Plumbing Fun Facts

Famous and often controversial rockstar Ozzy Osbourne was a plumber's apprentice before getting into the music industry.

The word "plumber" dates all the way back to the Roman Empire. In Rome, pipes were originally made from lead, which is "plumbum" in Latin. People who worked with lead were called Plumbarius, which was eventually shortened to the word we use today.

The term "plumbers" was a popular name given to the covert White House Special Investigations Unit established during the presidency of Richard Nixon in response to the leaked "Pentagon Papers" documents. Their job was to plug intelligence leaks in the U.S. Government relating to the Vietnam War; hence the term "plumbers".

The average person visits the toilet six to eight times a day. During these six to eight visits to the toilet a day, each individual uses approximately 57 sheets of toilet paper.

You have a 1 in 10,000 chance of being injured by a toilet.

Thomas Crapper is commonly thought to have invented the first toilet, though is not true. A man by the name of Arthur Giblin invented the first effective flushable toilet. He was an employee of Crapper's and sold his patent to Crapper.

The first toilet paper was invented in 1880, but it didn't come on a roll. Instead it came as a box, like tissues.

Scott toilet paper has been around over a hundred years. The company developed its toilet paper on a roll in 1890.

72.4% of people place their toilet paper to be pulled from over the roll, rather than under.

The toilet uses more water than any other appliance in the house.

More toilets flush during half time of the Super Bowl than during any other time of year.

A third of people flush their toilet while they're still sitting on it.

Rats can survive being flushed town toilets. On top of that, they can often return to the dwelling they were in via the same route.

Recipe of  

the Month   

• 1/2 cup butter, divided
• 1 (8 ounce) package uncooked medium egg noodles
• 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 (6 ounce) cans tuna, drained and flaked
• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
• 3 tablespoons bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Saving on your water bill  

and preserving the environment  

• Toilets made before 1980 use 14,000 gallons of water per year.
• Shower heads made before 1994 use 25,500 gallons of water per year.
• Kitchen faucets made before 1994 use as much as 26,300 gallons of water per year. Bathroom faucets use almost as much.
• And this says nothing about waste. Got a drippy faucet or a running toilet?
• A dripping faucet, shower or leaking pipe will waste 2,400 gallons of water a year.
• And a toilet? A running  toilet will waste a whopping 105,100 gallons of water a year.
• Total - 177,300 gallons of water a year!

  503-620-9111

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MORE THAN JUST A 20% SAVINGS

The Diamond Club Plus

including 20% off any work performed*.

They also receive special treatment when calling in for a service call; they go to the front of the line regardless of how many non-Diamond Club Plus customers were on the board. 

A Diamond Club Plus member will receive a FREE annual plumbing and electrical evaluation to ensure your system is safe and operating smoothly.  

And finally, it's FREE! The $14.95 monthly dues accumulate in an account to be used for future work. So let's say that you've been a member for 10 months and now need some plumbing or electrical work done. You will now have accumulated around $150.00 that can go towards that work. So there you have it; it really is FREE.

Finally, if you are interested in becoming a member, do so now. Because we couldn't possibly accommodate all of our clients, we limit the membership to 22% of our customer base.

So what are you waiting for? Why not sign up today?

Just call, 503-620-9111 and tell them you want special treatment too and are ready to sign up for the Diamond Club Plus.

*Does not apply to larger bid type work. 

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Tips for hiring a contractor

History of Halloween   

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses" and carving jack-o-lanterns.  

Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century including Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom as well as of Australia and New Zealand. 

Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain.  

Samhain was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and prepare for winter. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops.

The festival would frequently involve bonfires. It is believed that the fires attracted insects to the area which attracted bats to the area. These are additional attributes of the history of Halloween.

Masks and consumes were worn in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or appease them.

Trick-or-treating, is an activity for children on or around Halloween in which they proceed from house to house in costumes, asking for treats such as confectionery with the question, "Trick or treat?" The "trick" part of "trick or treat" is a threat to play a trick on the homeowner or his property if no treat is given. Trick-or-treating is one of the main traditions of Halloween. It has become socially expected that if one lives in a neighborhood with children one should purchase treats in preparation for trick-or-treaters.

