Toilet Flush and Toilet Do You Know?

# There are lots of things All around us

# Exciting things that surround us

-#

-But how does it work?

-Do you know?

-#

-How is it made?

-Do you know?

# Things that go up Things that go down

# Things that go pop Things that go round

# With special cameras To show you inside

# It's going to be a big surprise

-#

-But how does it work?

-Do you know?

-#

-How is it made?

-Do you know?

-# Do you know?

-Let's find out!

-#

Hello, I'm Maddie, and guess what?

I bet that you've been to the toilet today.

I know I have, and a lot of other people will have too.

We've all got toilets in our homes,

and yours probably looks a lot like this one.

Toilets are everywhere, because we all need to use them.

But do you know how a toilet works?

Let's find out.

There are two parts to a toilet.

This big square part is called the cistern, and it's full of water,

and then this bit underneath is called the bowl.

Have you ever wondered how your poo and wee disappear

when you press this button?

Well, to find out, we need to look deeper inside the toilet.

When you press the flush button, it moves a lever,

which pulls a plug out of a hole at the bottom of the cistern.

Fresh water flushes out of the cistern into the toilet bowl below.

The water is so powerful that it pushes through the old water,

and your wee or poo,

out through the pipe at the bottom of the toilet bowl.

When the water has left the cistern, air travels up the pipe,

and it makes a funny gurgly noise.

So that's how a flush works.

Have you heard that gurgly sound before?

Let's listen out for it, shall we? Ready?

WATER FLUSHES

Here comes the gurgle.

TOILET GURGLES

So now you know that that noise is the sound of air

travelling up the pipe to stop the flush.

But I want to see inside the cistern when the toilet is being flushed.

Let's open it up and have a look.

I'm going to show you inside,

but you mustn't play with a toilet or cistern yourself.

So you can see inside the cistern is full of water.

I've got my special underwater camera with me.

Let's put it inside the cistern,

so we can see what happens when we flush the toilet.

But you shouldn't put things in the toilet at home.

I'll pop my rubber gloves on first.

There are lots of different parts inside the cistern.

You have rods and pipes and bits that float.

If you look here at the top, these are the buttons which you

press when you want to make the flush work.

And if you follow the buttons all the way to the bottom of the

cistern, you can see the plug, and the plug is the bit

that lets the water out when you flush the toilet.

So, let's see that in action.

You can see that the cistern completely empties of water.

But look what's happening.

The cistern is filling back up with water.

Why is that happening?

Can you see that white plastic block, just here?

That is called the float, and it's called the float because it floats

on the water in the cistern,

and it's connected to this white plastic arm.

Now, watch what happens when I flush the toilet.

This float drops, and that means the plastic arm opens up a tap,

which starts filling the cistern back up with water.

But the really clever bit is that, when the cistern is full,

the float rises and the plastic arm shuts the tap off,

so the water stops filling the cistern

and you don't flood your bathroom.

Let's see it again.

When I press the flush, the plug is released and the water drains

out of the cistern into the toilet bowl.

When the cistern is empty, the plug goes back in,

the float drops and the water fills up again.

The cistern fills back up again pretty quick, which is great,

because it means, the next time someone else

wants to use the toilet, the flush is ready to go.

I think toilets are really clever.

What was your favourite bit about seeing how a toilet flush worked?

Can you remember the name of the top part of the toilet

that holds the water?

That's right, it's the cistern,

and it empties out the water when you flush the toilet.

Did you hear the gurgling sound the toilet made after it was flushed?

Here it comes.

TOILET GURGLES

Did you see how the cistern filled up again

straight after it was flushed?

So the next time you flush the toilet, you'll know how it works.

But do you know how a toilet is made?

Let's find out.

We'll start here, in an enormous toilet factory.

This busy factory makes over 1,500 toilets a day.

Toilets are made from this - it's called clay.

But it's not like the stuff you play with, this is a runny liquid.

Clay comes from the ground,

and it's used to make lots of different things,

like a bowl you can eat your breakfast from,

a plant pot

or a piggy bank.

