What was Roman plumbing like?

Question

Is it similiar to the plumbing of today or was it vastly different?

Did they have toilets that you push the handle to flush just like we have today?

Could you turn the handle of a faucet and have running water? Did they have hot water/water heaters?

If they had indoor plumbing, how come early Americans did not? Was this technology lost?

Answer 1

The whole system depended on gravity-fed water from stone aqueducts, channeled into smaller troughs feeding public baths and the more stately mansions. Toilets were communal, with butt-sized holes in a row over a running stream passing thru in a channel.

Heated water was provided in the baths by large fires, with the heat drawn under the stone floors of the communal tubs; very social. Plumbing was usually lead pipes, feeding the fountains that were the local water sources. All that lead content in the water led to diminished mental and physical health at large, but they were quite unaware of the source of the problem.

Answer 2

http://www.theplumber.com/eng.html

http://www.theplumber.com/pom.html

Early Americans in the cities may have, or have not had plumbing, but waste disposal may had something to do with that. Frontiers were frontiers.