100 year old toilet...

Mad Dog_2

Mad Dog_2

Oops...Also a Very odd looking main vent that I cant wait to remove and donate to The General Society.   Mad Dog 🐕 

Mad Dog_2

Its seen it all!  Hangovers, Mexican food...spicy meatballs...Mad Dog 🐕 

Steamhead

Definitely 1920s. Later, they printed the model name as part of the "Standard" logo. They stopped doing that around 1950.

SlamDunk

That is a pretty one. Mine calls itself Douglas and he is 94 years old but that one is a beaut.

Jamie Hall

I have three of those... still going, though with new valves. Last forever.

EBEBRATT-Ed

After a bad night out hitting the bars="hugging the china god"

Steamhead

You might also find a plant logo showing where it was made- for example Trenton (NJ) or Tiffin (OH).

The Steam Whisperer

Mine's going on 120 years now. Used a couple of bricks and water bottles to reduce the tank volume. With the tank mounted so high it flushes quite well on only 3.25 gallons of water.

mattmia2

Is there a date stamp in the tank? Mine is 1936 but not Standard and it doesn't have the cover for the gooseneck.

Mad Dog_2

I was there on a Heating consult and didn't want to be an idiot and break the lid or something....my luck....Like Dan wrote..."Keep your hands in your pockets, nod alot and answer all queries with an authoritative "Its Depends!!"   Ha ha 😂 . The HO says original flush valve & linkage...Mad Dog 🐕 

Mad Dog_2

Remember that Toilet called "DEVOURA" like in it will Devour your poo 💩 😄?   Thats an old one too.  Mad 🐕 Dog 

ChrisJ

Mad Dog_2 said:

Remember that Toilet called "DEVOURA" like in it will Devour your poo 💩 😄?   Thats an old one too.  Mad 🐕 Dog 

The house I grew up in had 1958 American Standard's with 8" offsets, I think? They had the 4 bolts.....

Anyway, they would swirl and swirl around forever, and then go down but they didn't like floaters and honestly didn't flush as strong as a good modern toilet. A good modern toilet is more of a BOOM gone, where those were more of a whirlpool thing that eventually went down.

I'm curious, how do these 1920s ones flush?

Mad Dog_2

Like a Tsunami....Mad Dog 🐕 

ChrisJ

Mad Dog_2 said:

Like a Tsunami....Mad Dog 🐕 

So,
Basically the same as a 1950s American Standard 5 gal?

MikeL_2

ChrisJ said:

Remember that Toilet called "DEVOURA" like in it will Devour your poo 💩 😄?   Thats an old one too.  Mad 🐕 Dog 

The house I grew up in had 1958 American Standard's with 8" offsets, I think? They had the 4 bolts..... Anyway, they would swirl and swirl around forever, and then go down but they didn't like floaters and honestly didn't flush as strong as a good modern toilet. A good modern toilet is more of a BOOM gone, where those were more of a whirlpool thing that eventually went down. I'm curious, how do these 1920s ones flush?

    In my experience, older toilet slow " whirling " is a sign of something wrong.
     Typical causes include: blocked or partially blocked drain, impeded rim or siphon jets, partial trap way obstruction, not enough water in the tank, low bowl water level, no atmospheric connection in the drain piping, & a full septic tank.

ChrisJ

MikeL_2 said:

ChrisJ said:

Remember that Toilet called "DEVOURA" like in it will Devour your poo 💩 😄?   Thats an old one too.  Mad 🐕 Dog 

The house I grew up in had 1958 American Standard's with 8" offsets, I think? They had the 4 bolts.....

Anyway, they would swirl and swirl around forever, and then go down but they didn't like floaters and honestly didn't flush as strong as a good modern toilet. A good modern toilet is more of a BOOM gone, where those were more of a whirlpool thing that eventually went down.

I'm curious, how do these 1920s ones flush?

