I’m researching water-conserving toilets for use in my re-model/addition. They are all pretty low-flow nowadays, but I came across one from Australia with a “dual-flush” system, where you get different amounts of water depending on what you’re flushing. “Caroma” was the brand. Does anyone have any experience with these–how they hold up, how hard it is to get them repaired, if you have to post little signs to explain them to guests?
Thanks, Barbara
Replies
The dual-flush system is very common in Australia -- it will have to be explained to anyone who's never used one before as the instructions aren't too obvious, IMO.
Caroma is a very common brand there but I don't know how hard it would be to get parts here.
If you want to cut water use, you can always take the advice of one of the UK water boards and put half a brick inside the tank!
IanDG
NEVER EVER put a brick inside a toilet. The brick will dissolve and ruin the toilet.
Check out the Rockton toilet by Sterling.
http://www.sterlingplumbing.com
It retails for around $260. A plumber should be able to get it for less.
Edited 2/15/2005 5:48 pm ET by reinvent
What kind of bricks do you have that dissolve in water? -- do you only use them internally? -- or just sheet them over when it rains?
IanDG
Sounds like you have better bricks in Australia--maybe someone should set up a business exporting them to the US. Our bricks do tend to dissolve in water--especailly when you soak them. I've heard of using something else in place of a brick in a toilet tank, but don't remember what--a plastic container filled with water I think.
Our bricks do tend to dissolve in water
As they say in Oz "Don't give me the raw prawn" -- you'll be telling me your umbrellas are soluble next!
What d'you use these soluble bricks for, then?
IanDG
I guess posters further down answered the soluable brick thing, but even the hard fired bricks I've seen let water through them and have to be waterproofed. Seems crazy to me, but that's the truth. Maybe they're in cohoots with the people who make spray on waterproofing (has to be reapplied every three years).
The bricks in my driveway are well over 100 years old, they've never disolved. I see plenty of houses with bricks that are hundreds of years old as well.; My neighbor used bricks to line his boat ramp into the lake they've been there well over thirty years and are still in perfect shape,
tell me where do you buy bricks that disolve?
Disolving may be due to them being the wrong kind of brink--but I used some to edge my mom's flower garden when I was a kid and they lasted about two years. They were left overs from building our house--don't know who the supplier was. The porous bricks were on a HUD project built by a contractor in the mid-80's. When we told the supplier, they told us they had to be waterproofed with spray-on silicone; that no bricks were non-porous. Don't know the supplier because we went through the contractor.
Most bricks are porous -- even engineering/paving bricks, but a clay brick [and tile] will last for centuries out in the weather.
In Sussex there's a small brickworks that is still using a clay seam worked continuously since Roman times -- in fact the company logo says "Established 50 B.C." -- and their little museum has 2,000+ years old pieces of Roman tiles and bricks that had been found over the site. [One piece of tile on show bears an Latin inscription that reads something like "Lucius keeps slacking off and leaving me to do all the work"]
We do have a brick that's made of pressed sand and lime for internal use but even that would only dissolve in something acidic.
Your bricks that disintegrated outside may have absorbed water that subsequently froze -- that would smash a clay brick as well.
IanDG
Edited 2/16/2005 6:15 pm ET by IanDG
Most brick, that people can lay their hands on are comon building brick not rated for continuos submersion. Brick is porus and when used in building construction (with proper detailing) it will dry out with no ill effects. Have you ever seen brick in a continually damp bassement? It gets crummbly and slowly dissolves.
If you guys want to put a brick in your comode be my guest. It aint coming out of my wallet.
I put my bricks in the bowl. All low flow toilets suck. How do you save water when you have to flush twice for urine?
Kipherr
"NEVER EVER put a brick inside a toilet. The brick will dissolve and ruin the toilet."
Pee in the bowl, not the tank. ;)
Hard fired bricks won't dissolve in a human time frame. There are millions of square feet of brick pavings that are holding up just fine, even in very wet climates.
OK, but how many people can tell the difference.
OK, your advice is probably good for people who have extra bricks lying around and can't tell the difference. And even those people could test the candidate brick by keeping it in water for a few months and seeing if it starts to shed. For that matter, they could just put it in the toilet and check it periodically for the first couple years.People who might think of buying a new brick for this application will be unlikely to find anything but hard fired brick for sale, since most brick work these days is veneer.