The history of Halloween has evolved.  The activity is popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and due to increased American cultural influence in recent years, imported through exposure to US television and other media, trick-or-treating has started to occur among children in many parts of Europe, and in the Saudi Aramco camps of Dhahran, Akaria compounds and Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia.  

The most significant growth - and resistance is in the United Kingdom, where the police have threatened to prosecute parents who allow their children to carry out the "trick" element. In continental Europe, where the commerce-driven importation of Halloween is seen with more skepticism, numerous destructive or illegal "tricks" and police warnings have further raised suspicion about this game and Halloween in general.

In Ohio, Iowa, and Massachusetts, the night designated for Trick-or-treating is often referred to as Beggars Night.

Part of the history of Halloween  is Halloween costumes. The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays goes back to the Middle Ages, and includes Christmas wassailing.  

Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of "souling," when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain, although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering, whining], like a beggar at Hallowmas." 

Yet there is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in America, and trick-or-treating may have developed in America independent of any Irish or British antecedent.  

There is little primary Halloween history documentation of masking or costuming on Halloween - in Ireland, the UK, or America - before 1900.  

The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, near the border of upstate New York, reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street guising (see below) on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops and neighbors to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs.  

Another isolated reference appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920. The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating.  

Ruth Edna Kelley, in her 1919 history of the holiday, The Book of Hallowe'en, makes no mention of such a custom in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America." It does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the earliest known uses in print of the term "trick or treat" appearing in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939. Thus, although a quarter million Scots-Irish immigrated to America between 1717 and 1770, the Irish Potato Famine brought almost a million immigrants in 1845-1849, and British and Irish immigration to America peaked in the 1880s, ritualized begging on Halloween was virtually unknown in America until generations later.

Trick-or-treating spread from the western United States eastward, stalled by sugar rationing that began in April 1942 during World War II and did not end until June 1947.

Early national attention to trick-or-treating was given in October 1947 issues of the children's magazines Jack and Jill and Children's Activities, and by Halloween episodes of the network radio programs The Baby Snooks Show in 1946 and The Jack Benny Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1948.  

The custom had become firmly established in popular culture by 1952, when Walt Disney portrayed it in the cartoon Trick or Treat, Ozzie and Harriet were besieged by trick-or-treaters on an episode of their television show, and UNICEF first conducted a national campaign for children to raise funds for the charity while trick-or-treating.

Trick-or-treating on the prairie. Although some popular histories of Halloween have characterized trick-or-treating as an adult invention to rechannel Halloween activities away from vandalism, nothing in the historical record supports this theory. To the contrary, adults, as reported in newspapers from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, typically saw it as a form of extortion, with reactions ranging from bemused indulgence

to anger. Likewise, as portrayed on radio shows, children would have to explain what trick-or-treating was to puzzled adults, and not the other way around. Sometimes even the children protested: for Halloween 1948, members of the Madison Square Boys Club in New York City carried a parade banner that read "American Boys Don't Beg."

 More Halloween History 

Thanks to halloweenhistory.org for this information 

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MONEY SAVING COUPONS

All Plumbers Are Not The Same  

• All Casey's Plumbing employees are background checked to insure that a safe person is entering your home.

• All employees at Casey's Plumbing are drug tested to insure that an alert professional will be performing your electrical work.

• We offer a full two year warranty (three years for Diamond Club Plus clients), on all our repair work and a lifetime warranty on all workmanship. That's right - if any work we perform ever fails due to workmanship, we will repair it at no cost to you.  

Sure, there are a number of plumbing contractors out there to chose from. And especially on larger jobs, it's always a good idea to get more than one quote. 

But I want you to know, that when you need a plumber, we'll be there for you. There will be no price surprises and if you are unhappy at anytime with our service, we'll do the job over for free! 

And don't forget our Diamond Club Plus program (See enclosed article). As a member, you will not only save 20% on most jobs but the small monthly membership dues will accumulate to be used for ALL future work. So it really is free and a wonderful thing to be a part of for those seeking peace of mind in their plumbing and electrical systems.

So who should you choose?  

I am humbled and indeed proud, of the loyal customer base we have grown and believe that if you give us a chance, you'll be a happy loyal client as well.

You'll be happy with our service - I personally guarantee it!