Alternative to 1.6 gallon toilet tanks?

[John Strong]

We are completely fed up with the commodes in our house. If they can be repaired then no local plumber we know is able to do the right kind of magic. Am I right to assume that the bigger the tank on the commode, the better it flushes? I am vastly less concerned at this point about my water bill than I am about the enormous (expensive) overhead we suffer from constantly wasting our valuable time unstopping commodes.

Thanks,
- John Strong (pluviosilla@gmail.c

[Gary Swart]

I will venture a couple of guesses here. Are your 1.6 toilets are "builder models" that are frequently installed by contractors when the house was build? Or, are they first generation 1.6 units which were fraught with problems? Or, are they units you purchased from a Big Box Store? If any of these are true, that's your problem. You need to replace them with quality units.

[sjsmithjr]

I have lived in a two bedroom, one bath house with a wife, a daughter, and a Toto Drake 1.6 gpf toilet for two years now. I have yet to plunge the toilet. Trust me - with two females and one toilet, a man takes no chances with the builder's grade or big box toilets Gary refers to.

A co-worker of mine, with a wife, a daughter, and two sons, replaced all of his toilets repaced with Toto 1.6 gpf toilets last year. He tells me he hasn't plunged since.

-Sam

[hj]

It is the quality of the toilet, not the gpf, that determines how it flushes. But you had better get used to 1.6 gpf toilets, because that is all you can buy, other than some 1.3 gpf models California is experimenting with.

[jimbo]

1.6 is in the target sights of the water savers. 1.3 and 1.0 GPF models are available . I don't know if they work, but how long can it be until they are mandated?

A good "class 5" flusher or a pressure assist model will be quite satisfactory.