Urinal

A urinal is a specialized toilet designed to be used only for urination, not defecation, and almost always by a standing male. Advantages over a full-function toilet include: it is smaller, uses much less water, and the regular version is for regular adults at a convenient higher height.

It often contains a urinal cake contained within a plastic mesh guard container or a plastic mesh guard without a urinal cake. The plastic mesh guard is designed to prevent solid objects such as cigarette butts, fecal matter, or paper from being flushed and possibly causing a plumbing stoppage.

Urinal with strawberry scented urinal cake.

The term may also apply to a small building or other structure, in which such toilets are contained.

Flushing

Most urinals incorporate a flushing system to rinse urine from the bowl of the device to prevent foul odours. The flush can be triggered by one of several methods:

Manual handles

This type of flush might be regarded as standard in the United States. Each urinal is equipped with a button or short lever to activate the flush, with users expected to operate it as they leave. Such a directly-controlled system is the most efficient provided that patrons remember to use it. This is far from certain, however, often because of fear of touching the handle which is located too high to kick. Urinals with foot-activated flushing systems are sometimes found in high-traffic areas; these systems have a button set into the floor or a pedal on the wall at ankle height. Some establishments, often bars, pubs or nightclubs, fill their urinals with ice cubes during peak hours. As the ice melts it serves to slowly flush the urinal, and also cools the urine to prevent smells from rising during use. The ice may also provide entertainment to patrons as they urinate. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that flush valves be mounted no higher than 44" AFF. Additionally, the urinal shall be mounted no higher than 17" AFF, which has a rim that is tapered and elongated and protrudes at least 14" from the wall. This enables users in wheelchairs to straddle the lip of the urinal and urinate without having to "arc" the flow of urine too high.

Timed flush

In the UK, manual flush handles are unusual. Instead, the traditional system is a timed flush that operates automatically at regular intervals. Groups of up to ten or so urinals will be connected to a single overhead cistern, which contains the timing mechanism. A constant drip-feed of water slowly fills the cistern, until a tripping point is reached, the valve opens, and all the urinals in the group are flushed. Electronic controllers performing the same function are also used.

This system does not require any action from its users, but it is wasteful of water where the toilets are used irregularly. However, because British men are so used to the automatic system, attempts to install manual flushes to save water are generally unsuccessful. Users ignore them not through deliberate laziness or fear of infection, but because activating the flush is not included in their mental routine.

To help reduce water usage when restrooms are closed, some restrooms with timed flushing use an electric water valve connected to the restroom light switch. When the building is in active use during the day and the lights are on, the timed flush operates normally. At night when the building is closed, the lights are turned off and the flushing action stops.

Automatic flush

Toto battery-powered hands-free automatic sensor operated flush system.

Electronic automatic flushes solve the problems of both previous approaches, and are common in new installations. Active or (more usually) passive infrared sensors identify when the toilet has been used, and activate the flush. Thus the urinal is cleaned where with a manual flush it might not have been, but water is not wasted when the toilet is not used.

Automatic flush facilities can be retro-fitted to existing systems. The handle-operated valves of a manual system can be replaced with a suitably-designed self-contained electronic valve, often battery-powered to avoid the need to add cables. Timed-flush installations may add a device that regulates the water flow to the cistern according to the overall activity detected in the room. This does not provide true per-fixture automatic flushing, but is simple and cheap to add because only one device is required for the whole system.

To prevent false-triggering of the automatic flush, most infra-red detectors require that a presence be detected for at least five seconds, such as when a person is standing in front of it.. This prevents a whole line of automatic flush units from triggering in series if someone just walks past them.

The automatic flush mechanism also typically waits for the presence to go out of sensor range before flushing. This reduces water usage compared to a sensor that would trigger a continuous flushing action all the while a presence is being detected.

Door-regulated flush

This is an older method of water-saving automatic flushing, that only operates when the room is being used. A push-button switch is mounted in the door frame of the restroom, and triggers the flush valve for all restroom urinals every time the door is opened. While it can't detect the use of individual urinals, it provides reasonable flushing action without wasting excessive amounts of water when the restroom is not being used. This method requires a spring-operated automatic door closer, since the flush mechanism only operates when the restroom door opens.

Waterless urinals

A gutter urinal.

A more recent innovation are urinals that do not use water at all. Sloan Valve Company has created a urinal that does not use water but uses a cartridge filled with a sealant liquid. The lighter than water sealant floats on top of the urine collected in the U-bend, preventing odors from being released into the air. The cartridge and sealant must be periodically replaced, but the system does save water and can be installed in situations where providing a water supply may be difficult or where water conservation is desired.

Waterless installations often include a label warning cleaning staff not to pour buckets of liquid into the urinal (to dispose of dirty mop water, for instance). A large influx of water would wash the sealant through the U-bend and down the drain, causing the urinal to smell until the sealant were replaced.

Arrangement of urinals

A typical arrangement of urinals, in a linear array, without partitions: a row of sensor operated fixtures provides for optimal traffic flow and throughput.

Urinals are usually associated with a commercial, industrial, or high capacity men's washroom, where they are used, together with toilets, for high throughput capacity, as part of an efficiently designed washroom architecture. For this reason, one seldom finds an individual urinal. Instead, large numbers of them are installed along a common supply pipe and drain. Individual single-user facilities usually do not have a urinal, and instead have just one toilet.

A portable set of four urinals in the Netherlands.

Often, one or two of the urinals, typically at one end of a long row of urinals, will be mounted lower than the others, for use by children or users in wheel chairs.

