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Like we said before, search engines are awesome tools. Their purpose is to give us a way to ask silly questions without having to ask another human face-to-face. Unsurprisingly, many of these questions have to do with plumbing, heating and air conditioning. To help answer some of these strange questions, here’s Warner Service’s list of BING’s weirdest questions:

Q: Why is plumbing called plumbing?

A: It’s always weird to wonder how things got their names, but the word “plumbing” has a great backstory. Before the 1800s, lead was known by its Latin name, plumbum, which is where its atomic symbol, Pb, came from. As time went on, people began to use lead for water systems, and the term “plumbing” was born.

 Q: When did air conditioning come to the South?

A: No one knows the exact date, but the first public air conditioning systems were installed in movie theaters. The first Southern movie theater to get an air conditioner was New Empire Theater in Montgomery, Alabama in 1917.

Q: Why can you find asbestos in insulation?

A: Asbestos is a mineral fiber that was added to a variety of products to strengthen them and provide heat insulation and fire resistance. It’s typically found in the insulation of homes built in 1930 – 1950 and in textured paint used on wall and ceiling joints, but asbestos use was banned in 1977. To learn more, visit the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Q: When do people use the bathroom most often?

A: The toilet is flushed more times during the Super Bowl Halftime Show than at any other time during the year. It probably has something to do with the 28 million pounds of potato chips, 1 billion chicken wings and 8 million pounds of popcorn.

Q: How many boiler rooms did the Titanic have?

A: The ill-fated ship had six boiler rooms on it. In September 1985, the U.S. Navy found one of the boilers as the first piece of wreckage.

Q: Why do plumbers put bread in a leaky copper pipe?

A: Many plumbers have the tools and knowledge to fix a leaky pipe, but many homeowners have used bread (without the crust) to sweat an actively leaky pipe. It stops moisture from reaching the joint while you’re soldering because bread is mostly air.

Q: How do you get a bird out of your furnace pipes?

A: Our question is how did you let it get in there? Nonetheless, the smart thing to do is call a professional.

Q: How much time do most people spend on the toilet?

A: The average person spends three years of their life sitting on the toilet. We hope you brought some good reading material.

Q: Does toilet water really flow the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere?

A: Nope. Unfortunately, this is a myth. It’s possible for the toilet to flow either direction in either hemisphere.

Q: How is air conditioning related to economics?

A: Well, we can thank air conditioning for a lot of things, including our country’s economy. Without A/C, most people would still reside in the North, where seasons help people withstand humid temperatures. Air conditioning has also helped certain businesses boom like cinema, technology, medicine, government, and manufacturing and trade. 

While you sit at your keyboard and type in your silly questions, just remember that the search engine may come up with some equally as strange automated responses, so don’t feel too weird. We had to BING some of the answers ourselves!

If you want to know more about plumbing and HVAC, contact Warner Service today.

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