The elephant in the (bath)room #AsianPlumbing

Please note: This post intentionally does not contain any photos. 

I just realized I’ve taken some things for granted. Like plumbing codes. Spending over 2 months travelling in India and Sri Lanka I’ve noticed some similarities no matter where I end up. The most impressive is the lack of anything resembling a plumbing code.

Yes toilets are now western style wherever you go, unlike the squatty potties of 10-20 years ago. They have seats and yes they flush. But the noticeable difference is that in a lot of places the “exit” pipe from the toilet is a plastic, flexible dryer vent hose.

I am not making this up.

The same stuff that you use to vent the hot air from your clothes dryer to the outside of your home is used as the exit ramp for your business. After I saw it a few times I began to make mental notes. Then sure enough I noticed it more and more as we travelled from northern India to southern India to Sri Lanka. and back. Someone started this trend and it caught on quickly and I wonder how. Well, it’s cheap and easy to fix I guess.

Trapped.

The next noticeable oddity is the entire lack of any sort of “trap”. Traps are the curvy U-shaped or S-shaped thingies that are usually found in every drain. They capture a little bit of the drain water to prevent the sewer gases from entering back your home or office.  Since there is no code here there are no traps. Anywhere. Every sink has a straight pipe right down too the floor. We even had one bathroom where the sink pipe ended at the floor and the water from the sink ran across the perfectly pitched bathroom floor to the shower drain, which as you may have guessed by now, probably doesn’t have a trap either. This may be why bathrooms smell pretty bad sometimes.

A keen entrepreneur could get a national plumbing code passed and be in line to supply everyone with a trap.

A lot of the time shower heads are dangerously close to the toilet and sink. So when you take a shower the sink, toilet, and toilet paper get wet. There are sometimes large squeegee’s with a long handle in the bathroom for you to help the water down toward the drain. Fancier places have a 1 inch depression where the shower area is to help with draining but not helping to keep your TP dry.

Next to most toilets is a kitchen spray hose. I guess it’s supposed to act like some kind of a bidet knock-off. (You know, the 2nd toilet looking thingy popular in Europe that sprays water and cleans you up a bit.) The kitchen spray hose is mounted and plumbed right next to the toilet. The only time I’ve ever used it is to help clean the bathroom before we settle into the room. One clever guesthouse owner actually hacksawed a small V shape in the back of the toilet seat, removed the spray nozzle, and mounted the hose there. Think about that.

If you wanted the bidet effect just turn the faucet knob, and voila!