The “Break it Down” Blog

Strange topic for today isn’t it? But we all poop… so hey.

I think for all the folks that live in one of the new-built homes that are going up a dime-a-dozen across America, one thing you’ll likely notice is the $50 blue-light-special toilets these builders use. One of my least favorite toilets on earth are the round-seated toilets… as a male, when you sit down on one of these things you have a choice to make… do you go #1 or #2? You get the idea… it’s uncomfortable. The other problem I have with these little crappy (ha!) toilets is the inability of them to flush… anything… ever. It seems every time I use it, they plug up. Which is super-fun. So in my quest to find a new toilet, I started doing what I do around here, and that is research. Here is what I came up with…

There seem to be 3 different types of toilets, the type refers to how it flushes:

• Gravity toilet: Standard one we all know, fill bowel with water, flush waste.
• Vacuum toilet: Similar to gravity, but the tank’s “flush” occurs by pulling out all the air behind the trap and “sucking” the waste down from the bowel. You’ll recognize these toilets because they seem to flush normal, but the bowel itself doesn’t fill with water, it just sort of sucks out the contents when you flush it and does it fairly quickly and quietly with a little gurgle sound.
• Pressure-assisted toilet: You’ll know these toilets from a mile away. You flush them and there is a blast of water that forces the waste out. These are loud toilets and in the tank have a giant black container that takes up almost the entire tank (and the tanks themselves tend to be oversized) where all the pressurization mechanics are held. The pressurized water is accomplished using a standard house-hold water source as long as it can achieve 24 psi or higher.

Some other interesting take-away tips I learned are:

• Price has nothing to do with performance (important to remember, you can spend an arm and a leg simply because of the color of the toilet)
• The 1.6 GPF (gallons per flush) limit was set by the federal government in 1997 or there abouts. So regardless of the toilet, this is the most water any will flush. When the first round of low-flow toilets came out, they were horribly inefficient and newer toilets are actually designed quite well to make the most of that 1.6 gallons of water.
• There is no clear winner between these different technologies. For example, not all pressurized toilets flush better than gravity toilets.
• Putting a low-flow toilet in an older house (from say the 50s or 60s) can cause problems because the sewer lines are typically metal and are not as slick as the standard plastic sewer pipes used today so it’s common to get problems with waste not going all the way down older sewer lines with only 1.6 gallons of water behind it (where as older toilets would flush 5 gallons of water or so behind the waste, making it easier to get down those metal lines).
• It is important that the “neck” of the toilet, where the tank attaches to the bowel, has a large opening. Around 2.5-3″ in diameter will give a strong head pressure and good flush to a toilet.
• Elevated tanks in most cases will give a better flush because combined with a wider neck, can produce much more head pressure during a flush. So for folks that like the look for “low boy” or floor-sitting tanks, you may have to give that up for a nice-flushing low-flow toilet.
• The trap of the toilet (the portion that waste and water flow through, then out of the toilet) is a huge part of the equation to a good flush. So the design, angles and especially the material used to coat that portion of the toilet are tightly held proprietary secrets of toilet manufacturers. I thought that was interesting.

Another thing I found that was great is that Consumer Reports in the last 2 years has updated their long-standing comprehensive toilet review. For non-subscribers you can check out their quick-guide. For subscribers you will want to check out their article “Toilets 8/05″.

After reading a lot about these toilets I ruled out a pressure-assisted toilet for myself for two reasons:

• They are loud
• The entire mechanics of the toilet are a proprietary black-box system. If anything went wrong (and I’m sure it will) I need to call someone to come work on it. A new pressurized unit can run around $350 and you are paying a plumber roughly $75/hr to work on it. No thanks.

And one reason that I’m leaning away from a vacuum toilet is the lack of water used in the bowel. I wonder if over time this will make for a less clean experience (more scrubbing to keep it clean) and/or if it means for bigger “jobs” if the flush is less likely to happen.

It seems that CR read my mind, because the toilet they scored the highest for all of their toilets tested (26 total) was the Eljer Titan 091-0777 ($410) which is a standard gravity toilet:

CR also rated the Kohler Highline Pressure Lite K-3493 ($508) as the second favorite toilet, which is a pressure-assisted toilet:

Both toilets look fine, but I think the Eljer is a better fit for what I was looking for. Simpler, I can find the parts at Lowes or Home Depot and do the work myself, it’s quite and has a powerful flush due to a lot of good design in the toilet. Also to boot, it has an elongated and slightly elevated seat which is something I’ve been looking for as well.

After some searching it seems I can find the toilet online for the $330 ballpark. If I do decide to put these in, I’ll certainly keep you all posted.