Toilet humour

The last time we had a Partido Popular (conservative) Mayor in Pinoso, some 14 years ago now, on the hustings, at a public meeting in a bar called the Hub, he lied to me directly in the question and answer session. He promised that the mains drains, about to be laid in El Culebrón, would extend as far as our house. As I said, he lied; we still have a cesspit, a black hole, though we've been paying the drainage charges to Pinoso Town Hall these fourteen years. I'm told that simple cesspits are no longer legal and, should we ever sell the house, we would need to install a septic tank system or — and this seems much better — dig that trench and put in the pipework to connect us to that tantalisingly close main drain.

From time to time we order up a lorry to come and suck the gunge (nearly slipped up there) out of the bottom of the pit. Last time, the lorry driver suggested I should start pumping out the liquid part myself, to save money, and to add a bit of texture to the soil of our garden. "That way you'd just need to give me a call when the solids build up," he said. I once published a picture of that process and a pal back in the UK said that in her neck of the woods, the lorry had always been referred to as the Honey Waggon. How sweet!

At the other end of the system — the bathroom or kitchen end — we once had a problem. One of the clean water pipes under the tiled floor sprang a leak. The plumber found where the leak was, dug up the appropriate bit of floor (which happened to be in our bedroom), and fixed the leak. He wasn't willing to relay the tiles though; in an attitude that reminded me of the demarcation disputes of the '70s and '80s, he said he wasn't a builder. So we called a builder in to patch up the floor. Now, all the tubes from the washbasin, bidet, toilet, and shower go to a collection point called an arqueta. From that arqueta, one pipe takes the stuff off to the cesspit. When the builder came, he said that although he was happy to fix the floor, it wasn't in his job description to deal with the blockage just before the arqueta. It was in mine. Armed with only a pair of Marigolds, I purged the system. Since then, regularly — every week — I have poured a couple of bucketfuls of water down each of our three toilets to try to ensure that there is no repeat show.

The bathrooms can still, sometimes, get pretty smelly though. Maggie says that it's when the wind blows from a certain direction. I think it's more to do with what we deposit in the system, but I'm trying to avoid being at all unsavoury. I also think it's to do with the design of Spanish sanitaryware — the butt of so many jokes when the first charter planes started to come here from Gatwick in the late 50s. Anyway, so as well as the bucketfuls of water, I've taken to cleaning out plugholes, cleaning the lime from the filters, and generally doing my best to keep the household side of the system as clean as possible. That extends to regularly using hosepipes to run water directly into the shower drains and toilet bowls to flush the pipework more thoroughly. I've also taken to using some Chinese bazaar mini version of Dyno-Rods. The strange thing is, these measures seem sometimes to have the opposite effect to the one I'd hope for, and the fragrancy quotient decreases even more.

It confounds me. The logic says that my efforts should improve things, not worsen them. So then I went looking to see if there is any truth in the idea that Spanish plumbing is inferior to the stuff I grew up with. And it seems that it might actually be true. In fact, you might say that Twyford’s Adamant.

Apparently, in the UK, bathroom plumbing typically uses standard traps known as P-traps or sometimes S-traps. P-traps provide a more reliable water seal. This water seal acts as a barrier that prevents unpleasant sewer gases from sneaking back up the pipes. P-traps include a horizontal pipe section that connects to the waste line and a venting system to maintain air pressure, which helps keep the water seal intact and reduces the chance of it drying out or siphoning away.

By contrast, many Spanish homes don't use P-traps as much and often have simpler U-bends built into the toilet itself or rely on that shared floor trap - the arqueta. These floor traps also have a water seal intended to block sewer gases. However, because they generally hold less water and lack sophisticated venting, the water seal can evaporate more easily, especially in warm climates. This can allow the pong to escape

Water is most likely to evaporate — and so break the seal — when fixtures like bidets, floor drains, or toilets are not used regularly, as in empty holiday flats. One of our friends used to place water-filled balloons into the toilets when they were away for a while to help maintain the seal. But the best advice is to regularly flush toilets and run water through all drains to maintain the water barriers and prevent foul smells.

The smells can also be masked by disinfectants and toilet perfumes, but in septic tank or cesspit systems, these chemicals can damage the bacteria and other microorganisms that break down waste. Additionally, it’s important to check the toilet seals at the base where the stool mounts to the floor, as these are also designed to block odours.

Bear in mind that I'm no plumber. The part about smelly drains is mine, the detail of traps and seals is from asking the Internet and we all know how unreliable that can be.