The year 1982: Sandro Pertini is president of the republic, Pope John Paul II is at the Vatican and Italy has won its third world football title by beating Argentina, Brazil and Germany in the final. Grace Kelly disappeared in a car accident above Monte Carlo and Prince William (Diana and Charles' son) was born.
The same year, 1982, was the year of the creation of the Idral pedal tap, an epoch-making innovation for our company.
The former Article 53 of the Regional Law of 26.October 1981 N64. of the Lombardy region specified that "The controls for water supply must be non-manual, ..." and was the reason for the introduction of this important innovation in the bathroom. It specified that freshly washed hands should no longer be used to turn off the tap in order to ensure a better level of hygiene.
Before then, push-button taps with timed water shutoff already existed, but were not widespread in Italy. The technology of the electronic tap with an infrared sensor had not yet been developed and perhaps the market was not even ripe to take up this innovation. What was needed then was a new non-manual water shut-off concept that complied with the directives of the new law and, at the same time, met the market's need for a simple, inexpensive and reliable product. It was then that Giovanni Angiolini and Ing. Vittorio Vasconi, founders of Idral Spa, invented a new solution: moving the control of the water flow from the hands to the feet. Thus the pedal tap was born:
- Hygienic, because without manual contact;
- Simple, because made with few, simple and resistant components;
- Reliable, because it is robust and built for foot-operated use.
In addition, it is the first anti-vandalism tap, because the simple spout, installed on the sink and connected to the tap, has no element that can be tampered with. But the advantages of this new solution do not end there: the fact that to control the flow of water it is necessary to place one foot on the pedal avoids 'forgetting' to turn off the water. This feature also makes the pedal tap one of the first water-saving taps.
It is not for nothing that at Idral we consider the market launch of the pedal tap as the real starting point of the company today: this product range introduced the concepts of hygiene, simplicity, robustness and water saving that are the basis of our philosophy today and are still the main features of our products. The great thing is that their success has not yet come to an end: Idral's foot taps continue to be a very up-to-date solution. Despite the success of timed taps and the more innovative products in the electronic and thermostatic range, foot taps are still in great demand on both the domestic and international markets!
by Dipl .-Ing. J.Schweitzer
Head of Operations