You did not mention it, but Sterling has a dual fush system.They call it dual force."Dual Force technology offers a choice between two water levels for every flush – 1.6- or .8-gallon water consumption – which can save an average family of four up to an amazing 6,000 gallons of water each year."I don't think that feature is that rare and is availble from other suppliers.
Both Consumer Reports and, I believe it was, Journal of Light Construction, have reviewed toilets a couple of times over the last 15 years. The earlier articles, shortly after low flow toilets were mandated in the U.S., found few that worked well and those were expensive. The more recent articles found that many, even some inexpensive ones, worked well. So, designs have improved. I'm sorry I haven't saved the articles so can't recommend any specific ones.
If you live where water is pleantiful and just want a toilet that works well, you can buy toilets in Canada that use more water than stateside toilets and flush well. If you live where water is scarce and need a really low flow toilet then you'll need to find reviews comparing them with objective tests.
I think those articles liked the Toto the best, citing that it had a large 2" waste dia instead of the standard 13/4".
A word of caution on Toto toilets. I just remodeled 2 bathrooms in my house. I did lots of research on the web and found lots of good talk about the Toto toilets. I decided on the Toto Drake, with the GMAX flushing system, which was supposed to be an excellent flushing toilet. We've have them in for 2 months and already I've had to plunge 3 times. Lordy, lordy. My plumber was recommending the new American Standard and Kohler toilets (advertised in all the mags), but I'd read too many bad things about them to try them out.
-- Cynthia
Hey Cynthia:
Sorry to hear about your TOTO experience. My 8 year old son, who can plug up ANY toilet, has yet to plug up one of our new TOTO's. In Japan they supposedly test 'em by flushing 1lb of Miso paste!
Great toilets, and here in Toronto we received a $350 rebate from the city for using low flow.
Rick
What's the point? Flush away, the water is just sitting there doing nothing anyway. Whether you flush it or wash dishes with it, you are just releasing it back into the watershed for further use (via a waste treatment plant hopefully). It's difficult to 'waste' water because it can't be destroyed. You can, however, make it inacessible by using it for concrete and other industrial processes where it is trapped and unavailable to the water cycle. But households don't 'use' water, they just cycle it onward.
Caroma toilets have been a popular brand in Australia for many years, and I would imagine in this day and age that parts might well be available online - the importer would be able to tell you. Twin flush system is pretty well mandatory these days over there. Before the twin flush toilets became widely available, a lot of people would reduce the toilet's flush capacity by filling a milk jug, capping it and submerging it in the cistern.
Wally
What's the point? ... It's difficult to 'waste' water ...Strictly speaking, that's quite true. However, I'm sure you're aware that most people in the more industrialized parts of the world pay money for the water they use to flush their toilets, and flushing is a significant, often the majority user of domestic water. It may be difficult to waste water, but it is all too easy to waste money.
Edited 2/16/2005 10:19 am ET by Uncle Dunc
Being enviromentaly consious I put in a water conservation toilet five years ago. $100 from HD. I love it.
Pros: Less noise and you can flush just before getting into the shower. Takes no time to refill.
Cons: The bathrrom is very small and the toilet is very close to a wall so the tendency is to sit on it sidewise. This cause 'alignment errros' and so the occasional stain on the side of the bowl. Not by me of course. This is caused by less water surface area in the bowl.
When the City of Toronto offered $100 to subsidize low flush toilets suddenly you couldn't find the cheap ones at HD. The only ones they stocked were the $200 + models so you were still paying $100 out of your own pocket.
I put an addition on a five years ago including a bathroom, the code required a low flow toilet. I installed a vacuum flush toilet - scare the #### out of you the first time you hear that sucker go off but it has never clogged or failed to clear out the bowl.
That toilet that scares the #### out of you might be useful for those who are constipated--flush the toilet first, then "go". ;-)
There is the extra cost of treating the additional water used to make it fit for human consumption again.
Most of our water is reticulated and has been used several times before [what goes around, comes around]
IanDG
Unfortunately, here we have been able to make water practically unrecycleable (my dictionary won't tell me how to spell that word) by adding very nasty stuff (nothing to do with toilets, just another rant on my part. The Energy Dept. (I think it was the one) in its infinite wisdom required an additive to gasoline to make it burn cleaner. The additive is a bipolar solvent--attaches itself to both water and hydrocarbons. It got in to the ground water and semi-permanently attached itself to the water molecules, bringing with it the gasoline molecules it had already attached to, more or less permanently linking the two. I imagine there is a way of removing this, but I doubt it's easy or cheap.
