Archive for toilets
World Toilet Day Broadcast on NPR
Posted by: | CommentsNovember 19th is World Toilet Day, which is naturally 
one of the Professor’s favorite holidays. Today NPR is helping to raise awareness about the lack of access to sanitation around the world by devoting a portion of this week’s Science Friday show to World Toilet Day. Guests will include Jim McHale, vice president of engineering at American Standard as well as several experts on global sanitation issues and civil engineering.
Catch the entire Science Friday episode from 2-4 pm. The World Toilet Day feature will start at 3 o’clock.
Follow the link above to find out what stations in your area will be broadcasting the show, or to listen online. In the meantime, check out the great toilet videos that are already posted on the website. And check back soon for the Professor’s recap on the show.
Overflow Protection for Toilets: Innovative or Unnecessary?
Posted by: | CommentsProfessor Toilet has become aware of a toilet now on the market with a remarkable “new” invention—it has overflow holes in the bowl so that the bowl won’t overflow if the toilet clogs.
This is a great innovation, except it is years too late. Years ago when toilets used 3.5 gallons or more of water per flush, if there was a clog the bowl would overflow and make a mess. We old folks like the Professor remember many horror stories about this.
Now that toilets use only 1.6 gallons and even less of water per flush, there is not enough water in a single flush to overflow the bowl. One would have to flush twice or even three times in order to overflow the bowl. If your bowl is clogged you are not going to flush the toilet again if you see the bowl filled up with water and not going down. This is common sense.
Furthermore, with all the advances in toilet flushing technologies, new toilets featuring oversized trapways are engineered to eliminate clogging. In fact, toilets such as the American Standard Champion®4 toilet, with the industry’s largest siphonic trapway at 2-3/8”, is engineered not to clog and will remove a 67% larger mass than a toilet with a standard 2” trapway.
So with new toilets that feature trapways in excess of 2”, clogging is essentially a non-issue. And, even if the rare clog occurs, the bowl won’t overflow unless it is flushed repeatedly.
Now, a couple more thoughts about this “new” invention:
- The extra trap seal required for the overflow uses and wastes about 30 ml. of extra water on every flush. This is not going in the right direction for saving water.
- The extra seal for the overflow contains only about 30 ml. of water—it can evaporate quickly if the toilet is not used frequently enough. This will result in sewer gases leaking into the room and a rather nasty smell.
- Also, the invention only works on clogs in front of the trapway (the same kind you usually won’t get with a Champion4 or Cadet3). If the clog is in the drain pipe and not in the toilet, the bowl will still fill up with water. While the bowl won’t overflow because of today’s water usages, the new invention nonetheless isn’t failsafe for all kinds of clogs.
The Professor is continually on the lookout for new toilet innovations to determine their real merits and communicate the facts to his audience so that they can make educated decisions.
Luxury Toilets: A Clean, New Look
Posted by: | CommentsOne hot new trend in modern bathroom design is toilets with a concealed trapway. The Professor is a big fan of this style not only because it looks so clean and attractive, but because the straight sides are easier to keep clean and attractive. Some manufacturers even add special surfaces – like American Standard‘s EverClean finish – that inhibit the growth of stain and odor-causing bacteria, mold and mildew on the surface for even easier cleaning.
These toilets do tend to be a bit more costly than traditional toilets because it is necessary to add an additional layer of chinaware that acts as a curtain surrounding the trapway. Additionally, firing chinaware in one piece is tricky: it takes a lot of detail and engineering to get good final pieces out of the kiln.
The extra cost can be well worth it if you shop carefully, however. The Professor especially likes American Standard’s new Studio and Boulevard models, both of them dual flush luxury performance (LXP) toilets. The toilets are beautifully designed and offer superior performance thanks to their innovative PowerWash technology that ensures both a powerful flush and thorough bowl cleaning, every time. Both the Boulevard and Studio dual flush toilets have been independently rated to flush as much as 1,000 grams of solid waste —the highest possible score in the Maximum Performance (MaP) test, an independent report of toilet bulk removal performance.
With so many great features, the Professor is certain that the slightly higher price tag is well worth it.
Bathroom Habits: The Unending Toilet Paper Debate
Posted by: | Comments
The Professor’s obsession with issues of toilet performance is world renowned, but it must also be acknowledged that many other factors are involved in having a pleasant (or unpleasant) bathroom experience. The most frustrating and frequently debated issue of them all must be toilet paper orientation: over or under?
The debate itself is as old as the rolls of toilet paper themselves (which, incidentally, date back to 1871) but the Professor was delighted to find an informative article loaded with detailed infographics illustrating the advantages of each orientation as well as important moments in toilet paper history. It’s an interesting article that just might give you pause the next time you need to change the roll.
High Efficiency Toilet Donation Solves a Unique Plumbing Challenge
Posted by: | CommentsThe Professor always enjoys seeing a big company do positive community work, so it was very pleasing to hear that American Standard recently donated six new toilets to a Plano, Texas-based charity called My Possibilities that offers a year-long educational program for adults with disabilities like autism, Down Syndrome, Aspergers, and Prader-Willi who have “aged out” of the public school system. My Possibilities offers programs designed to help them build independence and pre-vocational skills in a safe and nurturing environment – a meaningful and necessary service for any community.
The staff at My Possibilities knew they were in serious need of a plumbing upgrade and were hoping to replace their existing toilets with high-performance toilets that used only 1.28 gallons of water per flush to help reduce water use at the school. American Standard was happy to assist them and promptly donated six Cadet 3 FloWise High-Efficiency toilets (HETs). The donated toilets featured an EverClean finish to help keep the toilets cleaner, and were also “Right Height” toilets, so their taller height made them more comfortable and easy to use. Right Height fixtures are ADA-compliant, another reason why that size was chosen for this particular donation.
The Professor was lucky enough to speak with some of the staff at My Possibilities about this toilet donation. Finance Manager Robin LeoGrande explained that toilet performance was a special concern of theirs, as the number of foreign objects that make their way into the center’s toilets is often considerable. In a conversation a few weeks after the donation, Board Member Charmaine Solomon said the new toilets were “a hit and an absolute godsend solution to a frequent problem that we have been experiencing.” She also confirmed that since the installation they had experienced no blockages or overflowing, both of which had been a regular occurrence with their old toilets.
Plumbing problems can become a serious and unfortunate distraction, as the Professor well knows. It is good to hear that the staff at My Possibilities can now remain focused on their excellent programs instead of constantly running for a plunger.
Dual Flush Toilets Make it Big in the Big Apple
Posted by: | CommentsGreat news out of New York City, where the City Council just passed a bill aimed at improving water efficiency in the five boroughs. One provision of the bill, which is expected to save a whopping 1 billion gallons of water per year, has the Professor especially excited: all homes and apartments that are being built new or remodeled would be required to install dual flush toilets.
A recent post on Gothamist, the ultimate NYC Blog, celebrates the announcement by posting one of the ever-entertaining videos of a flushing demonstration of the H2Option from American Standard.
The Professor offers a tip o’the hat to the City Council for taking this bold action to improve water efficiency in New York, and hopes that all NYC residents enjoy the dual flushes in their future!
