I, Dave Conroy, The Lone Drainer and Pronto, plumber to the stars of the Eastern suburbs pride myself on running a modern, forward looking business, being proud to be a multicultural Australian and always on the lookout for new ideas, both for plumbing and life.
This week however, by virtue of a visit to the Ottoman Turkish Bath and Day Spa in South Granville, I was privileged to learn something both modern and traditional all at the same time.
And no, it wasn’t the vision of a giant hexagonal white marble bathhouse, with a massive hot spa, surrounded by twenty big white marble wash basins and a huge marble central slab, everything looking like a Renaissance painting, all steam and sexy oriental music. Oh no, it wasn’t even the big marble pedestals where the clients are scrubbed and massaged by dutiful and strong and OK, I’m not shy to say it, attractive female attendants, slathering them in rosewater scented lotions and potions; no, no, no, I didn’t get to see all that, as it’s a women’s only establishment. That was just reported to me by my female colleague who experienced it all. Afterwards she was dopily, dreamily barely able to draw my attention to the DRAINAGE system which was what she thought would interest me.
She was right. Drains are a big deal for plumbers and we get excited when someone does something clever. At the Ottoman Spa, they had managed to combine the most traditional hammam (that’s the Turkish word for bathhouse) architecture with the most modern of drainage systems.
The first hammam was built in 1453 when Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror conquered Istanbul. And its still standing! You can go there if you click here.
But despite all that classic marble design, the drainage and tiling were super modern and a credit to the tradesmen responsible. It’s not easy to get such vast quantities of water (all that sluicing over all those marble benches) to fall so well and so discreetly over such a vast area.
We’ve come a long way since 1453. And since the invention of the first hollow-pipe drainage by Sir Hugh Dalrymple who died some three hundred years later and yet still gets credited with inventing drainage. Sorry Sultan Mehmet!
That innovation, the new ideas building on the foundation of great old ideas is what I love about plumbing. I got to learn all about hammams today. It’s a great gig.
Dave Conroy. The Lone Drainer.
Thank you Glenys I Love Plumbing.
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