As someone who grew up sharing one bathroom with a dad and two brothers, I know a little something about the mess that can be left behind after a guy uses the facilities. No matter how good someone thinks their “aim” is, there’s still inevitably a few droplets left behind on the seat which has also likely been left up instead of down.
But while most of us think this post-urination mess is strictly limited to what we see inside the bowl and on the seat, it turns out that guys’ streams are just a bit more powerful than that.
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One bathroom supplies company set out to conduct a series of “splash-back” tests to see what the real damage is.
The UK-based company QS Supplies used UV lights to determine that those tiny droplets of urine we see aren’t the only mess left behind by men who stand to pee. In fact, testers discovered that those drops can actually splash as far as 36 inches away from the bowl and can go unseen by the naked eye.
So think about that next time you go to put your toothbrush anywhere near the edge of the sink.
The main question QS Supplies wanted to answer was, should men lift the toilet seat to aim at the bowl, or simply sit on it to pee?
Researches spent six very weird weeks, I’m sure, measuring and recording the splash-back that was created from a urine stream hitting the toilet bowl. They recreated every element of standing while peeing, including “volume, flow rate and curve, trajectory and stream shape.”
Then, using ultraviolet light and florescent liquid, they were able to determine just how far those random drops we can’t see really go.
What they found first and foremost was that men who aim for the back wall of the toilet bowl actually created the most droplets and caused the widest spread of their urine.
Which is interesting because they also found that 31 percent of men who stand to pee aim for that rear-wall, because they think that actually minimizes splash-back.
The next most common area to aim at was directly into the water, with 29 percent of men admitting to doing this.
Researchers found aiming for the water actually prevented excessive splashing of tiny droplets and smaller numbers of large droplets from spraying elsewhere. There was, however, still significant mess made on the rim of the bowl.
So where should you aim if you want to limit your mess to the toilet bowl and hopefully not much elsewhere?
Well, according to testers, your best bet is to aim to the nearside of the bowl, just in front of the water. This also happens to be one of the least popular places for men to aim with only 4 percent admitting to firing there in an effort to limit splash-back.
No matter what technique you adopt, though, researchers admit that standing to pee will also produce splashes.
So perhaps then the answer is to give sitting-and-peeing the old college try.
In their research, QS Supplies found that of 1,019 men they interviewed in America and the UK, a whopping 69 percent said they stand to urinate. Another 17 percent said they sit, while 14 percent admitted they don’t favor one version over the other.
If a guy isn’t willing to change the way he urinates, perhaps he could adopt better cleaning habits.
After all, you’re the one making the mess. Even if you can’t see it, now you know it’s there, so if you’re not about to start popping a squat to urinate, the least you can do is clean more.
Since standing while peeing causes splash-back on the toilet, floor, and nearby surfaces, I’d say a good scrub-down of the entire bathroom at least once or twice a week should suffice.
h/t: QS Supplies
