Everyone uses toilets, but most people don’t really think about how they work, or how they’re made, or how much engineering they represent. So maybe it’s no surprise that people believe some pretty strange things about them.
At Flushmate, we’re all about toilets, so we want to lay these myths and misconceptions to rest. Here are some of the ones we hear most often, and the facts that bust most of them.
Myth: Toilet seats are crawling with germs that can give you diseases.
Fact: While public restrooms can harbor germs, the toilet seat itself is unlikely to be the culprit. Studies have shown that your desk at work may harbor 400 times as many germs as the toilet seat in the restroom.1 There are also likely to be more microbes on manual faucets and other common surfaces that people touch regularly with their hands.
Myth: Toilets in the southern hemisphere flush in the opposite direction.
Fact: The Coriolis Effect2 causes weather phenomena such as hurricanes to circle in the opposite direction south of the equator than they do in the northern hemisphere. Since most toilets tend to flush clockwise, many people assume that the Coriolis Effect will cause toilets in the southern hemisphere to flush counterclockwise.
If toilets were the size of lakes, you might actually see that happening. But in reality, toilets flush in the direction designed by the manufacturer, regardless of hemisphere. The design of the toilet, with angled jets of water filling the bowl, determines the direction of flushing.
Myth: Rats can swim up your toilet and bite you!
Fact: This is technically true, because rats are good swimmers and could probably swim up the pipes to your toilet if they wanted to. But why would they want to? They’re generally looking for food, which they’re a lot more likely to find in the other direction—where your drain lines empty into the sewer system.
Rats are far more likely to infiltrate areas where food can easily be found.
Myth: Toilets remove clogs more effectively when they use more water.
Fact: This is only true if you’re talking about conventional gravity toilets, which use the weight of water to generate flushing force.
But pressure-assisted toilets are different. They generate more flushing power than gravity toilets, pushing waste into the drain line with 91% higher velocity using the same amount of water. That means even low-flush-volume toilets can stay clog-free even under heavy usage. In fact, pressure-assisted toilets save water, because they reduce double-flushing.
Myth: Leonardo da Vinci invented the flush toilet.
Fact: Almost true! Around 1516, da Vinci sketched a design for a flushing toilet for King Francis I of France. This design included water supply pipes, a drainage system, and even a lid to control odor. Unfortunately, da Vinci's design was never built—it was too advanced for the technology and infrastructure at that time.
The first documented flushing toilet was built by Sir John Harrington in 1596, 80 years later.
Myth: Replacing a toilet that still works is a waste of money.
Fact: False. In fact, the opposite is true. According to the EPA, when you replace old, inefficient toilets with WaterSense-labeled models, your family can reduce water used for toilets by 20 to 60 percent, saving nearly 13,000 gallons of water every year. Naturally, using less water lowers your water bills—you could save more than $140 per year in water costs, and $2,900 over the lifetime of the new toilets3.
Myth: Toilets on spacecraft flush waste into space.
Fact: We have no idea how this myth got started. Why would the most sophisticated vehicles ever built just blast human waste out into the cosmos?
In fact, waste disposal in space is a carefully managed process. Spacecraft have toilets specially designed to work in zero gravity—they use vacuum power to help suck waste away from an astronaut's body. Solid waste is dried and stored in containers, while liquids are often recycled into clean drinking water.
Myth: Pressure-assisted toilets are complex and require more maintenance.
Fact: Pressure-assisted toilets with Flushmate technology are actually fairly simple. A vessel in the tank compresses trapped air as it fills with water, then releases the air when a flush is triggered. This compressed air generates enough force to push waste out of the bowl more than twice as effectively as gravity.
This simplicity and lack of moving parts actually make Flushmate-equipped toilets easier to maintain than gravity toilets. And you’ll also have far fewer clogs to deal with.
Myth: Some cultures worshipped toilet gods.
Fact: This one is true! Several ancient cultures, from Japan to Rome, prayed to household toilet deities for health, well-being, and fertility, possibly because of the connection between human waste and agriculture. Of course, the flush toilet hadn’t been invented yet, so these deities should more accurately be called “outhouse gods.”
Forget the Myths! Get the Facts about Pressure-assisted Toilets.
Are pressure-assisted toilets right for your home or business? Talk to the experts at Flushmate to learn more about the clog-eliminating, water-saving, maintenance-reducing power of Flushmate technology.
1—The Independent, “Average desk contains 400 times more germs than a toilet seat, new research reveals,” March 2018
2—National Geographic, “The Coriolis Effect: Earth's Rotation and Its Effect on Weather,” October 2023
3—EPA, “Residential Toilets,” https://www.epa.gov/watersense/residential-toilets#tab-1