I think most people assume that the plumbing industry started in late Elizabethan or Victorian times but it actually dates back far more into the distant past of history than you might imagine. But because we take our plumbing so much for granted we never spare it a second thought on a day-to-day basis even though there are many countries dotted around the globe that still don’t have running water never mind toilets.

Plumbing itself dates back to the Roman Empire and the term plumbing actually comes from the Latin word plumbum which means ‘lead’. The reason why lead came into the picture is because it was the material most commonly used for making plumbing pipes for hundreds of years. It was easy to produce, easy to work with and you could bend it into any shape you wanted. Unfortunately it wasn’t very strong and also had the tiny side-effect of causing lead poisoning in many cases.

Oddly enough even though the Romans brought plumbing and public sewage works and an efficient water system to the UK during their expansion here the population wound up resorting to using chamber pots instead of using a toilet for some unknown reason. Even worse is that the contents of the chamber pots were often thrown out of the bedroom window onto the street below. So much so that in fact that many streets were dirtier than any sewer you can imagine and the stench was bad but the health risks were far, far worse. In fact there’s evidence pointing to the fact that the Great Plague was actually fuelled by the use of chamber pots and open sewers – the rats would swarm all over towns because of the waste everywhere.

By around 1775 plumbing had again come full circle and flushing toilets were back in use again and around this time people truly started to understand why sanitation was so important to the health of everyone involved.

At ADI Plumbing we provide plumbing Services throughout the South East – This blog post was written for you by our experienced Plumbers who provide Plumbing in Buckinghamshire, just a few of the services they provide are Plumbing in Princes Risborough, Plumbers Wendover and  Plumbers Winslow.