On Thursday, January 10, 2013 10:21:37 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2013 02:37:12 -0500, Wes Groleau wrote: On 01-09-2013 10:57, wrote: On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:10:48 -0500, Wes Groleau wrote: On 01-08-2013 09:15, wrote: Since you only have a sample of one, I suggest either the one sample had more than usual ventilation or you have no nose. :-) Having tried to teach two sons to aim better, I am well aware that my nose is functional! The ventilation is a possibility, but given the shape of the restaurant restroom, I don't think that's it. Urinary salts will definitely build up on surfaces if not dealt with. But the instructions for taking care of this thing sounded like they would be sufficient. Normal urinals don't have the same problem. If they require some abnormal maintenance, they hardly save money. I don't recall what the substance was, but even if the amount recommended was expensive, it's probably still cheaper than the amount of water used to flush a conventional urinal in a restaurant. If the stuff is free, labor isn't.

Labor is a sunk cost. You have to clean a urinal anyway. It takes no more time to clean a waterless urinal than a flush valve urinal, BUT you have to be careful not to dump a mop bucket down and flush away the oil in the trap. There's only a couple ounces of oil in the trap, and salad oil works as well as the blue colored stuff they supply.

In an office building you easily save enough in water usage to make them worthwhile. In a home? I wouldn't bother. Unless I wanted to install a toilet where I had a drain line but not easy access to water, and that's a bit rare.