It's being poured through this pipe into this huge tank,

and it's being swirled around to stop any lumpy bits.

Looks a bit like a muddy shower, doesn't it?

Next, it goes into another tank, where it's bounced around.

This bouncing around is called vibration.

The clay is shaken around so much it smoothes out

any small lumps and bumps.

I've got my special camera with me,

so I can get up close to the clay and show you what it looks like.

Here goes.

The vibrating tank is very noisy.

I love the sound the clay makes.

RIPPLING PLOPS

And look how the clay is jumping around as it's being shaken up.

Let's see it in slow-motion.

Look at all the funny shapes the clay makes.

I'm getting quite messy here, ha-ha!

Sorry, special camera.

When the clay is ready, it's pumped through pipes into these moulds.

The mould will give the toilet its shape,

it's a bit like a jelly mould or a cake mould.

And, when it's completely full of clay, air is pushed in,

and this will dry the clay out and make it firm.

And now, that robot is lifting the clay toilet out of its mould,

ready to go on to the next stage.

Can you hear the sound of the robot as it's working?

WHOOSH!

Listen to the whooshes and zooms as it kicks into action.

ZOOM!

I love how the orange robot knows just where it's going.

It very gently lifts the clay toilet out of its mould

and places it on the conveyer belt.

The toilets aren't quite finished yet.

They move along the conveyer belt to the next stage of the process.

Now the clay has come out of the mould,

you can see they really look like toilet bowls, don't they?

But the clay is still wet and soft, so what do you think happens next?

That's right, the clay needs to be dried out.

The toilets now travel along the conveyer belt,

to go inside this noisy machine.

It's hot inside, and it's called a dryer.

As the clay gets hot, the water inside dries out,

which makes the toilet go hard.

The toilets take 12 hours to dry.

When the toilet comes out of the dryer,

it looks lighter in colour as the clay is now dry.

Now they're ready to be checked.

The toilets have to be in perfect condition.

These workers make sure the toilets are really clean before

they're painted, otherwise the paint won't stick.

They also check to make sure there's nothing wrong with them.

If there's any bumps or cracks, they go to another place.

And here are just some of them.

All of these toilets had something wrong with them,

and they're called rejects.

But it's not all bad news, because all of this clay can be

reused and recycled, so they will become toilet bowls after all.

Back to the factory and our perfect toilets,

and they're getting some finishing touches.

This robot is spraying a special paint on to the toilet bowl.

It's called a glaze.

Look at how the robot sprays every nook and cranny.

It doesn't miss a bit.

The glaze is waterproof, which is a good thing when you think

how much water is going to flush through the toilet bowl.

A finished glaze is like a hard, shiny shell,

but these toilets still look a bit wet and sticky to me.

Let's see where they go next.

ALARM BEEPS And that alarm means we're off.

Next, these toilets get carried on this cart to

a massive oven called a kiln, and a kiln gets really, really hot.

Can you see that glowing light down there?

That's the kiln, and that's where our toilets are going.

As the toilet bowls heat up inside the kiln,

the clay and the glaze get hard and shiny.

And, after 17 hours - that's nearly a day and a night -

the toilet bowls are finished.

And here they are.

They're waterproof and shiny, ready to be used at home.

What was your favourite bit about seeing how a toilet was made?

Do you remember the name of the special paint

that makes the toilets waterproof?

That's right, it's called a glaze,

and it goes hard and shiny when it's cooked in a kiln.

Did you hear the sounds of the robots whooshes and zooms

as it kicked into action? WHOOSH!

ZOOM ZOOM!

And did you see the way the clay moved

with my special slow-motion camera?

It looked like it was dancing.

So the next time you go the toilet, you know just how it was made,

and you can think of those robots taking the clay toilet bowls

out of the mould. And, when you flush it,

you know how the cistern empties and fills with water.

I'll see you next time.

# There are lots of things All around us

# Exciting things that surround us

-#

-But how does it work?

-Do you know?

-#

-How is it made?

-Do you know?

-# Do you know?

-Let's find out!

-#