Baffling Bathroom Behavior Okay, I'm completely baffled by this very weird bathroom behavior I've observed in this one particular family. Whenever the wife uses the toilet while the husband is using the shower, he gets an action queued to lecture her. Why? The toilet didn't break or anything, so that isn't the reason. I don't get it. Is this some sort of odd Maxian in-joke? It only happens in this one family. Is something wrong with the toilet? I tried selling it and buying a new one, but that didn't seem to fix it.
Hot water! I think the showering person may be mad at the toilet person, have you ever been in the shower when someones flushed/ran a tap... If one of my sims goes pee pee while another is in the shower they leap out and start having a paddy at the other sim.
Yes, actually, I have. Nothing happens. I don't see why this would affect anything. Like I said, I am at a loss to understand *WHY* this happens....and only in that one specific house.
Hmm. Noticing your stated point of origin, and the fact that you act like this is expected, I have to ask....is this a British thing?
Not sure Hmmm, it might be (I've never actually tried it in any other country, I've been conditioned to not do it). Maybe its our plumbing system, but the toilet/shower/taps all seem to be on the same pipes, so if someones having a shower thats 75% hot and 25% cold and someone runs a cold tap or flushes a toilet you get a shower that is now 100% hot (or sometimes cold for some reason). And the washing machine nicks hot water too and makes the shower freezing cold. It doesn't happen so much these days but older houses in particular are bad for it. Strange that a non American phenomenon (which I obviously can't spell) is included as an in joke in an American game.
It's not a non-American phenomenon. It's sloppy plumbing. Dealt with it through my entire childhood in three different houses. But strangely, houses my parents have owned/rented are the only places I've experienced it. When I moved out of my parents' house I moved across the country (Oregon to Rhode Island) and have never experienced it here... not even in my apartment which has about the worst plumbing in the world!
Now, I know IRL there are two diffrent reason why a spouse in the shower might get aggervated at a spouse using the toilet. #1 would be the afore-mentioned flushing the toliet. When someone flushes a toilet or runs water in the tap, or when the washer fills up, or whatever, at my house the cold water goes out of the shower and the person in the shower gets scalded. #2 would be if you have a neat sim who can't stand smells. The joke might be like when a Sim "passes gas". You always have one Sim who thinks its funny, and another sim get mad. Well, maybe this is along those same lines.
I dealt with it all of my childhood too but it wasn't sloppy plumbing this time... it was partly because of a solar water heater. One of the first on the market I think because it did the same thing about sending all the hot water to the shower if a toilet was flushed but afterwards there would be NO hot water for about 30 minutes. Even after we got rid of that there was still a problem about using toilet, sinks, washers etc. when someone was in the shower. And I also never had the problem as an adult once I moved out... weird.
I've only had this happen once in the sims (frequently in real life! lol). Wife in shower made a distressing yelp when hubby flushed toilet. She leaped out of the shower and followed him out of the bathroom lecturing him loudly. I'd think if it was smell..and heaven knows if taking care of business requires a newspaper, magazine, or a book it should be private..they'd hold their nose or green gas would have been visible. I think being scalded in the shower is due to plumbing installed before the early 60's. They must have developed some type of regulator around that time. It does teach you to be really quick and efficient in the shower though! lol Nothing worse than to be lathered from head to toe and have someone shout "sorry..I forgot!"
It's just that the flushing makes the water heat up. I've had it happen a couple of times. If you watch closely, the amount of steam coming out of the top of the shower increases when the toilet flushes.
I will brook no nonsense concerning Brit plumbing. I still haven't got over reading Stephen King's It about 10 years ago ... clearly there's no such thing as a U-bend or stink trap in America
That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Don't many toilets flush a rear tank, and refill slowly anyway, and the ones that don't flush from a tank require a high-pressure line that you don't connect to a shower? My toilet flushes from an 850 psi line, which is admittedly overkill, but still, at least 200-350 is expected... You wouldn't want to connect that to a shower. I could see why you might have a brief drop in OUTDOOR pressure or the fire sprinklers, but not the shower. I've never heard of, or encountered such a thing in my entire life. And why does it happen with only one specific house, anyway? Am I to figure that the entire plumbing system in that specific house is therefore defective, and I should have it razed to the ground and rebuilt?
I always thought it an urban legend that something live could crawl out of your toilet. We went on a 2 week holiday once though and on arriving home found a huge dead sewer rat in ours. I assume that no water being flushed through it for a long period of time made this possible. I'm just glad the lid was down so it didn't run rampant in my house those 2 weeks. If we are going to be gone more than 4 or 5 days, I now have whoever picks up the mail and stuff flush the toilets periodically! lol I DO check now..see if something is peeping out at me. The only positive thing...from a woman's point of view...is that since that time my guys do put the seat and lid down without prompting.
