THE CRAPPER TOILET AND OTHER POTTY TALK

Crapper: The thing, and the man.

Almost two centuries ago, Thomas Crapper showed off the effectiveness of his newfangled water closet by flushing down six apples along with several sheets of paper stuck to the bowl with grease. His guests were no doubt suitably impressed by this demonstration. However, few would have dreamed that utilitarian plumbing fixtures such as Crapper’s would one day be marketed as virtual objets d’art in plumbing showrooms everywhere.

You can spend any amount of money you want on a toilet,
if that's really where your priorities lie.

Yet that’s just what has happened.  Toilets, lavatories, tubs and sinks have been elevated to luxurious status symbols. Sure, you can still buy an ordinary white china toilet for under a hundred bucks, although its pedigree may be dubious. But for a healthy surcharge you can also choose from myriad colors—or should I say flavors: French Vanilla, Jersey Cream, and Raspberry Puree are just a few I’ve come across. Toilets can also be had with crackled, speckled, or glazed finishes; with hand-painted flowers or pinstripes; or in sculpted shapes designed by architects who apparently don’t have much else to do. You can even buy reproductions of antique toilets not much different from Crapper’s, except that they now sell for around $1200.  

Of course, people are entitled to pay as much as they want to for a toilet. The thing to remember is that, beyond a basic level of quality, there isn’t that much difference between one toilet and another. The same is true of other plumbing fixtures. Here’s a brief rundown of common fixtures and their relative benefits:  

This is your garden-variety undermount sink.
Note that there is no rim to catch crud and
complicate cleaning.

•  Toilets can range from about $75 to well over a thousand. The better models use ultra-quiet “siphon vortex” flush action and a high-quality flush valve;  cheaper ones use noisier “siphon jet” flushing and a flush valve worthy of the name Crapper. Beyond that, one toilet is about as good as the next; any additional expenditure only goes toward those hand-painted magnolias on the bowl rim. 

•  Lavatory sinks are widely offered in enameled steel, china, or cast iron, in ascending order of cost. A few companies make stainless steel lavatory sinks as well. They’re variously available in self-rimming topmount, metal-framed, and undermount styles.  The latter are the most practical of the three, since there’s no protruding rim to catch splashes and crud. Lavatories made of solid-plastic materials such as Corian can be fabricated integrally with the countertop, yielding a perfectly flush, seamless installation that’s very easy to maintain. And by the way, I'm not even going to mention vessel sinks, those inane bowl-on-top-of-the-counter affairs, because I happen to think it's one of the silliest trends in plumbing history.

Composite countertop materials such as Corian offer
sinks fabricated integral with the counter—
probably the ultimate in ease of cleaning. Alas,
just about the ultimate in expense as well.

•  Bathtubs (the old-fashioned variety, not the kind bristling with jets) are available in both enameled steel and enameled cast iron. American Standard also offers a composite material called Americast, which emulates the performance of cast iron but is lighter. Enameled steel tubs are the cheapest; however, they have a tinny feel, lose heat rapidly, and dent and chip more easily. Cast iron tubs, while about 3-4 times the cost of steel, are extremely durable and hold heat better once they’ve warmed up. They’re also incredibly heavy, so plan on hiring a he-man at installation time.

•  Kitchen sinks are available in enameled steel, stainless steel, solid plastic, and enameled cast iron, roughly in ascending order of cost.  Enameled steel is again the low-budget choice. Stainless steel is scrubbable and impervious to chipping, but requires frequent cleaning to maintain its sparkling look. As with lavatories, solid plastic sinks can be fabricated integrally with kitchen counters for minimal maintenance. Once again, enameled cast iron is the vintage Cadillac of sink materials—solid, durable, but on the heavy side.   

WHEN TO DO IT YOURSELF (AND WHEN NOT TO)

Yes, you really can save a pile of money by doing it yourself.

Labor accounts for about two-thirds of building costs these days. Ergo, furnishing your own labor is a cracking good way to save money on a project—in fact, it’s really the only significant way to save.

Yet when I suggest to money-conscious clients that they take on a part of their project themselves, you’d think I asked them to drain the Pacific with a teaspoon. Their eyes glaze over and they begin mumbling things like, “Well...maybe I could sweep up at the end of the day.”

Framing—it's all standardized. Don't be afraid!