When we built I used Mansfield toilets that HD carried at the time (no longer). I have been very happy with them. The only time they have choked was when someone had left some paper in the bowl and a severe test load was applied followed by lots of paper. I think in five years I have reached for the plunger about five times. If you have a questionable challenge for the toilet just hold down the lever (at least on most) until the tank lets all the water in to flush. Most of the 1.6 toilets only use about half the tank on a flush.
In the shed, I've still got an avacado American Standard that I replaced years ago (for God's sake, dont USE the shed toilet!). The thing must have a 5 gallon tank on it. Took forever to fill up. Replaced it with a 1.6 or so.
I'm waiting for someone to get pissed off at their low flow and offer me an obscene amount of $$ for the old one ;)
jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers. -- Walter Percy Chrysler
Not familiar with that particular brand... but I can tell ya what worked for me.
Got a powerflush (what I call it). It is a low-flow toilet with a pressure tank up top. This thing would flush down a small puppy (my wife has threatened me several times to not let the dog in the bathroom when I am flushin!)!!
I have yet to plunge after three+ years. And my wife is the "pull out 15 yrds of TP" type lady. We actually replaced our old "regular" toilet... in perfectly good shape... to install this one. The old style would get clogged at every chance (I absolutely hate plunging... and wife refuses to do it).
The brand we have is a Crane. There are several other makers out there, though.
As a side note... a funny install story.
Wife was at work when a buddy and I installed this thing. He had his ultra-talented lady-friend with him (computer/graphic artist).
We got the thing installed with no problem... but the power of this thing was a surprise to all of us. We started calling it the "Powerflush 2000". Spurred a creative instinct in my buddy's girlfriend. She created a logo in a few minutes on the puter... and created a label for the toilet. Stuck the thing on... looked just like a real label... real big... plastered all over the front of the new toilet tank!! (had a sub-text message to the effect 'do not remove or warranty will be void').
My buddy said something about it being so powerful that it should be running on electrical power! IDEA! I went out to the garage and retrieved an old ugly orange extension cord that didn't work (don't ask... I am a hoarder). I plugged the thing into the wall socket (on the opposite side of the vanity from the toilet) and stung it over the mirror, and down behind the toilet. We taped off the end of the extension cord to the back of the tank.... in a manner that would not be seen. This rig was about as hillbilly as it gets. REAL ugly.
When wife gets home... we tell her that the "powerflush" needs an electrical connection... and that it won't work if it is unplugged. She was so happy with the thing... she sucked it up about the ugly orange cord being strung all over her bathroom!! You could tell that she would have preferred that the cord were not there... but she would "deal with it".
That cord stayed there for 4 months!! I finally broke down and told her the real story!! She was a good sport and laughed her tail off about it!
http://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm
Barbara, here's something I bookmarked a while back...toilet performance reviews!
PJ
Everything will be okay in the end If it's not okay, it's not the end
I used the terrylove.com website to decide what toilets to buy for my new bathrooms ... and chose the Toto Drake because it was rated highly for flush power and also quiet ... but I'm very disappointed. I've had to plunge 3 times in 2 months.
I never understood the fascination with "quiet" toilets. I figure the things are going to be heard only when they are actually used... and I would rather have one that flushes well.. than have one that is quiet.
Same with the fascination with a bathroom fan being "quiet". I would rather the thing move air when it is on... than have a quiet one that can't get the job done.
I have had a customer or two make the "quiet" point with me... and when I ask them "how important quiet is to function"... every one of them has agreed that they would rather have it a bit louder... and have it actually work the way it is intended.
I've always liked the 'quiet' syphonic toilets if only for the '60s slogan:-
"Johnson's ultra-syphonic closets,
take all the cr*p and leave no deposits."
IanDG
Rich, I agree with you about the fans. I just bought two bathroom fans and I didn't concern myself with noise. The only reason I wanted a "quiet" toilet, rather than one that sounds like a tornado, is because I'd rather not be woken up in the middle of the night by the noise! :)