IMPROVEMENTS IN OR CONNECTED WITH WATERCLOSETS."
Year: 1879

page_text: "
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Stephen Alley at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 1st March 1879.
STEPHEN ALLEY, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, Engineer.
IMPROVEMENTS IN OR CONNECTED WITH WATERCLOSETS."
This Invention comprises various improvements in or connected with water-
closets.
By the first part of the Invention semi-automatic apparatus is fitted in connection
with almost any known kind of watercloset valve apparatus for bringing about the
movements of such apparatus on a slight pressure being applied to a button or key.
This button on being depressed opens a small valve, which admits water from a
branch service pipe to a cylinder or chamber having in it a piston or plunger or
flexible diaphragm, to which a rod is attached. This piston rod through a lever
or other connection opens the main discharge valve of the watercloset, and also (in
some modifications) the valve of a branch service pipe supplying the basin. The
piston rod imparts the movement for opening the main discharge valve by means
of a catch, which becomes released by a fixed stop or otherwise on the piston rod
reaching or approaching the end of its outward stroke, and the main discharge
valve then closes. As the piston rod reaches the end of its stroke it closes the valve
opened by means of the button, even against any pressure that might ordinarily be
applied thereto by hand, and as the time occupied by the movement of the piston,
or plunger, or diaphragm and rod can be easily determined by suitably adjusting
the effective passage for the water by a concealed valve or otherwise, the wasting
of water by keeping the valve open will be prevented. The water escapes from
the cylinder or chamber by an outlet pipe lending to the basin, such pipe having
on it a regulating valve, and always having the effective passage through it con-
siderably less than that of the pipe by which the water enters the cylinder or
chamber; or the outlet pipe may be fitted with a valve which is closed when the
inlet valve is open, and vice versa; or, again, the inlet valve may be double acting,
so as to close the outlet when the inlet is open, and vice versa. When the inlet is
shut the piston or plunger or diaphragın returns by the action of a weight or a
spring, and the water passes from the cylinder or chamber to the basin, and is
utilised to form the "after flush
or seal. Instead of the inlet valve being
arranged for being acted on by hand, it may be arranged to be acted on by the
return movement of a weight or spring depressed by the weight of the person using
the watercloset.
"

page_text: By the second part of the Invention castiron and delf or encaustic tiles or terra
cotta, or other earthenware are combined to form a kind of semi-portable wator-
closet, which may be set down in any closet or chamber or other place, and require
no additional fixtures or fittings, excepting the necessary pipe connections. In one
modification the improved semi-portable watercloset is of a rectangular form, and is
made with an entire castiron base, without any joints through which leakage can
possibly take place. The base has cast in the saine piece with, or otherwise fixed
to it, sides formed with open or recessed panels for ornamental tiles or earthenware
plates, and a castiron frame forms the top and is connected to the bottom, so as to
bind the parts together, being finished with a wooden or other suitable seat surface, 1
and fitted with a cover. In another modification the structure is in the form of an
approximately semi-circular pedestal, the front and sides consisting of a shell of
earthenware held between a castiron base and a castiron top frame, which base and
top frame are tied or connected together within the carthenware piece.