Digging Up the Hidden Secrets of a Toilet Bowl

Toilets are great companions. You sit down, read a magazine, contemplate life, or listen to music and sing along, and they just sit there with you and help you take a load off. They help you out in so many ways and they've seen what's inside you. But have you ever considered looking at what's inside them?

As simple as toilets look from the outside, they are actually very complex mechanisms designed to take away the evidence you've left and seal it in a place where you'll never see it again.

The flush and refill system can be found in the tank. The tank acts as a reservoir for clean water, and this is released into the bowl via a flush valve. How this works is that a chain is attached onto the flush handle, and as you push it down, the valve is pulled up and opened, letting the water go down the bowl.

The refill mechanism is then triggered when a ball float reaches the bottom of the tank, opening the filler valve. When the ball reaches the top of the tank once more, the valve is closed.

The bowl itself has a siphon that is curved upwards under it. The upward curve helps keep water in the bowl, but once you pour in a bucketful, the force helps flush down the old water. When you push down the flush, water is poured into a bowl to eject dirtied water to be replaced by new water.