While it’s good to know your limitations, it’s also true that you don’t know what you can do until you try. Many construction tasks, such as rough framing and insulating, are well within the reach of any reasonably skilled person.  

If you feel utterly clueless about how to approach such projects, study a few online videos or, better yet, take a few "hands-on" how-to classes.  They’ll be well worth your while, because even if you decide not to pursue the work yourself, you’ll be a better-informed in hiring a professional. I don't recommend written how-to guides because books are  generally less helpful to the serious do-it-yourselfer—the projects they describe usually exist in a perfect world where lumber never warps, cuts are always straight, and no one ever smacks their thumb with a hammer.

Insulation: It's no fun to put in, but neither is it
rocket science. How much is a day of itching
worth to you?

If you’d like to do some of the work yourself but don’t feel confident about taking on conspicuous tasks such as finish work, consider doing phases of the job that won’t be visible later. Here are a few:

• Framing is an excellent candidate for do-it-yourselfers. Framing conventions are standardized and easily learned. Better yet, wood is relatively forgiving, and even a major screw-up isn’t that difficult to fix. Moreover, the standard of “professional” quality framing isn’t always that high to begin with—in production framing, speed, not accuracy, is the objective.  Visit a large housing project under construction to see for yourself. A do-it-yourselfer has a pretty good chance of matching that caliber of work.   

Modular cabinets are easier to design with,
and also easier to specify and install.
Your local building emporium has tons of them. 

• Installing insulation is no fun, but neither is it difficult—a decent online video may be all you need to prepare for it. Weigh the savings-to-itch quotient carefully before committing yourself, though, as this may be one of the most uncomfortable jobs in construction.

Some kinds of finish work are do-able as well:

• Hanging drywall is well within most people’s abilities; although it’s a backbreaking job, the results are gratifyingly visible. Alas, the most expensive part of a drywall installation—taping and texturing—is both difficult and extremely conspicuous, and hence is best left to professionals.     

•  Installing modular cabinets, which come in standard widths of 3" increments, is fairly straightforward. If you’re at all conversant with the use of a spirit level, you’ll probably do all right. Installing preformed plastic laminate countertops is also relatively simple. For other countertop materials such as tile or cultured marble, take a class to gauge your aptitude first.

This, however, is not the place to learn on the job. A mistake
in the foundation, such as an out-of-square corner,
can haunt you all the way through the project.

Naturally, there are also some areas to stay away from: 

• Pouring your own foundation is only advisable if you're a masochist, insane, or both.  Otherwise, stay away. Unlike wood, concrete is an unforgiving material—errors such as misaligned forms or overlooked anchor bolts can create major  headaches throughout the rest of the job. A botched foundation will also dog all subsequent phases with line, level, and squareness problems. Leave this part to the pros. 

•  Installing roofing is seldom cost-effective for do-it-yourselfers, since the learning curve is long, the job is miserable, and mistakes can leave you all wet.    

HOW TO CALCULATE STAIRS, PERIOD.

Your basic straight run stair. The flat
parts are "treads", and the vertical parts
are "risers".

Years ago, when I worked as a framer, I always got stuck building staircases because I was the only sucker willing to do the math involved. After a while, I earned the title of Exalted Stairmeister around the job site. Secretly, I had to chuckle at this, because in reality stair design involves nothing more than basic arithmetic. Try it yourself:

First, decide on the basic stair configuration—straight, L-shaped, or U-shaped. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t even think about building a curved stair. The correct choice depends on how much room you have in your floor plan, the sort of look you’re after, and a few other factors that, lucky for you. we don’t have room to address here.

Once you’ve decided on a straight, L-shaped, or U-shaped configuration, determine the total rise of the staircase—the vertical distance from one floor to the next. For this example, let’s assume a typical height of 106”.

Traditional U-shaped stair with a half-landing
is space efficient and less strenuous to climb.

Next we have to choose an appropriate height for the riser (the vertical distance from one tread to the next). There a re several guidelines here. For starters, most building codes don't allow any stair riser to exceed 8” in height. Moreover, few good contractors will use a riser greater than about 7 1/2”, since anything higher will yield uncomfortably steep stairs.

Okay.  Let’s say we want our stairs to have a fairly gentle slope, so we’re looking for a riser height somewhere around 7”.  To determine the exact height, we divide the total rise from one floor to the next—in our hypothetical case, it’s 106”—by whole numbers (representing the total number of risers) until we arrive at a figure as close to 7” as possible.

