Petty Vents

[Addie]

Danged wrist is hurting more. The new topical anti-inflammatory only works for about 2 hours and only does a half arsed job at that. And I bought the wrong kind of flapper for my toilet. Not a happy camper.

Sorry about the wrist. I hate when a doctor practices conservative medicine. I am in pain, dang it! Fix it!!

Okay, what is a flapper? It sounds like a dance you do around your toilet.

 

[taxlady]

Sorry about the wrist. I hate when a doctor practices conservative medicine. I am in pain, dang it! Fix it!!

Okay, what is a flapper? It sounds like a dance you do around your toilet.

The flapper is that piece of rubber that the chain pulls up to let the water out of the tank.

 

[Addie]

The flapper is that piece of rubber that the chain pulls up to let the water out of the tank.

I haven't seen one of those toilets in years. They are now illegal here in the U.S. Folks will go to Canada and buy your kind of toilet. Then they get stopped at the border (even before 9/11) and it would be confiscated. The new ones use less water for one flush, but sometimes it can take two or more flushes to get everything gone. There is just not enough water in the tank to do the job. So where is the water saved there? You can't even go to a junk yard here and buy one. Spike pulled one out of a house that was being renovated. He had to take a sledge hammer to it for the rubbish company to pick it up. It is considered illegal contraband and must be destroyed. Who would have thought a toilet would become a tool of the enemy.

 

[taxlady]

I haven't seen one of those toilets in years. They are now illegal here in the U.S. Folks will go to Canada and buy your kind of toilet. Then they get stopped at the border (even before 9/11) and it would be confiscated. The new ones use less water for one flush, but sometimes it can take two or more flushes to get everything gone. There is just not enough water in the tank to do the job. So where is the water saved there? You can't even go to a junk yard here and buy one. Spike pulled one out of a house that was being renovated. He had to take a sledge hammer to it for the rubbish company to pick it up. It is considered illegal contraband and must be destroyed. Who would have thought a toilet would become a tool of the enemy.

I guess I didn't explain it very well. It's a standard part on most toilets, not just Canadian toilets. This is what the one I should have bought looks like:

That's from Home Depot in the US. Korky Plus 2 in. Toilet Tank Flapper-2001CM at The Home Depot

 

[Dawgluver]

Thanks Dawg.

I would feel silly asking Stirling to do it. It's got to be the simplest plumbing job ever. I just slip the old flapper off two little posts; slip the new one in place; and attach the chain to the handle lever. Takes no effort at all with the kind of flapper I have. The one I bought would have been a little more complicated - it needs to be slipped on over the overflow tube.

Sorry, Taxy, I didn't mean you couldn't do it, just meant Stirling has the good arm. I do all the plumbing jobs here too! But you're the one with the owie!

 

[Cooking Goddess]

The flapper is that piece of rubber that the chain pulls up to let the water out of the tank.

Every time I read "flapper" my brain thinks of

 

[Cooking Goddess]

.....The new ones use less water for one flush, but sometimes it can take two or more flushes to get everything gone. There is just not enough water in the tank to do the job. So where is the water saved there?.....

Learned this trick from a hotel maintenance man (don't ask why ): If you want to make sure the waste moves along properly, hold the handle down when you flush. That uses both the water in the bowl AND the water in the tank, in effect giving you an old-fashioned, 3.2 gallon flush. Let go when you finish hearing the "glug". It works.

 

[taxlady]

Sorry, Taxy, I didn't mean you couldn't do it, just meant Stirling has the good arm. I do all the plumbing jobs here too! But you're the one with the owie!

I understood that. It's just really so easy that it won't bother my hand. Nothing needs to be twisted or pulled hard or anything like that. No tools needed. The hardest part is taking the lid off the tank.

 

[Addie]

I guess I didn't explain it very well. It's a standard part on most toilets, not just Canadian toilets. This is what the one I should have bought looks like:

That's from Home Depot in the US. Korky Plus 2 in. Toilet Tank Flapper-2001CM at The Home Depot

Once you told me was it was, I knew immediately. All toilets I have seen for more than ten years now have the tank innards completely sealed. You almost have to call a plumber to repair it should it break. I am sure there are some old toilets still around. I just haven't come across any.

 

[Somebunny]

Once you told me was it was, I knew immediately. All toilets I have seen for more than ten years now have the tank innards completely sealed. You almost have to call a plumber to repair it should it break. I am sure there are some old toilets still around. I just haven't come across any.

