Last Updated on May 28, 2024
When we moved into our old pre-war home, we found a random toilet in our unfinished basement. No walls, so sink. Just a lone toilet sitting on a wooden platform over the main sewer line. Quite honestly, it was a bit creepy and weird. Weird enough that it motivated me to dive into the reasons why old houses have a random toilet in the basement.
Backstory
As you can see in the photo below (left side), this random toilet was definitely NOT part of a second bathroom. There was no sink, not even a wall. Even the toilet’s placement didn’t make sense. It sat on an elevated wooden platform situated directly on top of our home’s main sewer line. And was shoved mere inches from the stone foundation wall. No room for any comfort. It was a tacky “throne” on a platform in my basement.
Even though it worked, there was NO way we would ever use this gross toilet. Even if we finished the basement, the placement of the toilet right up against the foundation wall refused to be comfortable. [Ultimately we removed the toilet and added a slop sink.]
But it got me thinking – how did that lone toilet get installed in the basement in the first place? Immediately, I came up with two main theories.
- Builder’s “Porta-Potty” – installed while the house was under construction to to minimize “break times” to go find a toilet. But this theory didn’t hold since the date stamped on the toilet bowl was 20 years after our house was built.
- Frustrated Father – Our house originally had 1 bathroom. Yet I learned through the researching the history of our house that there were up to 6 children living in it at one time. Yikes! Perhaps a frustrated father with lack of time or privacy in the bathroom plopped a toilet in the basement. Sure there’s no heat, BUT no one would bother him as he found some peace and quiet down the basement….
Why Old Houses Have a Random Toilet in the Basement?
After researching online (plus a great lead on Instagram), I discovered these 3 reasons why old houses have a random toilet in the basement.
- Pittsburgh potty (i.e. blue-collar worker entrance)
- Servant facilities
- Sewer backup
1. Pittsburgh Potty
Pittsburgh potties are flush toilets installed in the basements with no surrounding walls or separation from the other areas of the basement. These potties tend to be in old houses built between 1880 and 1940s (i.e. pre-war homes), but mostly between 1880 and 1920.
The majority of these basement toilets are in Pittsburgh (hence the name….). But these basement toilets are not exclusive to Western Pennsylvania. They have also been discovered in older houses in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England.
The Pittsburgh potty purpose was for the dirty industrial workforce (i.e. steel workers and miners) to shed the day’s grime before joining their families upstairs.
While there are several other heavy industrial cities, Pittsburgh’s topography may be the key reason for why it in particular had the most basement toilets. With its significant hills and valleys, houses were commonly built on a slope, which resulted in a basement with a separate entrance. Dirty workers easily entered their basement “mudrooms”, and cleaned up to avoid tracking grime into their upstairs living space.
I read an interview with a woman recalling her grandfather lying out a clean set of clothes in the basement in the morning before heading to work. When the work day was done, he would remove his dirty clothes in the basement and change into the new clothes. The dirty clothes were washed in the larger sinks/ laundry basins commonly found near Pittsburgh potties.
I wondered if this “blue-collar worker mudroom” rationale would apply to the random toilet in my basement? It’s possible since the first owner of my house was a carpenter. But there isn’t a sink to wash up so……
2. Servant Facilities
While a “basement throne” makes sense for blue-collar homes, Pittsburgh potties have also been found in far larger, grander old homes. Houses that clearly would be a stretch for an average blue-collar worker in the steel industry to own.
So why the toilet in the basement? Simple. In grander homes of the past, where domestic staff was plentiful, these downstairs loos might have been designated specifically for the servants. The basement toilet offered a segregated place for the servants to attend to their needs without disrupting the upstairs world.
Could this be case for my house? Definitely not. Considering the small size (i.e. 1700 square feet) and type of our home (i.e. the plain American Foursquare), it would be highly unlikely our house ever had servants or hired help.
3. Sewage Backup
At the end of the 1800s and into the 1900s, the United States saw significant growth in housing as a result of an economic boom cause by the industrial area.
While housing was booming, utilities were not keeping up. Sewer systems in cities and towns were antiquated. Prior to the Civil War, underground sewer pipes commonly consisted of hollowed out tree trunks. But the population increase, these tree trunks couldn’t keep up with, uh, well the flow (C’mon! I had to insert some potty humor!!! 😉)
In other words, homes connected to municipal sewer frequently experienced sewage backups during this time of growth. Especially urban homes located at the bottom of hills. Gravity moves waste through sewer lines and prevents it from moving in any direction other than down and out of the house. BUT overloaded sewer systems would results in a sewage backup in homes.
And that means disgusting messes in kitchens, bathrooms, and everywhere else they had a plumbing fixture.
Tired of cleaning up sewerage in living spaces, homeowners found that installing a toilet in their basement could combat these unpleasant episodes. Why? Because a sewage backup overflows come into the house through the main line, which is located in, drumroll, please……the basement.
If there was a plumbing fixture like a toilet, the backup would occur in the basement, leaving the upstairs living areas clean. It’s a lot simpler to clean up a concrete basement floor than carpets and hardwood floors in the upstairs levels!!!
[Note that considering Pittsburgh’s hilly topography, it’s very likely that Pittsburgh potties had the double-purpose of controlling tracking in worker grime PLUS addressing sewage backups.]
Could sewer backups this be the reason for the random toilet in my basement? It’s a definite maybe! Why do I think this?
- My town’s Annual Report references expenses for sewer system upgrades during the same time upgrading the sewer system, which would indicate problems.
- We live at the bottom of a huge hill, probably the largest hill in town. Since gravity plays a majority factor in sewer backups, my house is a prime target.
Pittsburgh Potty Coffee Table Book…
Yup, a coffee table book is in the making about Pittsburgh potties. Pittsburgh resident and amateur photographer Ted Zellers is compiling photographs of these random basement toilets with the intent to create a coffee table book.
If you have a Pittsburgh potty and live in the Pittsburgh area, reach out to Ted to be included in the book. Note that as of May 2024, it hasn’t been published yet. So stay tuned!
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We have one in our 1896 home. It is on a raised slab but has tall shutter “walls” and a swinging door. No idea when it was installed or why.
Susan- thanks for sharing! Sounds like yours had a bit more privacy than ours, even with a swinging door (I’m picturing an Old West saloon style door). And ours was also on a raised slab – I wonder why? Likely just to have a flat surface to secure the toilet…