The water fountain button is tragically misunderstood

The buttons look like magic. You press hereand invisible connections make something happen in another place. But “magic” is probably no how I would describe most public water fountains.

Who among us hasn’t walked up to a water fountain, expecting a bubbling jet of life-giving water, only to experience the crushing disappointment of a measly drip after pressing that button?

But I’m starting to think it’s not the drink button’s fault; in fact, they’re some of the most elegant buttons out there. They are one of the few remaining buttons where your touch directly and mechanically controls the outcome. They are over a hundred years old. And all the action happens just a few centimeters from the button itself.

When your thumb pushes the metal disc inward, you also press a button below the button that opens a nozzle inside the beak. There is an internal seal that blocks water flow when the button is out and releases it when you press it. Pushing down moves the seal that normally covers a small waterspout inside the mechanism, letting water pass through. It is then free to move, fill the inside of the faucet and fire the fountain at about 0.4 gallons per minute.

Sounds simple, right? But the genius of the water fountain button is that it can be repaired modularly. This entire mechanism is part of an independent cartridge that is easy to remove and change.

A quick patent search shows that the idea for the cartridge dates back to at least in the late 1950s, and drinking fountain manufacturers have practically standardized it today. “Three of our four competitors use this same cartridge,” says Bill Epker, a 45-year veteran of the Haws Corporation, a company that began building and patenting water fountain technology in 1906. Whether you’re looking at a button, a button slash , or even one of those little silver buttons on the top of the faucet, almost all have the same cartridge inside, says Epker.

Water fountains didn’t always have buttons. Haws’ original 1906 design made you squeeze a set of pliers-like handleshow did you do this earlier design from 1897 of the Hyde Fountain Company. And many of the first drinking fountains had no controls at all – Portland, Oregon, still maintains more than one hundred “bubblers” who dispense water 18 hours a day, alone.

A Review of 15 Different Types of “Sanitary Fountain” from 1912 it didn’t feature a single button, just levers, knobs, an optional pedal, and always-running types. A 1911 patent application suggests it’s because the buttons were expensive: “Until now, the objection to pushing valves has been at their expense.”

But drinking fountain giant Halsey Taylor at least imagined a button in their first patent in 1912. And by 1928, they definitely seem to have caught on: a patent from that year notes that drinking fountains were “generally equipped with buttons” to open their valves – but without the cartridge part.

Why move from levers to buttons? Haws, who didn’t actually switch until 1984, says maintenance became much easier when cartridge systems came along. Modern ones even have dedicated filters to keep their internal parts from clogging as quickly, and a screwdriver hole that allows anyone with a small screwdriver to adjust the flow height – changing the maximum distance the seal moves away from the internal water door.

They’re also harder to vandalize, with no lever to break and a silver (or copper) disc cap that simply spins into place if you try to twist it. However, they are still easily repairable: Haws patented a version in 2006 this allows a technician to easily remove the button and access the cartridge with a single special key.

But, ironically, it is a lack even that basic maintenance that turns bubbles into dribbles, Haws technical product manager Josh Linn told me. Many just need to clean the filter or adjust the height screw, he says. One of the company’s owners used to carry a small screwdriver everywhere he went to fix leaky fountains—if you want to try it, Epker says a 1/8-inch screwdriver is the biggest one that will fit.

Not that you should need that in the US, where a bad experience at public water fountains is technically against the law! The Americans with Disabilities Act demands of them shoot a jet of water at least ten centimeters high. Furthermore, it controlswill not require forceful grabbing, pinching or twisting of the wrist”, and a fountain cannot require more than two kilograms of force from a single hand to operate.

So before you blame that button, maybe let your local parks department know it needs to be fixed.

Purely physical water fountain buttons may not last forever. Some indoor chilled water fountains already use microswitches and solenoids to dispense their product, and many water bottle fillers use hands-free sensors instead of buttons. Many people now also choose packaged bottled water, although Most bottled water in the US is refiltered tap water and is not necessarily cleaner.

But Haws says at least customers seem to have cooled off on buying hands-free sensors for their normal drinking fountains now that the covid-19 pandemic is over. “I would say people are turning to mechanical operation more and more,” says marketing manager Mike Wilhelm. “Less things can go wrong, it’s easier to maintain over time.”

For now, the button is simply more reliable.