Well, two weeks unattended is a long time, and a rat could have arrived from anywhere. There's no proof that the rat actually came FROM the toilet, as opposed to originating elsewhere, falling into the toilet, and drowning. I assume that given that the rat had been left dead for 2 weeks, it had gone putrid and was inedible, too. What a waste.
what? 850 psi is more than 50 atmospheres. You don't get those kind of pressures outside of highly specialized laboratories. I have seen (meaning physically been in the presence of) industrial robots that use water jets to cut steel using less pressue. I always thought you were full of s*** but don't gimme such an easy target, JMP or else I'll rechristen ya "Gimp". You accept a drop in pressure in the fire sprinklers? Ye gods. This wouldn't be a feature of British plumbing. Brits would much rather stink than be barbequed.
Untrue. Steel cutters use much higher pressures. Cleaning sprayers have nozzles that run at 1250-3000 psi. They're used for cleaning gravel. Maybe you've mistaken psi for some British unit of measurement, although you are right that's it about 50 atm. However, you are wrong that you don't get those kind of pressures outside of laboratories. You also get those pressures for cleaning things like sewer pipes, mine tunnels, and storm drains. I don't know what the rated pressures for steel cutters are, but I'm sure they're much higher. I kid you not. If you want proof, I'm sure I can find you something. Well, it *IS* a side effect of the design. Pressures remain within acceptable parameters, though, as fire equipment requires only 250 psi, and even a drop from the 850 still falls within acceptable parameters. Besides, who flushes the toilet during a fire?
Steel cutters blast water out at 60,000 psi, so 850 isn't *that* extreme. Well, maybe it is. To put it in perspective, a 2L plastic soda bottle can be pumped up to ~120 psi before cracking - ever played with water rockets? I must say, I have never encountered the toilet-shower plumbing phenomenon here. Never had it happen to my Sims as well, one can take a shower and another dispose of waste simultaneously without problems.
I think that you lovers of super-high pressure are confusing your outlet pressures with your supply pressures. A typical toilet tank offers a head of water, for flushing the toilet pan, of less than 2 feet. This equates to a maximum supply "pressure" of 60 grams / square centimeter (roughly 13 ounces/square inch). This typically delivered to the rim of toilet pan by a 1.25" diameter pipe. At the toilet pan the water passage constricts to some (unknown to me) smaller diameter which by virue of simple hydraulics causes the water's velocity and pressure to rise substantially. UK domestic water supplies typically supply mains water with an average "head" of 30 feet (around 12psi. Even if we add in the ubiquitous armospheric pressure of 15psi I still have less than 30psi at my kitchen sink tap (faucet) ... which is more than enough to create an unholy mess if I miss the hole in the top of the kettle when I want to make a cup of nice strong hot British tea. As for steel cutters. Yes the high pressures do exist at the nozzle that concentrates the water into a cutting jet. But that doesn't mean that the water pressure is at 60,000psi all the way back to the water main. I can go down to B&Q Depot and buy a Karcher pressure washer to keep my car spanky clean. It will crank up my measly kitchen sink's 12psi to something respectable ... but most of the work will still be done at the final nozzle. If a commedian comes along while I'm using and lops off the end of the lance with a handy pair of bolt cutters I'd be left with a much less impressive jet ... My car is a diesel BTW ... some serious pressures going on with injectors too I think ... but those pressures don't extend all the way back to the fool tank.
A plastic soda bottle is hardly the definitive measure of pressure resistance, given that I can cause a soda bottle to rupture just by crushing it in my arms. You're right that there might be a confusion in terminology here. I'm just reading the value as given by the meter attached the supply pipe. While you're right that normal toilets rely on constriction effects to increase pressure, mine lacks any such benefits, as the 14" diameter exit pipe is certainly larger than the 6" input pipe, which is why I quoted "supply" pressure, as opposed to exit pressure. I assure you my toilet is no steel cutter. Although the flush shield can take off parts of your body if your arm is in there when it closes. You'd probably have to use a leg, though, since your arms would be busy with the flushing. Why you'd put your leg into a toilet while it flushes is beyond me, though. Still, this discussion was never supposed to be about *MY* plumbing systems, which are, admittedly, grossly overdesigned, because I've always felt that anything worth doing, was worth doing with excessive force, thoroughness always being one of my employment calling cards. The question remains: Why does this occur in this one particular Sim house, and none of the other ones in my entire neighborhood? Is it randomly determined which house will have bugged plumbing?
Yeah, right. I was going to add another item of bathroom bafflement until I got sidetracked ... I've noticed that one of my sims makes some sort of complaint (his showering wife is in thought bubble) when he goes into the bathroom to use the toilet. She's not a messy person, and -- I checked -- he does it when she's taking a bath as well. My theory is that he's a bit of prude but not man enough to make a really big fuss about his need for potty privacy. Bit weird really as he has a fair few outgoing points. While I am bathrooms ... one of my favorite sims is a truly messy creature. She can flood out a whole bathroom just taking a quick shower. I've given in and now let her take baths. I dread to think what her kids are gonna be like.