    In my experience, older toilet slow " whirling " is a sign of something wrong.
     Typical causes include: blocked or partially blocked drain, impeded rim or siphon jets, partial trap way obstruction, not enough water in the tank, low bowl water level, no atmospheric connection in the drain piping, & a full septic tank.

There was absolutely nothing wrong.
They didn't slow whirly, they just go around and around fast for a long time (compared to a modern toilet) before going down.

The most that was done was cleaning of the siphon jet on them as it would get blocked over time. But they never flushed as fast or as hard as a modern Kohler or Toto. At least not that I've ever seen.

Their bowl rinse is fantastic, but actual flushing power, Nope. A Gerber Viper 1.6 from 15 years ago will out perform every one of them.

Mad Dog_2

The not-too-old codes said : "Water closets shall be self-scouring."  The best flushing toilets I have ever used are the Old Wooden High Tank with Pull Chain.  Thats like 3 p.s.i
Head of water entering the bowl   mad dog 🐕 

Mad Dog_2

In 1992 when the Toilet flush laws changed, the first generation bowls were HORRIBLE. for atleast 10 years all we installed were pressure-assisted.  Toto was the first really good flushers, now they've all caught up.  Mad Dog 🐕 

ChrisJ

Mad Dog_2 said:

The not-too-old codes said : "Water closets shall be self-scouring."  The best flushing toilets I have ever used are the Old Wooden High Tank with Pull Chain.  Thats like 3 p.s.i
Head of water entering the bowl   mad dog 🐕 

They should still say that.
Some seem to do pretty good at it, my Gerber 1.6 does very good at it.

But others........ jeez. No one wants to see that.

Steamhead

Mad Dog_2 said:

Remember that Toilet called "DEVOURA" like in it will Devour your poo 💩 😄?   Thats an old one too.  Mad 🐕 Dog 

You mean "Devoro", which was the round-front version of the more-common elongated Madera. The Standard you pictured might be a Devoro. The name originated from the Great Western Pottery Co., which Standard Sanitary acquired sometime in the 1920s. They had plants in Tiffin, OH and Kokomo, IN.

The Steam Whisperer

I do agree that the new toilets flush better than my 120 year old model. However, I've heard that the old toilets used less water than the 1950's models.....there was much less water available 100 years ago than by the 1950's.
I remember all the griping and complaining about the new lower water usage requirements...."Oh It's impossible to make a toilet flush properly with only 1.6 gallons" was the line from the trades and U.S manufacturer's. What a bunch of hogwash.... low usage toilets had already been developed elsewhere. I suspect that's part of how Toto got a hold of the U S market... laziness and lack of imagination in the U.S. Just another repeat of the U. S. auto industry it seems.

WMno57

The Steam Whisperer said:

laziness and lack of imagination in the U.S. Just another repeat of the U. S. auto industry it seems.

Europe and Japan had a 20 year head start on US auto manufacturers because of their oppressive fuel taxes and narrow medieval streets. Just another repeat of our government destroying domestic jobs and manufacturing.
Would you rather a drive a 1970 Oldsmobile or a 1970 Datson or VW bug?

The Steam Whisperer

I expect I couldn't afford to drive the Oldsmobile, so it would probably be the Datsun.

mattmia2

probably the datsun. i think they had relatively modern suspension whereas the oldsmobile is huge and has 1950's mechanical technology. good for a parade, terrible for transportation. Japan and europe had to start over because most of their manufacturing was destroyed in wwii. the us could churn out the same thing they had been for 30 years because they already had the infrastructure and they could sell it to europe and japan as well as the us.

SlamDunk

My MIL had a Delta 88. Rode like a cloud, had neck snapping acceleration but Street parking is hard to find for something that big so, the Datsun. But if a 2023 Prius Prime was a choice, that.

Larry Weingarten

Hi, As we're not talking toilets, I'd like to have my 1930, Model A Sport Coupe with the rumble seat and tilting windshield back. It could go off road, get 25 mpg and do 60 on a flat straightaway, if I really pushed it. Got it as a basket case and rebuilt it before I was 16. Compression was 4 to 1, with babbitt bearings. Very low stresses in the engine. It was fun to see gas splashing around in the gas gauge.