Through trial and error, we find that dividing the total rise of 106” by 15 gives us about 7.07”.  That’s as close as we’ll get to 7” using a whole number, so we’ll settle on that. This means our staircase will have 15 risers of 7.07” each, yielding a total rise of 106”.  Go ahead—check it out on your calculator. It works.

Rise, run, and total rise and total run. Not rocket science.

Now we have to choose the "run" or tread depth measured front-to-back. There’s a handy rule of thumb to help us do this:  Rise+Run=17.  Ergo, since we’ve already settled on a riser height of 7.07”, our tread run should be about 10”. Simple, no?

Now we know both the rise of our stair—7.07”—and the tread—10”. On a straight-run stair, all that’s left is to find the total run or length of the staircase. To do it, we multiply the tread width times the total number of treads to find the total length required by our staircase. Here's the catch: There's always one less tread than the number of risers, since the top tread is formed by the upper floor itself. So, in our example, the total run of the staircase would be:  10” tread x (15-1) risers = 140”, or 11’-8”.

Exterior stair risers should not exceed six inches, and treads
should be at least twelve inches deep. The gentler the slope,.
the better

Now you can check whether your stair actually fits in the space allocated to it (it probably won't; underestimating the space required for stairs is a common problem for both architects and amatuers). If there’s an intermediate landing, as in an L- or U-shaped stair, it’s just counted as an extra-large tread, and it's added to the total run of the stair.

Remember that the total rise is always divided by a whole number representing the number of risers. You can’t start by arbitrarily choosing a riser height, because when you get to the top of the stair you’ll end up with an orphan step that’s lower than the rest. Note also that this works for any number of risers, including deck steps that have only a few risers between landings. However, for any outdoor steps, the riser should be no higher than 6", and treads should be at least 11" deep.

ADDING A SECOND FLOOR: Are You Sure About That?

If your foundation isn't able to support a second floor,
are you ready to do this?

Time and again, couples will ask me over for a consultation and happily declare, “We want to add a second story to our house!”  Right then, my heart sinks, and I think to myself:  Rats. I have to spoil the party again.  

Why? More often than not, adding a second story is more complicated and less satisfactory than adding on at ground level. If you’re thinking about “going up”, there are a number of serious issues to consider.

Stairs crammed in a closet or
wiping out a bedroom won't do
your resale value much good.

First and foremost, is your existing foundation up to the task?  The foundations of most single-story homes weren’t designed to carry the additional weight of a second floor. Years ago, this wasn’t such a big deal, because building departments were fairly lax about enforcing foundation requirements—that’s why you see so many rinkydink old houses with obvious second-floor additions. But earthquakes and lawsuit-mania have changed that. Nowadays, most building departments require detailed engineering calculations to demonstrate that your existing foundation is capable of supporting an additional story.  

If it isn’t, your only alternatives are to reinforce your present foundation, or to replace it with one designed to carry two stories. Both are expensive propositions. Foundation replacement, for example, requires that your house be supported on cribbing while the contractor demolishes the old foundation and pours a new one. This in turn usually requires that the landscaping and paving around your house be dug up as well.  Not quite what you had in mind, huh?

Many home styles weren't meant to be tall and spindly—
as you can seen from this example.
(Courtesy Chicago Bungalow Association)

Even if your foundation is adequate, adding a second story doesn’t always make architectural sense. For example, if the new interior stairs can’t be properly incorporated into the existing floor plan, a ground-floor addition may be a better solution. A steep staircase that’s crammed into a closet, or one that wipes out half a bedroom, may actually hurt your home’s resale value despite the extra space gained. 

What’s more, a small second-story addition will generally be more expensive in relation to the amount of floor space added. That’s because the stairs consume a big chunk of floor space on both the first and second floors—space that has to be recaptured in the addition. Hence, a small second story addition is seldom worth the trouble.  

The proverbial second-floor addition that "fell out of the sky",
crushing this poor little rancher.

As for aesthetics—more bad news. Many home styles, such as bungalows and ranch-style homes, were meant to be long and low. On such homes, a second story can look gawky and foreign, as if it just dropped out of the sky.      

If all this isn’t enough to think about, zoning and design ordinances in a few areas restrict or even forbid a second story addition, so check them out carefully too.  

