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15 Fascinating Facts About Plumbing

Thank goodness for indoor plumbing, am I right? Without the advent of modern, indoor plumbing, not only would My Plumber have no reason to be around, but we’d all still be using outhouses and bathing in rivers. Indoor plumbing is something we all take for granted, and something no one thinks too much about. Except, of course, professional plumbers.

The pipes that pump fresh water into your home have a rich history, so take a little time to smell… the toilet.

  1. Nintendo’s Mario and Luigi are, arguably, the world’s most famous plumbers.
  2. Archeologists uncovered remnants of an indoor plumbing system dating back to 2500 BC, at the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.
  3. Pipes lain by these ancient Egyptians were made of copper, which is used more than any other plumbing material today.
  4. The Plumbers & Steamfitters Union named Albert Einstein an honorary plumber after he commented publicly that, if he had life to do all over again, he would choose a profession in plumbing.
  5. You need hot water, so you turn the faucet on, and wait. With this simple action, you waste up to 9000 gallons of water annually.
  6. On the flip side, a low-flush toilet can conserve up to 18,000 gallons each year.
  7. The word itself — “plumbing” — is derived from the Latin “plumbum,” meaning lead. Likewise, people who worked with lead were referred to as plumbarius, which was eventually shortened to plumber.
  8. In Boston and Montreal, in the 1800s, plumbing pipes were not made of metal, but of wood.
  9. Before Ozzy Osborne rode the crazy train, he was a plumber’s apprentice.
  10. At 140 degrees Fahrenheit, hot water will burn skin in five seconds. Increase the temperature by 20 degrees, and the time to scorch decreases to just one-half second. It’s advisable to ensure that your home water heater system maxes out at 125 degrees Fahrenheit.
  11. The toilet is sometimes called the john, but do you know why? Sir John Harrington invented the first flushable toilet in 1596.
  12. Chicago burned in 1871. The Chicago Water Tower was one of the only buildings to survive the fire, and is the only building from that time still standing in the city.
  13. Great Britain’s King George II fell off the toilet, and died. The date was October 25, 1760.
  14. More than 5.3 million miles of copper tubing have been installed in US buildings since 1963.
  15. So you’ve got a leaky faucet. It may be wasting more water than you think: If water drips fast enough to fill an eight-ounce glass in 15 minutes, call My Plumber today! Our experienced plumbers will fix that noisy nuisance, and save up to 180 gallons of water each month.
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