Low volume toilets and old houses?

[PirateFoxy]

Our main bathroom toilet needs a new wax seal and since we suspect the old one got killed by the fact that the toilet CONSTANTLY clogs and thus needs to be plunged, and it's also just showing age, we figure it is time to replace it.

We are looking at a few Toto offerings - the Aquia II, the Maris, and the Guinevere. However in reading reviews, some people are saying that the new low flush toilets don't work as well in older house plumbing? Is there any truth to that?

Also, any comments about those three? The Maris doesn't get great reviews online but there also aren't a lot of reviews, so that makes it hard to judge. I know the Guinevere and the Aquia are both top of the ratings list here.

Finally, by any chance does someone have a photo of a Guinevere with an s300 or s350 washlet installed? We want to add one eventually and can't picture how the style of washlet would look on the slightly more 'old fashioned' lines of the Guinevere. (While I am double checking things, none of those come as a Connect+ option to hide the washlet plumbing, right? I didn't see them on the Toto website but at this point I have looked at so many toilets they are blurring together.)

 

[WJcandee]

. However in reading reviews, some people are saying that the new low flush toilets don't work as well in older house plumbing? Is there any truth to that?

No.

We are looking at a few Toto offerings - the Aquia II, the Maris, and the Guinevere.

For a while, it looked like they had discontinued the floor-mount Maris. Looks like it's back. Maybe they pulled and improved it. Instead of a straight washdown flush typical of dual-flush toilets, they gave it the Double-Cyclone flush like the Guinevere but still have it as a dual-flush. I think it probably moves a little less waste than the other Totos. Like I say, it wasn't available for a while but I see they do have it at places like Supply, so I guess it made a comeback. If I was buying a dual-flush, I would probably just buy the Aquia, given Terry's extraordinary level of customer satisfaction with it.

The Guinevere is a great toilet. Looks great. Performs great.

If you do buy the Maris, give us a good thorough review; it has a small installed based compared to the others.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jadnashua]

REally old homes (and some newer ones with sloppy installs) might not have the current industry spec slope to the drainage pipes. But, in general, a quality toilet doesn't have issues. Keep in mind, all the toilet is designed to do is get the waste out of the toilet...it is the job of the drainage system to get it where it needs to go. If it has the proper slope, while it might only move in increments, it will get there eventually. If things like your shower, washing machine, sinks, etc., also flush that line, it will get to the end faster.

 

[WJcandee]

Our house is from the late 1800s. Our low flows work fine, and our plumbing system has had no issues at all. Period.

 

[PirateFoxy]

I'm reasonably sure most of our current problems are toilet related, not drainage - there are two toilets basically one on top of the other (one per floor) and the upper one has WAY more problems than the lower and based on where the sanitary stack is there is no reason for it to have funky pipe layout between toilet and stack. Also, no room for funky pipe layout. The biggest difference is the lower toilet is newer so I think it is just a better design. (It will also get replaced eventually, but the upper toilet is a bigger problem right now. Lower one works it is just a bit big for the room aesthetically so we figure on getting a newer model sometime that takes up less visual space.)

ETA: We did have the line out to the street back up once, but the guy who fixed it fished out a bunch of stuff like those supposedly flushable wipes that we don't use, and since then it has been fine. So it might be a little suboptimal for flushing anything you want, but seems okay with normal use. (Back up issue was within a year of buying the house, so we figure the old owners used the wipes.) Our gutters also drain to the same pipe (which is no longer allowed but we are grandfathered in) which presumably helps keep things moving along.

Sounds like the decision is down to the Aquia and the Guinevere then, after the trials with the current toilet we don't want to experiment with the new one. I'm kind of torn between them just on stylistic grounds - our house is 1930s so the Guinevere style seems more in keeping with the age of the house and the door trims and so on. However my housemate really wants a washlet on the main bathroom toilet and we can't picture one on the Guinevere, although it seems like one on the Aquia wouldn't look too bad because it's more modern? I googled for images of an s300 or s350 on a Guinevere toilet but didn't find any.

Is it a horribly bad idea to plan to move a toilet eventually? The Aquia would be perfect in the downstairs bathroom because it has that smaller 'look' to it especially at the base, so one option would be to get the Aquia for now, and then when we properly redo the upper bathroom (tub and vanity are getting on in years also but still functional so we don't want to do the whole thing right now) if we decide we prefer the Guinevere for looks we would move the Aquia to the downstairs bathroom?Or is the toilet likely to be damaged being swapped like that? The rough ins are basically the same.

