It's a crappy job, but some appliance has to do it.
Yes, it's the disrespected toilet.
Only when something goes wrong - drastically wrong - does the poor john get attention it deserves, but by then it's for all the wrong reasons.
Not anymore.
Move over Oktoberfest, there's a new party in town.
Thanks to the folks at Fluidmaster, the world's leading manufacturer of toilet replacement parts, October has been proclaimed National Toilet Repair Month.
Local plumbers say it's about time the toilet gets a little respect.
"No one really wants to think about the toilet," said Charlie Hart, owner of Chugach Sewer and Drain, which maintains the public facilities in the Valley River Center mall and the Eagle River Fred Meyer, as well as several local restaurants. "But if you don't take care of it, your toilet may not be able to take care of you."
Toilets have been taking care of Hart and his family for more than 11 years.
"This business treats me quite well," he said.
Sure, fixing a stopped up toilet is messy work, but it is also quite profitable.
That in part is why he and his crew have become immune to the mess and associated smell that comes with the territory, he said.
Does the job ever get too gross? "No, not really," he said. "I mean a turd is a turd is a turd."
Hart is also matter-of-fact about what it takes to keep the toilet user friendly.
It's really pretty simple.
He recommends folks avoid using too many over-the-counter drain de-clogging products.
"Most of the time - like 99 percent of the time - that stuff just doesn't work," he said. "It actually makes the problem worse and folks end up calling us anyway."
He said the popular drop-in-the-bowl toilet cleaning tablets also cause more harm than good.
"They plug up the jets and are harmful to the fill valves," he said. "People often find that in a short amount of time after using them, they will be having problems with their toilets."
Hart is a real believer in the power of water to keep toilet systems running properly.
He's not a real big fan of the new water-saving toilets mandated by Congress in the Water Conservation Act - at least not for his own personal use at home.
The new toilets only use one and a half gallons per flush as compared to three gallons used by their predecessors.
Hart said he isn't trying to be uncouth, be he recommends toilet users flush twice to make sure they are giving the toilet enough liquid to do its job effectively.
"It just takes a certain amount of water to move poop and toilet paper down the sewer line," he said. "Basically, I probably am going to end up getting to retire off those water-saving toilets."
Tony Simeroth, manager of R & S Plumbing and Heating in Eagle River, said his company also stays busy due to misuse of toilets.
"Those cleaners that people drop in the tank to bleach out the bowl wear down the rubber gaskets much more quickly," he said. "I know a lot of people on wells with high mineral content like them because they reduce staining, but I just would not recommend using them because they tend to dry out the rubber products quicker."
Simeroth is a fan of the vacuum-assisted toilets that get around the smaller amount of water used in the flush by adding air power.
"I think technology has caught up to where you can have water-saving toilets that move it all down in one flush," he said.
Vacuum-assisted toilets are a bit more pricey, but as it is with just about everything else in life, Simeroth said, "you get what you pay for."
He suggests consumers do an online search with the words "toilet testing" for a listing of independent research companies that test a variety of toilets for flush ability.
"They do all sorts of stuff like filling balloons with pudding and well, other stuff that we probably shouldn't talk about in a newspaper," he said.
Simeroth said the cost of a basic toilet starts at about $150, but that isn't what he'd buy for his own home.
"If you want a toilet that will cause the least amount of trouble, you might as well start out with one that costs $250," he said.
A simple mathematical problem easily explains why he suggests purchasing the more expensive one first.
"Our typical visit (to repair malfunctions) is $100," he said. "And with a $150 toilet, you are probably going to end up having us come over more than just once in the life of that toilet."
But he also suggests not purchasing the most expensive toilet on the market simply because parts are more difficult to find and generally significantly more expensive.
So, just how do local plumbers celebrate their big 31 days of toilet glory?
Well, by telling toilet jokes, of course, they say.
Most aren't appropriate for a family newspaper, But Simeroth does have a pretty funny story to tell.
It was when he was a young apprentice 11 years ago and he was out on a fix-it job at a trailer with his boss. The pair had cut the sewer lines under the trailer open and thought all of the "product" was out.
"We weren't entirely empty," Simeroth recalls. "My boss ended up with a little friend on his shoulder that he didn't notice."
Simeroth decided to keep his silence and held his laughter the best he could as the pair drove back to the office.
"I knew everybody would laugh so hard when he came walking back in there," Simeroth recalls. "It was just like he was a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder. He had to go home to take a shower."
There's another sort of yucky saying in the toilet repair business that Simeroth and Hart both say is pure truth: "Plumbers say that every time you flush your toilet, you put food in my family's mouth."
Learn more about National Toilet Repair Month at www.toiletology.com.
Reach the reporter at news@alaskastar.com.
