General Observations: Bathrooms

I've been putting together a list of things that are different/interesting about various aspects of life in Brazil.  Today's topic is bathrooms.

Showers
Pretty much every home has a shower.  It is unusual to have a bath - houses or larger/older apartments might have one.  The water supply consists only of cold water.  Usually, the only household fixture in an apartment or house that produces hot water will be the shower.  This is only because the shower fitting is connected to the mains electricity and the cold water is heated up this way.  If the electricity supply goes down, you will be having some seriously cold showers.  I have experienced this a couple of times.  Because of the way the water in the shower is heated, it never really gets as hot as it does in a boiler system - Brazilian showers are usually just warm enough or lukewarm.  Showers cubicles here are often rectangular in shape, which means plenty of room to move around inside, and the drainage system is excellent.  The bottom is usually tiled very well with a ridge around the edge, so no water can escape into the rest of the bathroom.  Shower installations are very solid here.

Toilets
They usually have a button flush on the top, other than that they're not particularly different to what I've seen before.  What is different is the Brazilian plumbing system: it cannot handle toilet paper being flushed down the loo, the pipes are too thin.  Therefore, bathroom & toilet cubicles everywhere have a little bin supplied for the disposal of used toilet paper.  YES, EVEN WHEN YOU'VE DONE A NUMBER TWO.  Sounds a bit gross, huh?  I was pretty grossed out to begin with myself.  I made the mistake of flushing my used toilet paper down the loo for my first couple of weeks in Brazil, which caused a blockage in the toilet at the apartment I was staying at.  After that, I learned my lesson, bit the bullet, and learned to wrap up my used toilet paper neatly and dispose of it in the bins provided.

Sinks
As mentioned before, there is only a cold water supply to most homes so sinks usually only have one tap: the cold one.
N.B. Having said that most bathrooms only have a single cold tap, there are some that don't.  Like, at the Copacabana Palace, for instance.  My mother went in there to use their bathrooms and saw two taps on each sink.  It had been so long since she had seen a sink with two taps, that she had forgotten how to use them.  Plus, the taps were marked 'F' ('frio' = cold) and 'Q' ('quente' = hot) so she had to stand there for a few seconds to work out which one was which.

Bathrooms in general
Most bathrooms are completely tiled over: the walls, the floor, the shower - everything.  You won't see lino or carpet in a bathroom in Brazil.  It really is the most practical way to fit out a bathroom - it's easy to clean and lasts ages.