Comments on: Unfortunately, I Have Lately Had Cause to Lament the Same Thing

By: Myk

Myk — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:27:36 +0000

Artemis:
You’re wrong. The amount of water in the bowl is relevant. If you’ve got five gallons of water in the bowl, flushing with 1.6 gallons doesn’t move enough of the water in the bowl. But if your bowl only contains a gallon, then every you’ll pretty much flush away anything that’s there.

You get a good flush by having more water in the flush than in the bowl, and making sure that the water in the bowl can easily flow down the pipe. If the water sitting in the bowl is only just wider than the pipe, it’ll flush easily, too.

By: Anonymous EcoCriminal

Anonymous EcoCriminal — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:32:33 +0000

When we remodeled some years back, we had “the best” low flow toilets installed. The plumber remarked that “this baby can flush a hamburger.”

In fact, they worked quite well – they managed to compress air in the water tank, and when you flushed, the water came out with a lot of force and usually did the job.

The one of the gadgets malfunctioned. Replacement for the water tank component was $400. Our plumber put in the old fashioned ball and flap, and now we have no problem.

By: damaged justice

damaged justice — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:43:51 +0000

Quit eating fiber. You'll be healthier, and you won't have to worry about even the wimpiest toilet clogging or requiring multiple flushes.

By: Henry Bowman

Henry Bowman — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:19:39 +0000

With the exception of the problems with the “innards” that Dr. T. notes above, the modern (i.e., more recent) low-flow toilets do not seem to have any problems described in the linked article. A lot of the early models (especially Kohler, proving that one doesn’t always get what one pays for) were truly horrible.

By: ParatrooperJJ

ParatrooperJJ — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:51:43 +0000

Keep in mind that dishwashers are not designed to clean dried food off of plates.

By: Dr. T

Dr. T — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:54:03 +0000

The best way to get 3.5-5 gallon toilets is when an older house is being renovated or torn down.

I like the high capacity toilets, but there is a problem. The vendors keep changing the “innards” of the toilet, and they don’t sell replacement parts for older innards. Annoyingly, each new version is harder to maintain and less sturdy. They also use plastics that are beloved by molds. The toilets I grew up with in the 1960s were extremely easy to maintain and repair, rarely harbored molds, and often went 15 years without a problem. The new innards typically break within 5 years and have to be completely replaced (because only complete assemblies are sold now, even at plumbing stores). The vendors get away with this because the assemblies cost less than $15. I’d pay twice that for a 1965 assembly, but none is available.

By: artemis

artemis — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:12:21 +0000

kirk:

the amount of water in the “bowl” has almost no bearing on the total water used by a toilet. the water used is determined by the water used on a flush. in tank style toilets here in the US, that is determined by tank size, but in many toilets it is handled by a pressure value in the flush assembly and there is not way to just watch a flush and determine that “more” or “less” water is used from one toilet to another. However most mechanisms are marked for the amount of what that they use.

toilet “problems” are a function of several things, which all work together, not independently

1. amount of water used in flush
2. type and style of drain used beyond the toilet
3. design of the toilet itself
4. products used for hygeine
5. diet and regularity of the average user.

Given the vastly different nature of Norway, it could be any of the above, though I’d say five is the least likely. In any case the amount of water in the “bowl” isn’t much to go on. It could be any of a number of things.

And this is exactly why congress shouldn’t go passing laws about it. They continue day in and day out, year after year, to assume they can just legislate one piece of any system without any consideration of the rest of the system… without any specialized knowledge of the system (which in this case varies widely, state to state), and everything will just work out exactly as they have planned with no side effects.

It’s endemic of a system that has come to believe that anything can be solved through government micro-management.

By: kirk

kirk — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:57:12 +0000

I live in Norway where the toilets seem to use a lot less water than the ones in the U.S. – just a small amount of water at the bottom of a more cone shaped bowl.

I have long thought it strange how often I encountered toilet issues in the U.S. (this was back 20-30 years ago before I moved) and have never encountered or heard of one here in Norway. The toilets here seem to be much better designed somehow.

By: will

will — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:23:33 +0000

You can always manually flush the toilet. Just keep a bucket of water handy and rapidly pour it in after use – it is just as good as flushing. A 5 gallon bucket should do fine. Why you should have to do this because people vote for stupid governments is outrageous.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:55:46 +0000

I now permanently have a plunger next to my toilet. It plugs on average 1-2 times a month. My dishwasher doesn’t always clean because phosphorous is being phased out of the detergent. It then causes me to prerinse the dishes and run a longer cycle. Where is the savings there? How is that better for the environment. This whole green thing is full of crap.