceivable) smell
It's very difficult to maintain waterless urinals. The toilets and pipes have to be cleaned with harsh chemicals and with no water, the acid from the urine erodes the pipes. The flip side is that you use less water. If the building has some form of rain water catchment or grey water reuse, you might as well stick with a a low-flush urinal.
Thre must be many interesting engines at the patent section at Google, my guess is that this issue is one that most of all ,been profiting from academic scientific models ; countless of systems must be out there .
I heard about mechanic throving the reciliants away , throws more than 200 meteres been acomplished from what I know, by innovative frensh engineers solutions ; in deserts souer pipes seem a bit silli, but as there are huge emty arears, throwing dirt for once, is in fact a scientific solution. Reality though prove, that engineered engines not alway's, throw it's ballast, the exact right direction ,
Google Patent section ;
http://www.google.com/ptshp?tab=wt
they smell great
Plumbers unions don't like waterless urinals for the same reason they don't like PEX and air admittance valves: less pipe is less money for them.
They don't smell as fresh as a standard urinal with a big mint cake in the bottom. However in low volume use with daily cleaning they aren't too bad. In high volume areas, like sports stadiums, they would stink terrible. Remember than nothing is washing the piss off the porcelin until the janitor cleans it off, or the atmosphere evaporates it.
I went to IKEA this weekend, they had waterless urinals, a little smell. But, in big box bathroom levels, not bad at all.
they do stink. Mostly because you have to change the filters frequently which most clients won't/don't do, also the filters are quite expensive particularly if you are spec-ing them for a large building.....something a client should be informed of before spec-ing.....
My school has them in the men's washroom. I've been wondering why do they use these. The whole corridor smells, and the fact that the restaurant is on the same corridor. Isn't it unhealthy?
I've been to a state park that was using them in south east NM. During the winter, they weren't so bad. But in the summer, you could damn sure smell them.
has anyone spec'd a stainless steel urinal trough with ice cubes?
i was reading that most cities don't do troughs any more for sanitary reasons, at least in the city projects.
anyone have any experience w/ composting toilets? we've found that code allows it but most people are skeptical about going anywhere near their own dookie. which is ironic cos when they were 1 - 2, they were probably going to town wiping everywhere and laughing.
I once was in a Madison bar where in the men's room there were no more urinals available so some drunk pissed in the floor drain.
have used waterless urinals, no smell. i think it depends on the maintenance.
drunk or not i find urinals are such a miserable failure anyway that you either wet your trousers or find a few drops on the floor from what hits the hard surface and returns.
i always use the cubicle, for number ones and twos...(most of been a childhood experience that prevents me from using the urinals)
My friend dan does the same with urinals.
My only issue with them is the occassional splash on your pant leg etc.
I have never noticed a smell
However Treehugger had a recent post on a new type of waterless urinal, that would seem to take care of this issue
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/no_splash_no_fl.php
I second all of the eariler posts about the difficulty in maintaining waterless urinals. Even with well-trained maintenance staff, they smell (plus, you can't keep people from dumping other liquids in there, which will screw them up.).
Just finished a LEED-CI upfit; the biggest water savings were actually from the metered faucets. In fact, we had 60% water reduction with the faucets alone; the urinals had very little impact on the final numbers.
The cartridges trap "urine solids," which is just nasty any way you look at it.
Just open a window and let fly.
Saves on trip time as well.
treehugger reports that it is splash free...if only they realised that the urinal splash has been men's excuse for not shaking enough for at least a generation. One step forward two steps back!!
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