Aftermath of our first Toto toilet installation...

Well it's been a couple of weeks since our first Toto toilet was installed in my home. To recap, my home (circa 1991) has three bathrooms, all with substandard toilets from the age when 1.6gpf models were first hitting the scene. Two of the toilets (guest bath, kids bath) were Briggs models installed by the builder, the last one is a Kohler (master bath) which performs better than the Briggs.

Three years ago my then 5 year old special needs son decided to flush a bunch of foam letters, wooden blocks and other foreign objects down the kids and master bath toilets. The plumbers were able to unclog the master bath toilet but failed on the kids toilet, despite unbolting it from the floor and checking the trapway from beneath. Since neither my son nor his little sister (age 2 back then) were potty trained, we decided to put off replacing the toilet with a new one. I spent a lot of time on line researching toilets and have been lurking on this forum for a couple of years. Also, we knew that we wanted to replace the other toilets as well. The Kohler would have been ok had it not been for my wife knocking over the ceramic cover to the toilet tub and shattering it after the plumbers unclogged it from my son's adventures. And the Briggs toilet in the guest bath gets a high degree of traffic since it's the only toilet on the ground floor of the house. It's a standard height, round bowl model that fills up very slowly and pisses off my wife to no end. But it was decided that the kids toilet needed to be replaced first since it wasn't functioning.

The next year my son and his sister got potty trained but procrastination kept me from replacing the toilet (and really, there was always something else to spend money on). But after my mother decided to spruce up the kids bath with some new accessories, we decided that the toilet had to finally be pulled out since it was only good for #1 and not very good at that. Although the kids had been told not to use it, my son did still use it occasionally (not good).

So we found one of the local Toto dealers back in October and as it turned out, they were running a sale on the Eco Drake which was on our short list for the kids bath. Since my wife is finishing her Ph.D. in environmental management, we wanted a 1.28gpf model this time. We debated on whether to get a standard height model versus an ADA height model since it was for a kids bath, but considering my height, we figured that our kids wouldn't stay small for long. We elected to save money and forego Sanigloss this time around. Our contractor who does nearly everything for us did the install.

So now we're in the weird position where the Toto Eco Drake in the kids bath is now the best toilet in the house. We had intended to replace the other two toilets slowly over time as budget allowed since we were looking at getting something nice like a Soiree. But now my wife just wants to get the whole thing over with now that the Drake in the kids bath is doing so well. I still need to ask the third of the three dealers here on pricing but my feeling is that toilets like the Soiree or the Guinevere aren't anywhere near the pricing that Terry provides in Seattle. I had floated the idea in this forum earlier about having my sister-in-law and her husband in Seattle (architects and proprietors of Maple Leaf Design) pick up a couple and have them shipped UPS Ground, but nobody liked that idea because the shipping boxes are part of a larger pallet that may not ship well individually without damage.

So to stay within budget, I may have to set my sights a bit lower. I still want double-cyclone, Sanigloss and Watersense 1.28 gpf, but now I think our budget may allow two Drake II models, The Vespin II is a possibility since we liked the skirted design of the Soiree. The Ultramax II is stylish and has the advantage of cleaning of a one piece model (useful with my son's occasionally lack of aim ) but that model is probably also too expensive.

Any other suggestions from the ranks reading this?

Sorry, was going to post a link to where I buy my Totos, but it appears the forum doesn't want that...

There are a few dealers in Tennessee that I've worked with.

Buying a Toto can be compared to adopting a puppy from a litter...you have to decide which one to take and which ones not to take.

Terry stopped shipping toilets since he had a really bad experience with them getting broken. You might consider having one shipped, and some on-line dealers do a better job of repacking them than others, but the key is to ensure you've verified it is intact before the driver leaves (which is often really tough!). Sometimes, if you specify hold at terminal, it's one less transfer and truck ride, and that can help. Personally, I've had 4-shipped, and one was broken before delivery...the shipping company realized it and I never even saw it...I only knew because the delivery was delayed (I called to find out why it was late, and they told me it was being reshipped after having the original broken). By far, though, it is better to find a local dealer.

Well one of the members here has pointed me toward a dealer with good pricing that can ship to my door. So now the choice is which model. We would have liked a skirted design like the Soiree, Carlyle or Vespin but I went back and measured the water line feeds next to our toilets and both are a shade less than 6" from the center line. That's probably too close a fit for any of the skirted designs (7" is required) so that reduces the selection considerably. My wife likes the design of the Ultramax II so I think we will go with that. She really wants the guest bath toilet gone by the Christmas holidays so I think I'll order one before Thanksgiving and that way we'll have it delivered and installed by early December.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

Depending on how high the water supply is (the skirt tapers), and how exact the rough-in is, you may have enough room for a skirted toilet. You can also put a right-angle valve on it to move it over a bit (unless the rough-in is too tight, i.e., short).