WC Valve

[fisherman]

The WC of the 1950’s house we have just purchased is a wonderful contraption. It has a lever on the side which when pulled opens a flap to drop the contents directly down a hole into the cesspit.

The lever also operates a flush valve. Due to age or wear the cup seals in the flush valve are leaking.

Is anybody out there familiar with this arrangement and do you know if spares for the valve are available.

An easy solution would be to replace the loo with a modern one. However the ‘drop hole’ is in the middle of the floor and as modern loos exit from the rear we would have to put the loo too far forward and then would not be able to open the toilet door.

I know that in the long term I will probably have to upgrade the cesspit in line with the new laws which will probably mean re-plumbing anyway however I am looking for a short term fix at the moment.

Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks

[PaulT]

You should be able to get an S trap pan - if not in France certainly in the UK

Paul

[Pierre ZFP]

Alternatively, remove the existing pan, paint a footprint either side of the hole, enjoy!

Well it worked like this for years until fairly recently  [+o(] [;-)]

[sid]

Lapeyre sell WCs with vertical exits. for example http://www.lapeyre.fr/bains/espace-toilettes/wc-a-poser/wc-a-poser-topnet.html

The ones labelled SAC are of this type; the exit pipe is hidden within the pedestal and go out vertically. (Sortie arriere cacheé).

It sounds as though your "hole" (pardon the expression, but the jokes will get more lavatorial) may be too far forward for a conventional new WC?

[Chancer]

Could you not use a seperate flush mechanism and keep the existing handle for the poop flap?

I guess it would take a little bit of synchronisation and you would have to give your guests a formation before letting them loose [:-))]

My property had a similar loo which was used by the Hôtel residents and the clients of the braserrie until it fnally closed in I think 1997, it was in a tin roofed shed that wasnt even worthy of the name ****house, had no handle, no flap, no cistern, just a hole in the floor and a bucket, it didnt even have the Turkish footprints.

I am glad that I am not the only one with a minor obsession with French evacuation plumbing, the one that I thought was really neat served the workshops of the Lycée Pro, the cistern looked like a mini ballon d'eau chaud but was in fact a bladder accumulator, you turned the lever of the vanne and 15 litres or so of water whooshed into the pan at 4.5 bar pressure, the pan must have been designed for this mechanism, possibly by James Dyson as it created a captivating scouring whirlpool to send the sausages off to the seaside [:-))]

On a more practical level the pan never needed cleaning and was pretty hard for the eleves to block, all my modern WC pans with reduced volume cisterns need constant cleaning, perhaps I need a sortie verticale [;-)]

[Gluestick]

Chums of ours ran a Chambre d'Hote based on an old farmhouse and buildings spread around a rather lovely courtyard.

Whilst the letting rooms were naturally all up to snuff, vis a vis plumbing and disposal of results of natural functions, the bathroom and separate loo in the main old farmhouse building (Where they lived) was very much as had been.

My chum warned me, the first time I pumped the bilges, to operate the little lever with discretion: otherwise one soaked one's trousers extremely successfully. It was if you had turned on a full bore fire house!

After a few drinks (And boy! Did he like a drink!), when the host's cautions had been forgotten, on one much later visit, naturally, I lacked caution when pulling down said lever.

And released the captive version of Niagara all over my strides.

Which resulted, of course, in all the usual time-worn jokes and ribald comments.

[:)]

[Chancer]

Yep, thats the kiddy, been there done that.

What are/were they called?  I would quite like to get hold of one.

Years ago I made a camelback supersoaker out of an old dry sump tank, some oil hose and a blowgun, it was pressurised by a footpump, one of thses thingies would ahve done an equally good job with more safety, an oil tank is not supposed to be used as a pressure vessel except an accusump.

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Chancer"]

Yep, thats the kiddy, been there done that.

What are/were they called?

[/quote]

In German. JRC , probably summat like, "Underpanten Wasser einweichen Maschinen"

[:D]

Or more correctly: Underpant Wasser einweichen Maschinen mit Toilette angebracht bündig

That's where German has it over French or English!

[fisherman]

Thank you all for your help. The S Trap Pan and the SAC type need checking out. I'm sure that with your good advice I now won't have to take the door off the smallest room and teach every one to whistle.