Posted by Peter Ceresole on December 18, 2011 at 01:55:55 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Newspapers posted by John Nichols on December 17, 2011 at 07:54:52:
I dunno about 'average', but when I was very young, from 1939 onwards, the houses we lived in in West London had what I'd call cold water plumbing. There was supposed to be a hot water system, but by present day standards it was a bad joke. Bath water was heated in kettles. There was a geyser, but it was unreliable and it didn't feature in our lives except as a dangerous device... It was all down to using the kitchen cooker and traipsing up stairs with the hot. My first encounter with a working hot water system was when my parents moved to Geneva. Hot water from the tap, at a decent pressure, plus chocolate; you could say that defined civilisation at the time.
But like most systems then, the mains water fed a large tank under the roof, which fed the rest of the house by gravity. Water companies insisted on this arrangement because it dispensed them from any requirement for a continuous supply, as households had a standby supply on tap. It also ensured that there was a clear break in the line; at the time there was a real possibility that germs could make their way back up the erratic supply so that a sick person in one house could infect a whole district.
I imagine that Beckfoot/Lanehead would have something of that kind.