Consumer Reports Recommended toilet, Gerber DF-21-318 a big Flop!

[jadnashua]

COmmercial flush system (which require usually at least a 1" water supply to the toilet), just aren't practical for most homes. The noise from flushing them wouldn't be particularly appreciated in the middle of the night right next to the bedroom. FWIW, when you compare street prices, the Toto toilets are often on par with similar toilets. Yes, they do have some highly styled ones that can cost an arm and a leg, but they have some very nice looking, well-made ones that are very reasonable. I've never particularly liked a pressure assisted toilet, and they can just plain scare little children, IF they can even overcome the sticky old valve flush lever on the things to flush it.

[wjcandee]

Hey, Brian. Enjoyed your post.

Don't try to put a pressure tank with a gravity bowl or visa versa. Won't work; one way will create a big mess, and the other way the water will just go "glug" and, for the most part, stay in the tank. There are a few (very few) good analytical articles around the web that show in detail the different engineering involved.

The original Toto Drake is available in a lot of places for an about-$200 price point. Given the quality of the unit, that seems like a fair price to me. We now have two. We will probably end up with more. (We also have a tonier Carlyle II, but the basic Drake would work fine for us in most applications.)

In the City, I have a rental apartment in a 490-unit high rise, built in the 80s. At time of construction, they installed AS Galleria lowboy toilets, which look cool and can't overflow. But their flush caused Maintenance to make nightly trips around the building with a snake and a plunger, so they have been replacing them as they turn over apartments. The initial replacement toilet was a Toto Drake, which the tenants universally-loved. But ownership had some aesthetic concerns because of the way the tiling and rough-in had been done for the Gallerias, so they switched to a Gerber, which management likes but which apparently has left many tenants nonplussed. Given this, I have left my Galleria in place, and tweaked it with the knowledge acquired from this site so that it does the job as along as one takes care to flush repeatedly at what I now intuitively-know to be the solids-limit (which isn't much). I'm only sorry that I didn't ask for a new toilet when they were installing the Drakes.

[archibald tuttle]

Hey, Brian. Enjoyed your post.

Don't try to put a pressure tank with a gravity bowl or visa versa. Won't work; one way will create a big mess, and the other way the water will just go "glug" and, for the most part, stay in the tank. There are a few (very few) good analytical articles around the web that show in detail the different engineering involved.

Any quick links or pointers or recommendations for keywords for google search to find these explorations of engineering.

The original Toto Drake is available in a lot of places for an about-$200 price point. Given the quality of the unit, that seems like a fair price to me. We now have two. We will probably end up with more. (We also have a tonier Carlyle II, but the basic Drake would work fine for us in most applications.)

You are right that the Drake pricing is comparable. I'm going to check my wholesaler again, but its $233 . That is still a pretty penny but a little cheaper than new pressure assist.

Not sure when I have looked Toto that this has been on my radar given the many up market approaches they have. And ironically, I may have written off gravity toilets because of niggling refill water level issues when I kept getting recommendations that this was a problem with the near toilet piping. And of course this has been made worse by water saver toilets because the refill is open less time and thus less metering what is channeled to the bowl is more important and the amount of water you have in the flush to create the siphon if the bowl is a little low is compromised.

Because these problems would crop up unpredictably and seemed to persevere inspite of any piping changes and because I put pressure assisted in and it worked on these problem children, I just gave in to the force.

That said I'm interested to look at designs and theory. The noise doesn't bother me and the function is great - with respect that the WDI version has been a maintenance nightmare. Since I look inside, I can tell the difference and will of course, but my next problem will get a drake and we'll see.

thanks for your replies.

brian

[John Southin]

We have this toilet and it worked for about two months, then stopped flushing reliably. Called the company and they sent a new flush mechanism. Very prompt service. Because of the shape of our tank, it was not an easy task to replace this part. Would have to remove all of the insides to replace the flush mechanism. So, we tried just removing the two little caps on it and replacing the springs inside with the springs that came in the new unit. It worked! Flushed reliably again for about 3 months. Now, back to never knowing if it will flush. If we take off the caps, the toilet will flush while the cap is off, seemingly from some kind of relation to the spring action being released. My husband wants to just replace the toilet. I am going to try to find a source for the springs and see if replacing them regularly will solve the problem. Just guessing, I suppose, but for our unit the springs definitely seem to be a factor.

I found that if I occasionally lubricated the part that slides up and down under those caps that the problem is solved. Just unscrew the caps and remove the spring. Put your finger inside the tube and slide it up and down (it won't move very far). I spray a bit of silicone lubricant around the outside of the sliding tube (when it is as far up as it will move), and then vigorously jiggle it up and down to work the lubricant around the whole tube as much as possible. Then replace the spring and screw on the cap. This fix will last for about 5 months, and then you have to do it again. I usually clean the water filter (at the bottom of the tank) at the same time. It's odd that the manufacturer never mentions this do-it-yourself quick fix.

[ericd100]

Hi terry - I have a simple and hopefully not silly question -

I have the horrible ecoflush unit mounted in a mansfield toilet unit. It is a 3 bolt attach tank.

is it possible to simply remove it and replace it with a simple flapper style flush valve and be done with it? Or is the entire toilet specialized to the ecoflush?

image of my toilet and example flush valve kit included

Thanks in advance

[Terry]

The bowl is specially designed for a pressure assist tank. Changing to a flapper won't help.


WDI Technology EcoFlush

[ericd100]

Ok thanks very much!

[wjcandee]

You can't put in a flapper, but you can, at some expense, put in a Sloan Flushmate that is designed specifically to replace the WDI Ecoflush.

For the Mansfield Tank 119, I believe the model number of the replacement Flushmate is going to be M-101526-F3HMK. It is, however, going to be north of $100.

[Jay T Boggs]

Why do you call it a lemon?

Because he is trying to say that the toilet is a piece of crap. Buy the FLUSHMATE for better performance. Made in USA and far more reliable.