Street urinals and vespasiennes

In some localities, urinals may be located on public sidewalks or in public areas such as parks. These urinals are usually equipped with partitions or dividers to provide some semblance of privacy. They may or may not be equipped with flush mechanisms.

The last surviving vespasienne, on the boulevard Arago in Paris avec patron

A city famous for its street urinals is Paris, France. Until the 1990s, street urinals were a common sight in the city, and in the 1930s more than 1200 were in service. Parisians referred to them as vespasiennes, the name being derived from that of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who imposed a tax on urine. Beginning in the 1990s, the vespasiennes (renowned for their smell and lack of hygiene) were gradually replaced by the far superior Sanisettes. Today only one vespasienne remains in the city (on the boulevard Arago), and it is still regularly used. A disadvantage of this kind of urinals is that there is no way to wash your hands.

See also Public toilets.

Makeshift urinals

During the Korean War, Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm etc., "piss tubes" were used as make-shift urinals. To make one, soldiers would affix an inverted water bottle on one end of a rigid tube, burying the other end. Removing the base of the bottle made a funnel which would be left at the proper height. Deposited urine simply soaked into the ground. When the area became saturated, the piss tube was relocated.

Urinals for women

Nearly all urinals are intended for use by males, but a few have been designed for use by women. From 1950 to 1973, the American Standard company offered the mass-produced "Ladies' Home Urinal." It did not provide significant advantages over conventional toilets, because it used just as much floor space and flushing water. Its main selling point was that women could use the fixture without touching it.

Several other designs have been tried since then, but they either required the user to hover awkwardly or to bring her genitals into close contact with the fixture. Most have not caught on.

More recently, models that use specialized funnels have been introduced, with some success, at outdoor festivals (to reduce cycle times and alleviate long lines), most recently at the Glastonbury Festival in Pilton, Somerset, also at Leeds festival and Reading festival.

Urinals in the news

In early March of 2004 the National Organization for Women (NOW) took offense to the new urinals Virgin Atlantic Airways decided to install in the Virgin Atlantic clubhouse at JFK Airport in New York, New York. The urinals in question were shaped like an open pair of red lips[1]. After receiving many angry phone calls from female customers Virgin Atlantic Vice President John Riordan called NOW to apologize. Ironically, the urinal in question was designed by a woman[2]. The company that manufactures them is called Bathroom Mania! and also sells less offensive products including a flower pot shaped toilet and a hammock style bathtub.

In March of 2006, the Associated Press reported that the plumbers union in Philadelphia had become upset because the developer of the city's newest skyscraper, Liberty Property Trust, has decided to use waterless urinals. Many in the union decided that because of the decision that this would lead to less work for them. The developer cited saving the city 1.6 million gallons of water per year as its deciding factor.

Former Wham! lead singer George Michael was arrested for "engaging in a lewd act" with another man in a public restroom. His first post-incident single was "Outside" which had a music video with disco ball styled urinals.

Maintenance crews at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam reported in 2005 that adding a fly target to urinals reduced bathroom cleaning costs by giving men something to aim at.

Curiosities

• Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917) is one of the most influential pieces of modern art.
• On January 27, 2004, inventor Eric D Page from Sarasota, Florida was granted US Patent No. 6,681,419 for a "Forehead support apparatus". The abstract of the patent makes it clear that this is "...for resting a standing users forehead against a wall above a bathroom commode or urinal or beneath a showerhead." The abstract continues:

  "The apparatus includes a mounting member adapted for attachment to an upright bathroom wall either above the commode or urinal or below the showerhead. A compressible head support member is attached to and extends from the wall and said mounting member. The head support defines an elastically deformable or resilient forehead support surface which is spaced above the floor and from the wall a distance sufficient for the user to lean his forehead thereagainst and be supported while using the commode or urinal."

• In September of 2005, an Australian man had an unfortunate encounter in Canberra while using the facilities at a local bar. Authorities determined that the man became unconscious from an elevated blood-alcohol level, at the time he was using the bathroom, and had collapsed face-first into the urinal. An autopsy confirmed that the man had drowned in the urinal which he was using.
• Nassau County, New York Police adopt Talking Urinals in a unique Anti-Drunk Driving initiative. Utilizing Wizmark, a talking urinal screen, police can provide bars with free pre-programmed urinal screens urging patrons not to drink and drive.[3][4]
• The bullet damaged brick wall from the St. Valentines Day Massacre was disassembled where it had been originally constructed at 2122 N. Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois and reassembled in men's restroom of a bar called Banjo Palace in Vancouver, British Columbia where it served as a urinal wall.

Trivia

One example of urinals in popular culture was on an early season of the sitcom Roseanne in the late 1980s. Roseanne Connor is dressed as a man for Halloween and is somehow forced into using a urinal. While doing so, she looks at and talks loudly to the men next to her, and when she gets silence and uncomfortable looks in return, she then looks straight ahead, and says: "Oh, I get it! It's like an elevator!" In the late 1990s, a similar gag was used on Third Rock from the Sun, when Sally Solomon and Dick Solomon switch bodies, and Sally (in Dick's body) has to use a urinal alongside Officer Don (Sally's boyfriend).

Manufacturers

List of manufacturers of urinals:

• American Standard Companies
• Crane
• Kohler Company
• Dongfeng

External links

• Collection of urinals worldwide (eg Berlin wall, flowers and at the South Pole)
• Urinals for women from The Straight Dope.
• Urinals for women from restrooms.org.
• The Urinal Etiquette Test (amusing, urinal-related game).
• Male Restroom Etiquette (a humorous instruction film at YouTube)
• Urinal Bathroom Theory (amusing article about urinal politics and design).
• Urinalology (amusing book dedicated to the study of urinals).