Form Over Function

2015-09-02

I recently stayed at an apartment which you can see from the picture is a pretty nice looking apartment

It's got the fancy show nothing cabinets that hide everything

It feels a little like living in some future sci−fi apartment from Logan's Run or the Jetsons.

But ... after the initial "wow, cool" factor wears off I soon realized whoever designed this stuff really wasn't qualified to design it. I suppose I'm being harsh but gees, so many things are poorly thought out.

First example: The sink

Is too small to actually fit a plate so it's pretty hard not to make a mess while trying to wash.

The flat bottom also makes it loud to splash water in which is not really something you want in an apartment with thin walls.

On top of that the drain has a "trap" that's too far away. The "trap" is the u shaped pipe that keeps some water in it to block sewer fumes from coming up the pipe. The problem is (and this is a guess), as it's too far way it's easy for food to linger in the all the pipes on the way to the trap. So that food rots and you get a stinky sink. Or at least that's my guess. All I know is the sink stunk. A problem I've never had before in my life.

Next up is the oven fan/light.

It's the only light in the sink area so if it's night you want to turn it on so you can see what you're doing. Except ... there's no way to see it. You just reach in and put your fingers in the grease grill in front and then walk your now gross fingers around until you find it. YUCK!

Putting those controls in front, facing out, could have solved that. Adding some kind of night light (neon, led, ...) would also solve it. Heck, maybe glow in the dark switches. Did they even test this stuff?

Finally the worst one of all, the toilet.

It's got 2 problems. Both really gross (warning!).

The first is look at the water level and where the hole is. Now, imagine your a man (I have no idea for a woman). A man has to sit his body on that seat such that his junk is inside the rim which places his ass not over the hole but 2 or 3 inches behind it. So, you take a shit and it if you're luck it grossly glops into the hole leaving lots left over. If you're unlucky it just piles up behind the hole. It effing STINKS!! I've never in my entire years of living used a toilet so poorly designed. Did the designer even have it tried once before selling it? Every time I use it, as I flush I have to pull out the scrubber and help the thing get the waste into the hole. Yuck!

The second problem is about how toilets are supposed to function or at least how every western toilet I've used in my life until now has functioned. Western toilets work by creating a syphon.

I only learned that recently. What that means is it's not water flowing into the bowl that pushes the waste down. It's the fact that after you put enough water into the bowl quick enough, it pushes water past the S−pipe of the bowl in such a way that the water in the pipe creates a syphon and the weight of the water down the pipe already literally SUCKS the rest of the water and waste down with it. This is why toilets make the sound they do. You're hearing the syphon sound.

From the How Things Work Website

You can understand how the siphon works by trying two experiments with your toilet. First, take a cup of water and pour it into the bowl. You will find that approximately nothing happens. What's even more interesting is that you can pour 25 cups (6 L) of water into a toilet, one at a time, and still, nothing will happen. That is, no matter how many cups of water you pour in, the level of the water in the bowl never rises. Now, take a bucket of water -- approximately 2 gallons (7.6 L) -- and pour it into the bowl. You will find that pouring in this amount of water causes the bowl to flush. That is, almost all of the water is sucked out of the bowl, and the bowl makes the recognizable "flush" sound and all of the water goes down the pipe. What's happened is this: You've poured enough water into the bowl fast enough to fill the siphon tube. And once the tube was filled, the rest was automatic. The siphon sucked the water out of the bowl and down the sewer pipe. As soon as the bowl emptied, air entered the siphon tube, producing that distinctive gurgling sound and stopping the siphoning process.

Well, this toilet doesn't use syphon action. It tries to just wash the waste down. It fails about 60% of the time. There's no good solution either. Your choices are (a) find something to chop up your waste. YUCK! 🍺 leave the waste in the toilet for a hour so water partially dissolves it then flush again, more YUCK and stinky! Not that (a) wouldn't be stinky too because you'd have to find a way to clean or dispose of whatever you used to chop with. Blarf! Yuck! Ugh!

Seriously WTF! The guy who designed this thing should be forced to use it for the rest of his life >😎

Comments
Can't Figure Out Where to Be
Rant - Colds!