The year 1982: Sandro Pertini is the president of Italy, Pope John Paul II is at the Vatican and the Italian soccer team won their third world title by beating Argentina, Brazil, and Germany in the finals. Grace Kelly disappears in a car accident over Monte Carlo and Prince William (son of Diana and Charles) is born. The same year 1982 was the year of the creation of the foot tap by Idral, a revolutionary innovation for our company.

The former Article 53 of the N64 Regional Law of 1981 specified that “The controls for the water supply must be hands free, …” and it was the reason for the introduction of this important innovation. This law required that to turn off the tap you should not use your hands recently washed to ensure more hygiene.
By then, timed taps already existed, but in Italy they were not very widespread. The technology of the electronic taps with an infrared sensor had not yet been developed, and perhaps the market wasn’t ready for it. Therefore, there was a need for a new concept of hand-free water control, able to respect the law requirements and, at the same time, capable to respond to the market’s needs for a simple, economical and reliable product. It was then that Giovanni Angiolini and Vittorio Vasconi, founders of Idral, invented a new solution by moving the water flow control from the hands to the feet. The pedal tap was born:

• Hygienic, because hands free;
• Simple, because it is made with few simple and resistant components;
• Reliable, because it is robust and built for foot control.

Furthermore, it is one of the first anti-vandal taps because the simple spout, installed above the sink and connected to the tap, has no element that can be tampered with. The benefits of this new solution do not end there: the fact that to control the water you have to place one foot on the pedal avoids “forgetting” turning it off, turning the pedal tap one of the first water-saving taps, too.

It is not for nothing that in Idral we consider the launch on the market of the pedal tap as the real starting point of the present company: this range of products introduced the concepts of hygiene, reliability, and sustainability which are the foundations of our philosophy and which are still the main features of our products. The beauty of it is that their success has not yet run out. Idral pedal taps continue to be a very contemporary solution, despite timed taps and more innovative products such as electronic and thermostatic taps turn mainstream. Our pedal taps are still very popular both on the national and international market.

J.Schweitzer
Head of Operations