Do you have Flushaphobia?-The inordinate fear of flushing your toilet because of repeated blockages and consequent overflows.
I no longer live in fear of flushing my toilet, but I did.
I know there must to be more people living out there now as I did then. They spend more time plunging out blockages and mopping up overflows than they spend using their toilet. I hope this information will help them as much as it has helped me.
It all started when we purchased a house that was a fixer-upper with a toilet that was not a flusher-downer but an over-flower. It was old. It was gross. It was ugly. It was just a regular toilet, but I could live with that. Those things did not disrupt my life.
It was the callouses forming on my hands from the regular plunging, and the aches in my back from mopping up the inevitable gallons of water that overflowed after that second flush. (You know the one, the one after you think the plunging has worked, but in truth, it has not. It has just driven the waste deeper into hiding in the toilet. This was happening to me with great regularity every second or third use. This ritual was getting old fast.
I tried to reduce the amount of water in the tank to stop the flooding, but then none of the waste would go down.
Yes, this was the time that I lived in fear of the flush.
Liquid waste was no problem. I could put buckets of water down the toilet when there was no solid waste. The plumbing took all I could give it without a complaint. The problem had to be the toilet. The solids of any significant size (usually mine) were not making it through.
The only solution I could think of was to get a new toilet, not because mine was old, ugly, or gross, but because it was more work than it was worth. It was not doing the job.
I occasionally had similar problems with toilets in other houses. Why?
After a little research, I found out why. In America the typical toilet is one of two types, either a siphon or a siphon jet.
There is no need to get into the intricacies of the differences between the two because it makes little difference, neither one does the job.
These toilet designs make use of many gallons of water per flush. The waste follows a torturous route through a narrow trap in order to exit the bowl. They use a siphon action, some with an added jet, to get it done. This siphon action was described as a method by which the flowing water pulled the waste from the bowl. The concept of pulling solids with a liquid sounded a bit peculiar to me, so if someone had set out to design the most difficult and inefficient way to get the job done, this appears to be it.
That old toilet of mine used somewhere between 5 and 7 gallons of water per flush and rarely did a good job removing the solids. But, hey, to compensate for that, it used the same huge amount of water to get rid of a few ounces of liquid waste without fail.
The worst thing about that exit route is the diameter, typically between 2 and 2 1/8 inches. Sure, that should pass waste nearly the diameter of a tennis ball with no problem, but when was the last time you had a bowl movement of that size and shape? Never, I hope, and, if you did, you have my sympathy.
But what about a movement the size of a golf ball (1 5/8 inches)? That is doable, and should be easily evacuated by the toilet with a single swooshing flush…. BUT WAIT…let’s be real here and tape three or four golf balls together in a row. Then, as this long lump is having a problem navigating the tight turns of the trapway (now there is an appropriate name), we will help it along with a couple fists full of toilet paper trying to get out at the same time! (Sorry, but I’m not a dainty three sheeter, and that ever newer, ever softer toilet paper just forces me to use ever more of it, but that’s another subject.)
…OK LOG JAM…
That rapidly swirling, flushing water has become a placid little pond. Time to plunge and plunge and plunge…Okay, it looks like it’s been passed (but unknown to you, you’ve just cleared the bowl and half of the blockage)…. Now a flush to clear the pipes …uh oh uh oh uh oh!
You hurry and twist that old filler valve closed for all you’re worth, but it’s TOO LATE. The water is coming in faster than it’s going out and over the top it comes, so …..GRAAAAAAB the mop.
I need a replacement. The new toilets are water conserving, 1.6 gallons per flush, toilets. Now the situation has become even worse. How can you get the waste out of basically the same toilet using less water? The easy fix is to make the trapway channel even narrower.
But wait, won’t that make it even harder for the solids to exit the bowl than before? Yes!! And what is the solution to this? AHA!!! Reduce the size of the waste. That part of the solution is left up to the user, and I don’t think that is an option for me. I mean, how?……I’m not even going to think about that one.
After many hours of research into the form and function of the toilet I feel I can speak as somewhat of an authority.
I found the solution to the problem. I found it down under (in Australia that is).
They seem to be a little less rigid about the way human waste should be expelled from the toilet. You might say they were thinking outside the bowl.
(Well, OK, it sounded funnier when I first thought of it, but with the 12 seconds of effort I put into coming up that line, it stays.)
