The Scientific Perspective of your Bathroom!

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Hi Everyone,

Many of you know I am not your Mister Average; in fact, I am far from it. But anyway I want you to consider the following situations and take a good look at your bathroom and possibly see how clean it is, or is it?

Article Name: The Scientific Look at your Bathroom!

Firstly, do you have a bath or shower, or maybe both – and your wash basin and lastly your toilet. Remember if you’re a man, you have been told many times to always lift the seat up before relieving yourself. Then you always been told to either put the seat back down and cover, or just the seat.

Have you ever looked at your bathroom from a scientific point-of-view?

Let us look at your Bath or Shower, which do you use?

Let us look at the bath first, it looks all clean, white and shiny – so you start running yourself a bath, you may add some bubble bath, or bath salts. Anyway, let’s now skip to the end and you have just got out of the bath, do you actually feel clean now? You may think you are clean, but the water you have been bathing in, has all your dead skin, but there is also 100’s of kinds of bacteria thriving on any single part of your body. But did you know that by having a bath allows them to move from one area of your body to another! Creepy crawlies, well there are different types of bacteria that live on your body, in different places.

So is having a bath a good idea or bad?  I will leave this open for debate, bearing-in-mind we have only looked at bathing, nothing else.

Perhaps now you are thinking well if a bath is transferring bacteria from one area to another, then a shower will be more appropriate. So, you jump in the shower (remember the shower head harbours bacteria and lime scale can build up), so you might want to clean it first. Anyway, what can possibly be wrong with having a shower, all the water runs down your body, so you probably think now this is the cleanest option. You will never remove all bacteria off your body, that is a known fact. But what actually does happen while you’re having that nice shower?

Well, for a start you already have bacteria on your body, but bacteria also live on tiles and anywhere else in your shower area, if the shower hits the tiles then it causes a ‘plume’ effect – this then transfers bacteria from the tiles to your body, which you are trying to clean.

So, the Bath or the Shower? Which one do you choose?

If you are wondering well what I have, well I have a bath, and a shower – but I have to be supported by an electric bath seat. My wife has to watch me in the bath, because I suffer from Epilepsy and Functional Episodes – if the water is too hot or too cold it can cause a person with these conditions to have a seizure, and with a standard bath this could be fatal.

Anyway, let’s move on to the toilet. There are many stories regarding toilets and hygiene, I will mention a few but not go in to detail.

Many times you have been told to always shut the seat cover down – but not everyone does. Now I will tell you something that will think twice about putting the cover down. There is a very good reason why toilets have covers, and no it’s nothing to do with your décor of your bathroom, or having a nice cover that matches your décor.

Now, let’s say you have done your business regardless if it is a number 1 or a number 2. Now, with the seat cover not closed, and then you flush the toilet, what do you think is going to happen? You are probably thinking well I flushed the toilet and everything is clean, and then you go to the wash basin turn on the tap and wash your hands. Then dry them in a hand towel nearby. But, you have created a huge bacteria spreading area, the fact is the ‘plume’ created from a single flush of the toilet is high enough to reach your ceiling, and surround walls, the wash basin and even your towel, which is covered in faecal matter or urine. But, it does not stop there either – what about any tooth brushes you have, I bet they do not have the bristles covered over either! Now, you will be brushing your teeth with those toothbrushes.

After reading that you are probably considering making sure the toilet seat cover is shut down every time and you should be fine! Well, if you thought that you would be wrong. With the toilet seat cover down, and when the toilet is flushed the ‘plume’ cannot go up, which is a start, but the actual pressure of the ‘plume’ means in it will be forced out through the sides of the seat, this is not as bad, and is definitely better than having the cover upwards.

Now, for the science facts – a toilet ‘plume’ can have a radius of over 3 feet around it, before it starts dropping off in pressure. With the cover down, the area of the ‘plume’ radius is around 4 feet, but does not rise up which is the best idea. And now you know why toilet seat covers should be closed.

You may ask yourself is there anything as a clean bathroom, the scientific answer is simply ‘NO’, regardless of what cleaners you use.

Please note I have not mentioned the use of bleach in this article, that is because many people think bleach in the toilet is good, in fact you will be damaging your toilet, which is not a very good idea. Bleach after a time will wear away the enamel coating on your toilet, you can use anything other cleaner, but nothing with bleach in. Another tip is, do not stick numerous blue blocks in the cistern, this will normally cause the valve to stop working after a while.