Addie, have to call you out on this one....I have 4 top of the line Toto toilets in my house, that are not "old". My house is less than 10 yrs old. The "tank innards" are not sealed and they do have flappers. They are low flow, comfort height and have skirted bases. I have seen the toilets you are talking about, in fact we had one in the rental house we lived in while we were building our home. That toilet had powerful suction and we would crack up when guests were caught unaware. Since there are approximately 450 million toilets in N. America, I'm guessing you've only "seen" a small percentage.

 

[Addie]

Addie, have to call you out on this one....I have 4 top of the line Toto toilets in my house, that are not "old". My house is less than 10 yrs old. The "tank innards" are not sealed and they do have flappers. They are low flow, comfort height and have skirted bases. I have seen the toilets you are talking about, in fact we had one in the rental house we lived in while we were building our home. That toilet had powerful suction and we would crack up when guests were caught unaware. Since there are approximately 450 million toilets in N. America, I'm guessing you've only "seen" a small percentage.

I haven't seen a toilet with the flapper in eons. I too have a toilet with powerful suction. A lot of old people in this building are surprised and think they are going down the drain when they flush it. They are scared to be sitting and flushing it. When my landlord of many years ago heard about having to install the new water saving toilets, he thought it meant immediately. And for all landlords and home owners. He read the law wrong. So he showed up at my door one day with a new 'suck you down the drain' toilets. I didn't complain, I was getting a pretty new toilet. But I hated it at first.

 

[GotGarlic]

We have replaced the toilets in both of our bathrooms in the last 5-6 years and both have a removable top and a flapper inside. And they're both low-flow.

Maybe it's a northeast thing.

 

[Addie]

We have replaced the toilets in both of our bathrooms in the last 5-6 years and both have a removable top and a flapper inside. And they're both low-flow.

Maybe it's a northeast thing.

Could be. Maybe I need to go into a lot of other bathrooms. I need to change my circle of friends.

 

[GotGarlic]

Could be. Maybe I need to go into a lot of other bathrooms. I need to change my circle of friends.

 

[taxlady]

I think that here all new toilets have to be low flow.

 

[Andy M.]

Low flows have been required for some time now in the US.

 

[Addie]

I think that here all new toilets have to be low flow.

You law was passed after our went into effect. So folks go and buy a new low flow toilet. They hate it. They didn't flush properly. So since the couldn't buy any of the old ones anymore, and even the junk yards were not allow to sell the old ones they got, folks headed to Canada. Folks were very ingenious. They tried to disguise them. Put them in boxes labeled for refrigerators or stoves, in the back seat covered with a blanket and made to look like someone was sleeping. The border patrol would catch them and confiscate them. One guy wanted the toilet back so he could return it and get his money back. Sorry fella. No go. One fella even blamed the Canadians. They should have known it was illegal for Americans to bring them over the border and not sold it to him.

There was an article in Reader's Digest about "Our Good Neighbors To The North". There were so many confiscated toilets, that the Border Patrol wanted to hold an auction in Canada with them. Your government nixed that idea. It ended up that they were smashed and sent to the dump. It really was a very funny article.

 

[Andy M.]

Early low flows did do a poor job of flushing. We have one on the low flows and it works as well or better than the one it replaced. I wouldn't hesitate to replace our second one with a low flow. Also, it's 2" higher.

 

[CharlieD]

....I have 4 top of the line Toto toilets in my house, that are not "old"... They are low flow, comfort height and have skirted bases.

Yes, love those Totos. I also have 4 of them, but only 3 that are comfort height and one regular one. I wish I had all of them comfort height. Much more comfortabloe, no pan intended.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

We build our first house, in Ohio, in 1977. I remember the old trick of putting a brick or a 1/2 gallon bottle of water in the tank to reduce the amount of water stored there. We built House #2, also in OH, in 1990, and I'm pretty sure it did have the low-flow toilets even though they were not the law yet. The Loo Law was enacted in 1992, went into effect in 1994. Then again, some days my memory is down the drain. We built our MA house in 2000. 2 1/2 bathrooms, 3 thrones. Two of the three work perfectly fine, one has problems on occasion. It's probably either poor glazing in the trap or a bit of porcelain debris that was stuck under the glaze, creating a sticking point. Also, we remodeled my parents' bathroom in 2003 or '04, having last been done in the 1960s. It had an old, huge-tanked toilet. Probably 5 or 7 gallons. Put a new HE model in and it worked just as good as the old one.

I flushed out a few facts about the low-flow toilets. If you want a little reading for the "library" you can find it here:
The Lowdown on Low-Flow Toilets : Rooms : Home & Garden Television
Best Options for High-Efficiency Toilets
American Standard Press: 10 Years After Low-Flow Toilet Regulations Went Into Effect, Plumbing Innovations Make Major Inroads in Efficiency, Flushability