They solved the problem by using a method called wash down. They coupled this with a much less arduous exit path having a much larger diameter, thereby, overcoming three major problems. This toilet, I found, can expel much more, as well as larger pieces, of solid waste using only 1.6 gallons of water per flush. It also has the option of an alternate flush using only 0.8 gallons of water to expel liquid waste.
I wanted one, I needed one, but alas, I could only get one from a distributor 100 miles away. Even though the model I wanted had a plastic rather than porcaline water tank, it was still heavy to ship adding significantly to its $400.00 dollar price tag.
The price was a lot more than a cheap $89.00 unit I could get at the local big box store, but it had a much better chance of actually working.
I did more searching on the web, and I contacted several local hardware suppliers. Finally I found just what I wanted. It was less than twenty miles away and on clearance for $137.00. It had sat on the sales floor for months. Nobody had wanted it because it was different.
Who says miracles can’t happen?
And now, it gets even better. I was concerned about the installation of a foreign toilet, but it was literally no problem…even easier than a domestic toilet.
There was no lifting the whole toilet up and trying to place it on those elusive hold down bolts just to have one or both holes miss their bolts. You just can’t see both holes or bolts at once. I know. I’ve installed several toilets. I used some of the tricks of the trade to get those bolts through, tying strings to them, jamming drinking straws over them (you need just the right size), holding them in place using some material from the wax seal (you never need nearly all of it anyway, well, almost never).
I found that with this installation, you simply bolt a small adapter to the pipe flange using the usual bolts (which you can see at all times) and a wax ring seal. Plop the toilet down on top of the adapter (it has it’s own internal O-ring seal), trace the outline of the base on the floor, then lift it off and lay a bead of RTV (bathtub caulk) within the outline. The toilet is then put back, and a couple of bolts are installed to hold it to the floor. I also put a nice bead of bathtub caulk where the base meets the floor. I just recently noticed that I never did put in those two floor bolts. I mean where is it going to go with 200++ pounds sitting on it. Think about it, what’s it gonna do, slip out from under me?
Sure, put the bolts in if it will make you feel better, but I’m the kind of guy that is better off not to do that extra step. I just know I’d give one of them that little extra turn just to make sure it was really tight and inevitably end up with a broken toilet. Okay, perhaps in earthquake prone areas you might need those bolts, but when was the last time someone was killed or injured during an earthquake in Michigan while sitting on the toilet?
I hooked the waterline back up, and I was in business. The connection on the tank was in the exact same place as the old one.
It was time to install the seat and lid (which are included with the purchase of the toilet). They mount by means of an adapter, too. This adapter is bolted onto the bowl just like American toilets, except, that now, the seat and lid can be easily removed for cleaning without removing those bolts. Slick!!!
We have been using this toilet for two years now. I have never seen another one installed or for sale anywhere. We have not had one single overflow. I have also found from experience, that most of the time, the 0.8 gallon flush will take care of all but the largest loads of solid waste.
I now keep the plunger in the garage only in case a neighbor needs to borrow it. I have not used it in over two years.
Why isn’t this toilet in every store and being installed everywhere? It’s more efficient than most, and it works!!
The price is higher, yes, but I would estimate from my own experience that a toilet has a life of at least 20 years. At $400.00, that’s $20.00 a year for this toilet compared to $5.00 a year for a standard cheap $100.00 toilet. But it works!!!
Skip a dinner out once a year, and you will have saved more than the difference in price. The time and energy saved not plunging and mopping up is worth a lot more.
Feel like a king when you flush this throne.
I am not affiliated, supported or compensated by any toilet manufacturer. I just found this toilet to be so much better than any other, I wanted people to know about it.
See more about this toilet and where you can get one at www.caromausa.com.
Caroma USA, Inc., Two Button Dual Flush Toilet Technology
They say:
Caroma set the standard by giving the world its first successful two button dual flush system in the nineteen eighties. In the nineties our research and development team responded with the remarkable 1.6 / 0.8 gallon two button dual flush system.
Proven through performance and acceptance by use in major hotels around the world, our award winning toilets are both user friendly and capable of saving up to 80% of your toilets previous annual water usage. Not only that, with a full 4″ trapway, blockages become a thing of the past.
http://www.caromausa.com
Here is a site on which Terry Love a plumber does reviews of consumer toilets. I was not aware of it when I did my research two years ago.
http://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm
Originally posted: October 19th, 2006.