Interesting Details About the History of Indoor Plumbing, You Should Know
Australia is a comparatively young country by global standards, and in some ways, that’s made us more mindful of the fact that our progress has been fortunate and rapid.
People that live in Australian cities and other heavily urbanized areas enjoy easy access to water and careful sewage control. But even though residents in these more modernized areas don’t have to worry so much about indoor plumbing access, it’s not something we should take for granted.
Water Is Life
Australia can be a dry, arid country, and that’s something we have in common with Ancient Egypt. It was the Egyptians, clinging to life at the shores of the Nile River that understood how important water access was.
This was because they needed to accommodate a growing population with crops that they hit upon making pipes out of clay. That ability to carry water inland allowed their culture to grow, and eventually, they switched over to copper pipes, a material still in use even in some of today’s plumbing.
Later, the Romans took the Egyptian’s irrigation technology and turned it into the famous aqueducts of European history. These structures carried massive volumes of water from their source to whichever town or city needed it.
But then the Romans took it a step further, branching off aqueducts into specific homes, for the first true indoor plumbing. They even pioneered sewage management, taking elm logs, hollowing them out and using them to carry off waste.
Palatial Problems
It would be natural to think that as time passed, indoor plumbing improved, but this wasn’t always the case. The most surprising example of this is the French royalty of the 18th century.
Marie Antoinette was famous for her use of perfume, but she did it to hide her own smell, as well as that of the rest of the court. French palaces were often situated more for aesthetic reasons than logistical ones, and so that meant easy to access to water wasn’t feasible.
This often resulted in no indoor plumbing, so Marie Antoinette and the rest of court could only bathe once a month. The bigger problem, however, was no sewage management of any kind. With so many people in the palaces, it was difficult to keep up with the accumulation of waste, so both liquid and solid human waste sat in corners, pooled in floors, and even dirtied the rugs of royal chambers.
These Days It Just Works
21st century Australians can count themselves lucky they don’t have the plumbing situation of 18th-century French royalty. Modern showers and bathtubs let people clean themselves as often as they like during the day.
Today’s toilets safely and efficiently move waste out of homes for processing that doesn’t expose any home residents to bacteria or other contaminants. However, should something go wrong, you don’t have to panic, there are contingencies in place.
Companies like In Deep Plumbing have the expertise to help anyone on the Gold Coast, of Queensland, Australia. So even when problems occur, there are experienced professionals ready to act quickly and restore functionality.