And that is folks, how your bathroom looks from a scientific perspective – everything mentioned has been tested and proven, but not by myself. The original tests were done by well-known British scientists.

There is a way out, by having the toilet and bathroom as separate rooms, but perhaps not a good financial idea, in this day and age.

I have many articles I am writing up, this one was one I actually forgot about.

Regards,

Les.

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Hello Les,

hope you are well as can be and getting the year off to a good start.   

The bathroom, what a predicament !!  maybies we should go back to the old out house and be using a hose pipe in an open space to avoid all nasties..... ooh to live in warmer climes ......  toilet in a seperate room,  well that means you get to put germs all over the handles as you leave and then enter the wash area.   Could the answer be in a new design of toilet?  A lid that has a deep side around it to stop plume from entering the room,  people with excelent memories who will remember to drop the lid before flushing, we should be washing our hands before we flush or touch the lid of course.  Taking a moment to spend a penny will become taking five to spend a few bob or two........   I keep my toothbrush in a cupboard so it is always out of the way of any contaminate,  maybe a new toothbrush holder with a lid could be marketed for those who do not have room for a cupboard.   

I look forward to reading your articles Les,  your words are always of interest and well worth a visit to the chatroom for.

Keep well as you can and take care of you and yours.......

warmest regards

Jessie x

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Blessings for taking time out to help and advise others, Les 63. It was a great read!

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I'm not sure what the point of this is? None of this is new info and frankly none of it is important. Strange post.

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Hi Jessie,

I could be better, but then couldn't we all?

I seen my Consultant Neurologist last week, basically hoping to cut down my doses of medication of over 30 tablets a day, but instead he decided to put them up, because I am still becoming irrate very quickly over the slightest little thing which again, is not me. I feel better in myself but have these bouts of anxiety, which are annoying.

I hope you are feeling okay, well - okay as in what you would class as okay. Everyone of us is different, can you imagine a society where we are all the same.

Typing that last paragraph, reminds me of dopplegangers, we all have 6 - 7 of them on this planet, of well over 7 billion people. Imagine bumping in to yourself, that would be freaky!!! lol

We keep our toothbrushes in one of the bathroom windows, that probably sounds strange having two windows in a bathroom, one is larger than other, but we had the toilet and bathroom knocked in to one room, because the toilet on its own was far too dangerous for me, at one time I had a seizure in the room with the toilet in, at night. Paramedics had a real problem to get to me, because my head was between a wall and the hinged side of the door opening. Basically, they had to move me back so they could get to me. After that incident, the partition wall was removed and a sliding door was put in.

I appreciate the comments Jessica, you have the same name as our youngest daughter, I still remember her when she used to scream the place down whenever we put her in the buggy... but, time flies by!

The next Article will not be in the Chatroom - it will posted under the Benefits Section in the post that Alan pinned, so it will not get lost.

Basically, it covers areas that many people do not know about, when they are claiming DLA or PIP, or just have a disabled person in the property. There are schemes in place, where the money goes back to the government, if left unclaimed.

What the article overs is how to apply for these payments which can range from over £140 per year to £700 per week! No, that was not a typing error, and is not paid by the government either.

When I point these schemes out to people, most say they never knew they even existed, but in the UK like all other countries they do exist, but awareness is not known, thru communication breakdowns.

There are circumstances to be eligible for some of these schemes, but the larger amounts of money are more so for the disabled person.

Anyway, I better take my next load of tablets because it's lunch time.

Regards,

Les.

 

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You're welcome,

More on the way, as I informed Jessica above!

Regards,

Les.

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The point of the post, was to enlighten some people of whats going on in a bathroom with bacteria.

If none of that was important, then I guess we could all live with dirty bathrooms!

It is not a strange post, it is a scientific approach to what many people think is a clean room, I am merely pointing out the facts. So what you consider as a "strange post" would be beneficial to others, it depends on how you look on life.

Regards,

Les.

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Well, if by clean you mean sterile it's never going to happen. The fact is that we are smothered with trillions of bacteria which are part of life as we know it. The important point is not to contaminate ourselves with gut bacteria. It would be intellectually satisfying to design a procedure which would reduce contamination. So it is well worth thinking about. It is a bit shocking when you consider things like, say, re-dressing before washing your hands after using the lavatory. But maybe it's better to risk contamination that risk fracturing your skull on the WC after tripping over your trousers. Thanks for your thoughtful post. I'm going to attempt to come up with a standsrd operating procedure for lavatory use. And I'm not joking.