Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Something for the Boys

My husband (the architect) has been pestering me about getting a urinal for our home for quite some time now. It's not as if we're looking to renovate our bathrooms anytime soon, my husband just likes the hypothetical argument. Just the idea grosses me out. He feels that with 3 males in the family, we should have a urinal in our house. And now, according to the NY Times, home urinals are the hip new thing. Maybe for my sister with 3 boys and a husband...

Anyway, this was a pretty entertaining article, if nothing else. And worry not, I will not be cleaning a home urinal any time soon.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um. Yeah. No. I don't think so. Even as a stay-at-home dad with three boys I object to the home urinal.

Let's face it, men, women, boys, girls, cats, dogs and assorted other members of a household all bring their own unresolved personal hygiene issues.

StuntMom said...

I know very little about the urinal, but wouldn't it use less water to flush, so environmentally it might be a good thing, right?

Another concern is the "cake like thing" in the bottom of the bowl. Would this be a poison hazzard that I would need to think about?

Anonymous said...

Waterless urinals are often installed in commercial buildings, and the custodial staff pours a small quantity of disinfectant in each one at night. As the article states, some people are installing them in their homes. The flush urinals use less water than a standard toilet does.

The "cake like thing" is simply a disintegrating disinfectant cake, or, as one of my favorite pieces of grafitti called it, a "urinal mint." There would be no reason to use one in a typical home.

One thing that a urinal does do, for men and boys that stand while urinating, is eliminate much of the spray that ends up on the toilet and floor (one of the reasons that wood floors and carpeting are not such great ideas around toilets).

Another way to look at it, for all those women that would like to have a bidet in their house, then a urinal should also be considered. Obviously, a urinal is not for everyone, nor cats or dogs.

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