However, since you've stuck with me up to this point, I'm happy to say that there are a number of instances in which a second-story addition makes sense. If your foundation is adequate, your zoning checks out, and there’s room to accommodate a staircase without disrupting the lower floor plan, then going up may be just the ticket.  If your foundation needs replacement anyway—say, due to seismic requirements or damage from settlement—then the extra effort necessary to bring it up to two-story standards will be nominal, and a second-floor addition may be worthwhile.  Lastly, of course, if your site doesn’t have any room for a first-floor addition, you may not have any choice in the matter. 

RESIDENTIAL DESIGN: Stuck In A Rut, Big Time

Finnish-style dish cabinet/drying rack. Are the Finns
smarter than we are? Yeah, probably.

Despite all the ballyhoo about avant-garde designs, architecture remains one of the most hidebound disciplines around. It takes ages for us to finally change things that are—well, silly. Sometimes we have to see the way ote way ote have to see the way other people approach a problem to realize that maybe the way we do things isn’t necessarily best.

I got an eye-opening dose of this when I visited Finland some years ago. Trying to help out my host in the kitchen after dinner, I offered to dry the dishes, and got a rather uncomprehending look. Know why? The Finns don’t dry the dishes. Instead, they have a wall cabinet above the drainboard that has an open wire rack in place of a bottom shelf. The rinsed dishes are put away and simply drip-dry.  The water runs down the drainboard and into the sink.  

Baseboard: It costs a lot to install,
 but what exactly is it doing there?

The eminent practicality of this arrangement made we wonder why we don’t use it here in the States. The answer, I’m afraid, is that we’re just so used to doing it “our” way that we’re suspicious of something that’s better and simpler. We dry our dishes by hand and then put them away because—well, dang it, that’s just the way it’s done.

Another relic of this traditional mindset is the baseboard or mopboard—that wooden molding installed where floors meet walls. Originally, a mopboard was just that—a board meant to protect the wall plaster from moisture and scrapes when you were mopping. That seems sensible enough in rooms that need mopping. Today, however, most rooms have wall-to-wall carpet, and even my mother doesn’t mop that. 

Sear Roebuck precut house, circa 1929:
Apparently far too radical an idea.

Still, builders routinely install a lot of complicated and expensive baseboards in carpeted rooms because they’ve done it that way for years. I get howls of protest from contractors when I try to omit the baseboards and extend the wall finish to the floor instead. They insist that vacuum cleaning will scuff the wall if there’s no baseboard.  True enough—and if there is a baseboard, the vacuum cleaner will scuff that instead—except it’ll be a lot harder to repaint when the time comes.      

Far from being trivial, the baseboard issue is symptomatic of  a larger problem in architecture: The way we build houses has remained fundamentally unchanged since the Middle Ages. We assemble them out of tens of thousands of individual pieces, so that no two are ever quite alike. There have been many attempts to improve this state of affairs: In the early 20th century, Sears Roebuck sold precut homes that arrived via railcar with every brick and stick of lumber required to build it—a step in the right direction, but one that ultimately didn't fly due to public's lower perception of "kit houses" as opposed to "custom-built" homes.

The luxurious railcar-like interior of Buckminster Fuller's
Dymaxion House of the early 1950s, an innovative
design that was to be mass-produced in an aircraft plant.
Sorry, Bucky—it's too far out for the hidebound
building industry.

There have also been lots of interesting alternatives out there: houses formed of gunite sprayed over balloons; geodesic domes; houses built underground or sunk into hillsides; but none of them have managed to lure people away from the standard stick-built house.
While a handful of architects enjoy experimenting with such innovative housing concepts—such as Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion house, shown here—in truth the majority are perfectly happy doing things as they’ve always been done, mopboards and all. It’s not that architects are a bunch of reactionaries; it’s just that, contrary to their popular image, most architects are busy enough just making a living. They feel no inclination to reinvent the wheel.

Then, too, contractors are reluctant to adopt new construction methods because the long learning curve can cost them their profits. Moreover, it takes people a long time for people to get used to new ideas in architecture.  If automobile design progressed at the same rate that housing has, we’d all still be driving Huppmobiles.

With all these forces working against progress in housing, what’s going to create change?  Beats me—but I’ll think about it while I dry the dishes.