More From This Old House!

Jimmy Gillies

More from This Old House. Richard visited Koler? a sanitary ware manufacturer, and it was very interesting. They were showing how, like here in Europe, we have started using 1.6gall W.C's. Their designs were very cool indeed, with a syphonic action W.C. with 6litre flush, I wish we could get them here in Scotland. Another thing I did notice, there was no fixing holes on the back of the cistern, is that common in the US?
Thanks for reading.
Kind regards.
Jimmy Gillies (holding a Royal Flush)
P.S. Who said us Euros have all the good stuff??

Constantin

Hullo Jimmy!

I'm a fan of the Toto Drake series, it's what we will install in the new house throughout. It's a 1.6Gal flush toilet that allegedly almost never clogs due to a large throat and all that. Terry Love has two interesting articles (one and two) on toilets and how they work.

Of even greater interest may be the MAP Report in which two Canadian consultants attempted to suss out which john was the best at flushing without clogging. Imagine recreating poop with soy paste and all that. Anyway, it's where I got my inspiration for the Toto Drake.

Speaking of cisterns, they seem to be pretty rare around Boston. Allegedly, we're the first to use one... which I have a hard time believing. However, I hope that the 1500 gallon tank will basically let us avoid using potable water for non-potable uses in the garden.

We're not radical enough to use that water for other uses inside the house, as the Cambridge, MA inspectional department has held up the red card at the thought that someone might drink some of that untreated water (from the toilet bowls?) Folks in Oregon and other rain-heavy states derive up to 100% of their water needs from rainwater, not only reducing the need for stormsewers, storm canals, and whatnot, but also reducing the need for additional potable-water treatment plants, aquifers, etc.

IMHO, in areas like the desert regions of CA, folks shouldn't be allowed to use municipal/acquifer water to fill external swimming pools or to irrigate gardens. Rainwater is perfectly adequate for that purpose, since plants don't care and pools are shocked with chlorine. Every time I drive through LA, etc. I am amazed at how much water is wasted... They have all these huge open canals that carry all that precious storm/rainwater to the sea when it does rain... nuts!

Here in eastern MA, the infrastructure can be old enough to be downright archeological... when I went through the beautifully hand-drawn sewer books that the city of Cambridge has on file, I discovered that most of cambridge still does not have separate storm and sanitation sewers. Most of the stuff is combined sewers from the 1880-1890's when they first installed sewer lines. Still works beautifully though!

However, the local river Charles gets a nice injection of fecal matter, e-coli, etc. every time it rains hard (it remains too dangerous to swim in to this day) because the Cambridge sewers use the Charles as a overflow. In Oct 1996, it rained hard enough to make the manhole covers lift out from the pressure below... When I was still rowing on it, we could always smell the outfall/overflow pipes from a good distance.

Bill Nye

Constantin

I think Jimmie may have meant what we call the toilet tank.

No Jimmie, we don't anchor the close coupled tanks to the wall. In the '50's and earlier when they had seperate tanks and bowls we fixed the tank to the wall and used a flush ell. 2x6x8 chrome plated brass flush ell. Again , I could be wrong.

Jimmy Gillies

Thanks.

Thanks Gents for your reply.
Yes, I refered to the toilet tank or cistern as we call them, even on the new small 6Ltr cisterns we have fixing holes to secure it to the back wall.
Last week I fitted an Italian W.C. that was made for their market and it also had fixing holes at the back.

Thanks again for your help, it was most informative.
Kind regards.
Jimmy.

Matt Undy

I have one of thsoe tanks, date stamp is about 1935. House was built in 1924. Had to rebuild the ell because the gasket on the spud into the bowl had rotted away. Was able to cut down a foam bowl gasket to fit. The old tanks were hung from the wall. The close coupled tanks are not. I think the close coupled tanks started repalcing the wall hung tank type in the 40's or so. Any I have seen were dated in the 30's or earlier.

Matt

Pidg

MAP Report Update

Constantin, thanks for the link to the MAP Report, which is the best I've seen on toilet test ratings. I found an update to the MAP Report dated May 2004 at the following site:
http://www.cuwcc.org/Uploads/product/Map_Update_No_1_June_2004.pdf

There are now 35 toilets that flush 500 grams or greater (11 in the original report), with the Toto Drake still the winner of the gravity flush. But, now a Mansfield Quantum ADA pressure assist clears more than the Drake.

Bill Pidgeon

Constantin

Have you heard a pressure assist toilet?

Thanks for the update, Bill! However, I will stick to gravity-only systems in the interest of keeping everyone in the house asleep at night. :-)

One advantage that we landlubbers have is that our toilets usually clear with the right combination of short and long strokes, etc. of a plunger. In the marine biz, the flappers and whatnot can be forced open by non-human-derived detrius, which then necessitates a toilet/pump disassembly. Call me crazy, I prefer the plunger!

Anyway, thanks again for the update, I'll go and have a look right now.