Yours, Larry

Jamie Hall

I'd take the Olds... but then, I'd also take the world it belonged in and was a part of. The world we live in now is completely different. Granted, much safer. Much more economical. so dull. so timid. But -- it's gone.

ChrisJ

The Steam Whisperer said:

I do agree that the new toilets flush better than my 120 year old model. However, I've heard that the old toilets used less water than the 1950's models.....there was much less water available 100 years ago than by the 1950's. I remember all the griping and complaining about the new lower water usage requirements...."Oh It's impossible to make a toilet flush properly with only 1.6 gallons" was the line from the trades and U.S manufacturer's. What a bunch of hogwash.... low usage toilets had already been developed elsewhere. I suspect that's part of how Toto got a hold of the U S market... laziness and lack of imagination in the U.S. Just another repeat of the U. S. auto industry it seems.

Possible

1930s refrigerators use substantially less electric than most 1950s ones and forget about 1960s-80s they just flat out became pigs.

Life was good and money was plentiful after the 40s.

Mad Dog_2

My Father only bought Blue Chevy Impalas...until the OPEC days...got a 4 door Chevy Chevette..wee whaa......Nolo contentre.   My Grandfather was Oldsmobile all the Way..Mad Dog 🐕 

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Back to toilets..........I'm sure a lot of you old timers remember working on the flush elbows and offsets on those tanks and bowls. I would typically replace the spud and flush valve washers and they would hold fine, but I invariable had leaks at the 2" slip joint washers, even when using friction rings. It was always a crap shoot.

Mad Dog_2

Yes..in mid 1980s when I started there were plenty of them around. The Trick was to change the flush Elbow without taking the tank off the wall!  How about those old Soapstone Double Slop Sinks that weighed a ton...Mad Dog 🐕 

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

The Trick was to change the flush Elbow without taking the tank off the wall!

Whatever the trick was, I never learned it. Don't tell me you used those 2-part flush elbows. They were junk.

The Steam Whisperer

Mad Dog_2 said:

Yes..in mid 1980s when I started there were plenty of them around. The Trick was to change the flush Elbow without taking the tank off the wall!  How about those old Soapstone Double Slop Sinks that weighed a ton...Mad Dog 🐕 

My mom's house had a triple! I still love those sinks. I'd don't know any alternative than the flimsy plastic sinks.

JUGHNE

Being a younger guy here, I have had to only mess with a couple of wall hung tanks.

IIRC, the secret of getting the new elbow in was to cut one end short, not sure which one.

Similar to getting a boiler sight glass in between two fixed points.????

SlamDunk

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Back to toilets..........I'm sure a lot of you old timers remember working on the flush elbows and offsets on those tanks and bowls. I would typically replace the spud and flush valve washers and they would hold fine, but I invariable had leaks at the 2" slip joint washers, even when using friction rings. It was always a crap shoot.

Still have one. 2" chrome ell. A pita.

mattmia2

Speaking of which, the spud washer on mine is leaking again. When i moved in I used something like a bowl to tank gasket and some silicone i found at the hardware store but it was too soft, it sealed but didn't grip. Where can I get the right washer? what about the spud wrench?

Mad Dog_2

Alan....Me?? Really?  Install Junk or half A-- parts?  You know better  😂 🤣 😆.
It was similar to a 3 Piece Sisson joint on Vitrified clay or Cast Iron..you hadda leave it all loose, catch your threads and wiggle it together.  I think I have to take tank down once in Many dozens of repairs.  Mad Dog 🐕 

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

3-piece Sisson joint on Vitrified clay? Is that like a Donameche offset on ductile cast iron?

Mad Dog_2

Don Ameche...helluva Actor!  Mad Dog 🐕 

STEAM DOCTOR

Got to love this toilet. Breakers,Newport Rhode Island