Toilet / Plumbing question

[Craig D Peltier]

I recently installed a one piece jameco toilet. There was a 2 piece in its place before. The flush isnt nearly as strong.Is there a way to increase this?

The ballcock is up to water line.
The chain is tight when holding flapper open.
The water supply is fully open.
Flapper stays open for 4 seconds and leaves about 1/3rd water left in tank.
I dont want to turn up pressure in house even if I knew how just for this one toilet due to wear an tear on valves.

Someone suggested maybe putting some styrofaoma on the flapper to keep it open longer?

Theres alos a way to increase the water in the tank by a screw on the valve but i dont think that will help at all.

[Joe Pelonio]

If your previous two-piece was old, it probably used more water, and you may not find any standard toilets made anymore that flush as well. Current
regulations call for 1.6 gallons/flush or less, and that's not much. Old toilets may have used as much as 5.5 gallons, newer ones 2.2. Water pressure has no effect, it will only make it fill up the tank faster. What you could try is holding down the handle until all the water has drained, then letting go to get a little more flush power.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I have a dear friend who is a detail nut! He researches everything to the "nth" degree. My neighbor replaced his after doing some extreme research. While others are having difficulties with the new low water useage toilets, he managed to find one that works well. The secret...he bought the one that had the largest lower orfice. As Joe said, all the new ones use 2.2 gallons. By having a large orfice at the bottom, the smaller amount of water will flush completely in one flush. My own toilets are the old 6 gallon users and I'm going to ride them into the ground. My oldest son has had two homes that had low useage ones that requred 2 and 3 flushes to totally empty the bowl and I've experienced that same thing in a lot of the new hotels I stayed in the last few years.

[Mike Henderson]

We've had low volume flush toilets here for a long time. The best I've found is the Toto brand. They are 1.6 gallon flush units and work as well as the higher volume ones.

Mike

[Jim O'Dell]

At our previous house, we replaced both toilets during the remodeling we did on the house. We got the Kohler units from HD that were about 100.00 each. They were the 1.6 gallon units. They flushed great! Lots of power. The current house has the 2.6 gallon units, and they do fine. I have 2 with the newer style internals added where the float rides up a column instead of a ball on the end of a rod. You can vary the height of this to make any toilet a lower capacity. I'm sure you could do the same thing with the other style, but the rod may interfere with other things in the tank if bent down that far.
Sorry, Craig, I can't help you with your current problem. I'm not even familiar with that toilet. Jim.

[Jim Becker]

Craig, our new one-piece Kohler toilets in the addition are similar to what you describe...there is a lot less "water action". I suspect that outside of buying something with some form of "power flush" (which still would have low water usage, but add to the ching-ching factor), there's not going to be much choice going forward. I know that our new ones definitely need cleaned a lot more often as a result of this flow design.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I've installed some of the 'power flush' toilets in customer's home years ago. Kohler had two power flush technologies for their one piece toilets (Rialto and San Raphael). One technology used a plastic pressurized tank that stored utility water pressure. The other model used a pump that required the toilet to be plugged into an outlet!

These were bad ideas. As a minimum, when you flushed them, they made a big bang sound.

I just installed new Kohler Rialto in my home. It's a 1.6 gallon flush with no fancy technology to make it happen. It seems like there needs to be more standing water in the bowl, but it works OK. I'm more concerned about the old sanitary piping requiring more water to move the solids along. Therefore, it's two flushes even if the bowl clears with just one flush.

-Jeff :)

[Lee Schierer]

We installed a Kohler low water toilet in our bathroom several years ago and we couldn't be happier. It has a dual level flush. A quick tip of the handle releases a 1.1 gallon flush that takes care of most uses and for the big jobs, you hold the handle daown for the full tank.

Recently while shopping for toilets with my daughter for her house, I was amazed at the new rating system that Lowes displays. Basically you want the lowest amount of water to flush the largest number of golf balls with a large lower opening.

[Tom Godley]

If you do a search on this you will get a lot of information. Most of the TOTO units get very good reviews - but not all of them. I believe that only one line of Kohler units get the same level of good reviews.

I recently installed a Duravit (German) toilet and could not be happier. I also have one of the old pressure units from American Standard - they work but are not for houses with light sleepers.

My 6 year old one piece Kolher unit is not the best -- It is another example of an old line American company being beaten at its own game. Gets me mad!

I remember years ago Kohler used to have a pressure minimum on some of the toilets that used to "wash" the rim -- but this is not an option with the new low flow units. Did the toilet have a minium pressure listed?

[Craig D Peltier]

We've had low volume flush toilets here for a long time. The best I've found is the Toto brand. They are 1.6 gallon flush units and work as well as the higher volume ones.

Mike

A plumbers forum says but the Toto " max g flush" one and theres a one piece one as well by toto that works great. There both around 5 bills.
Geeze I didint know there was so much into to these things with the low flush now.
The one I rid of was about 2 years I believe . When we bought this place they had to replace that one only to meet up with the new laws.
One thing the plumbers forum said not sure if I mentioned above is the one piece has a lower storage tank usually and the downward pressure of water leaving the tank isnt as much as a taller 2 piece unit as well.
I cant imagaine having to tell your guest, flush twice or hold the handle down longer. " why is toilet broke" "no its new!

[David G Baker]

I have one of the older large volume toilets. My tank has what looks like the bottom ten inches of a plastic gallon bottle. It is the original adapter to do the low water usage toilet. It works better than the new low volume toilets but it is still a 2 to 3 flusher. At some point I will be doing a remodel of the bathroom and due to this thread I will do the research prior to buying.

[Wright Woodall]

FWIW, I recently installed a Kohler Cimarron round bowl Comfort Height toilet at my house. Got it from the Orange BORG. 1.6 gal flush works great. Easy to install, too. I liked it so much I bought a second one for our other bath.

[Jim Becker]

Wright, our two new Kohlers in the addition are Cimaron units, although with the elongated bowl. They work well, but as I indicated we find they need (manual) cleaning much more often.

[Randal Stevenson]

When the first low flow came out, Toto (thought it was Toyo) and Gerber were the two recommended that were non pressurized. The pressurized/pump style, no one was really sure how they would hold up long term to calcification.

The last time I did any research (8 years ago maybe?) was when my brother built his house. Then, they were ALL recommending the handicapped capable toilets, with the elongated bowls.

[Rob Russell]

We had to replace our upstairs thundermug a few years ago and ended up with an American Standard Champion, ADA height. The extra height is sure nice on the knees. It flushes with 1 shot and is not a power-boosted flush.

[Bob Childress]

FWIW, I recently installed a Kohler Cimarron round bowl Comfort Height toilet at my house. Got it from the Orange BORG. 1.6 gal flush works great. Easy to install, too. I liked it so much I bought a second one for our other bath.

I, too, installed on of these after doing some research on the plumber's site. At first I thought it was defective (:p:p) because the old ones swirled and gurgled forever. But boy, this baby gets the job done! Haven't experienced the cleaning problems Jim alluded to, but he has a larger family. :D

[Jim Becker]

Some of it is our water, Bob...

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

the low water crappers won't work for me.
It's a LooooooOOOoooOOOooooOoooog way to the septic system settling tank.

If I have to replace on I may just build an over head flush and arm it with a pull chain.

Looking at some of the new crappers it almost seems like you could remove all the low water flush hardware and replace it with an old school valve assembly.


All these water restrictions rules are subsequent to Southern California's running low on other people's water. . In the turgid North East water is treated as a common enemy at law: we have that much.