 

[Jadnashua]

Moving a toilet to a new location in the same house is not a problem IF the rough-ins are the same and the water supply point won't create interference.

 

[Dana]

Moving a toilet to a new location in the same house is not a problem IF the rough-ins are the same and the water supply point won't create interference.

This is true, and there are aesthetic issues too:

Many toilets from the 1920 & '30s or older were even longer than 14" rough, making a modern 12" rough (and even some 14s) look pretty odd, with a clearance between the tank and the wall big enough to toss a cat through.

Relocating a 14"rough toilet to a 12" roughed location sometimes works, often not. Hopefully that's not an issue here, but measure carefully to be sure.

 

[Terry]

TOTO S300E Washleton the Ultramax II

TOTO SW3046#01 S500e WASHLET Electronic Bidet Toilet Seat with EWATER+ and Contemporary Lid, Elongated, Cotton White
In some ways similar to the seat that comes with the Guinevere.

TOTO SW2034#01 C100 WASHLET Electronic Bidet Toilet Seat, Elongated, Cotton White

 

[PirateFoxy]

This is true, and there are aesthetic issues too:

Many toilets from the 1920 & '30s or older were even longer than 14" rough, making a modern 12" rough (and even some 14s) look pretty odd, with a clearance between the tank and the wall big enough to toss a cat through.

Relocating a 14"rough toilet to a 12" roughed location sometimes works, often not. Hopefully that's not an issue here, but measure carefully to be sure.

Bizarrely, the upstairs toilet (the one that needs to be replaced now) seems to be about an 11" rough in? My housemate and I both measured several times. Downstairs one is 12" but they actually semi-recessed the toilet tank to make it fit (it is really too small a room to have a sink, toilet, and shower in it, but someone crammed them in) so if we order the 10" rough in Aquia for upstairs and do decide to move it, we can just fill in some of the recess to bring the wall out to where it 'should' be relative to the tank so we don't have an odd gap.

10" seems to be the way to go given we are getting 11" or so in the upstairs bathroom? Because you can fill in behind if it stands a little away from the wall but if it is flush up against the wall and doesn't line up, we are stuck with a toilet we can't use in the place we need a new one.

 

[WJcandee]

Measure from the finished wall (not the baseboard) to the center of the closet bolts. 11" isn't unheard-of, particularly in a house that may have had some remodeling done. You can either buy something like the Original Drake which will fit on 11" (which now comes with a snazzy more-ornate tank as an option) CST744E (or CST744EN with the new tank) (or CST744EG or CST744EGN if you want CEFIONTECT/CeFIonTect), or go with the 10"-rough models you are discussing.

One other thought: If you go with the models that use the Unifit adapter (e.g. the skirted ones like the Vespin II, the Carlyle II, etc.), and you install each with a Unifit (10" on the one and 12" on the other), you can literally swap the toilets later, as the toilet is the same on 10, 12 and 14, just the adapter is different. It would be more complicated with the Aquia.

Original Drake With the new tank:

 

[Jadnashua]

The Unifit adapter is likely somewhat more exact in shape compared to what you get with porcelain in a mold, but Toto's manufacturing process makes their toilets quite consistent. It certainly simplifies inventory, as said, since the same toilet will work on a 10, 12, or 14" RI by swapping the adapter. FWIW, it comes with the 12" adapter, which if you're not going to use, is just a mostly useless extra piece - you can't trade it in on the needed 10 or 14".

 

[PirateFoxy]

My housemate has some weird thing about being able to see the trapway so we are only looking at the skirted designs. I think we've decided to just get both toilets done at the same time, though, as the closet bolts on the downstairs toilet, on closer inspection, seem to be rusting and if we are going to have a plumber out at all might as well save call out fees and just get it all taken care of.

I was originally looking at the Vespin, actually, but my housemate doesn't like it as much. However if it might work better with our weird 11" rough in than a 10" Aquia I can try to convince him.

Since we are now looking at actually buying a toilet explicitly for the downstairs bath I was looking at the 12" rough in Aquias and I am now confused. What is the difference between the Aquia and the Aquia II? What about between cst416m and cst412mf? They all look the same to me? I want to make sure we ask for the right thing.

Eta: Ah, one is universal height and one isn't? We need the universal height one.

And I think I'm going to make my housemate pick between the Vespin II and the Guinevere for upstairs because frankly I like the idea of the CEFIONTECT in the most used bathroom plus the upstairs toilet has the most issues w clogging so best possible flush sounds like a win. Dual flush makes more sense downstairs since mostly people pee down there anyway.