Toto EcoNexus / Maris / 1.0 gpf Drake 2

[jsnc]

Hello,

We are in process of replacing some of our old 3.7 gpf toilets with 1.28 gpf (or less) and have been looking at the EcoNexus and Maris (like the skirted styles for cleaning) and was wondering if anyone has had experiences with either of these. After talking to a few people in showrooms, I feel more confused than ever. I've heard that the drake is the best flushing, I've heard avoid any of the "eco" models, two piece flushes better than one piece, only reviews for the Maris I've seen have been negative, etc. Hoping someone has some real world experience to share.

Thanks in advance.

[Terry]

The Maris is like an Aquia.
I had the Aquia in my main bath for a while. It worked well.
We've sold a few hundred of them. When people like a product, they don't tell anyone. They just keep buying them.

The Nexus is like the Drake in performance, but skirted. Or you can say it's like the Vespin II

I have an Eco Ultramax II and an Eco Vespin II at the moment. And yes they work well.
Many of the new bowls are 1.28 or dual flush now. They are working. I've installed a few Kohler 1.28's recently and they have been working fine too.
It's the way the industry is going.
If I have a complaint, it's more that they replaced an old 3.5 or more, more water in the bowl, and then moved to a 1.6 or less.
Less water in the bowl, maybe some touch up cleaning and a big savings on water usage. Noticeably less on the water bill.

I have not installed the Drake IIG yet with 1.0, but it does have Sanagloss and specs show that it will work.
The Aquia used to work at 0.9 for me.

[wjcandee]

You have heard some snippets of good as well as some wrong info. Sadly, many people in showrooms really don't know their products, and/or they have a reason to steer you to one over the other. You can look on this site and find literally hundreds of reviews of almost any Toto model. And Terry has installed literally thousands upon thousands of toilets, and is right in the line of fire for customer feedback. So you have come to the right place.

The original Drake has a great flush. They still sell it. It's a great value at around $200-ish, ten percent either way, street price. It flushes well in the 1.6gpf version (CST744S) and the 1.28gpf version (CST744E). However, it's not a skirted toilet.

The Drake II is also a great value, in that it has as standard equipment a number of upgrades. Sanagloss, Double-Cyclone Flush (where there are no little holes in the top of the toilet rim to clog, but rather two jets that swirl the water around in the bowl before flushing), and Universal Height are all standard. It's the number one selling toilet on a big commercial web site, and gets rave review after rave review. CST454CEFG. The Drake II also comes in a different-looking 1.0gpf version, the Drake II 1G (CST454CUFG). U for "ultra"-low water consumption. Fewer people have reviewed that, but every one I have seen has been positive. Don't expect amazing bowl rinse, but most people say it's remarkably good. That said, many early adopters are going to be focused on the low consumption more than whether it's a perfect mainstream toilet as far as bowl wash.

The Drake II is not a skirted toilet. However, Toto makes a skirted toilet that is essentially identical to the Drake II, called the Vespin II. That's one of the ones that Terry owns and likes. CST474CEFG. The Vespin II doesn't come in 1.0gpf.

If you like the skirt for aesthetic purposes, rather than because you want to mount toilet on an odd-sized rough-in, then the skirted Aquia is an excellent toilet. I think Terry's experience with it, over multiple hundreds of installations, where customers order one, then order another, then order another, pretty much says it all. The folks who buy this toilet because they want a skirted dual-flush are happy with it. Period.

I don't know who or where you heard that an Eco (watersense 1.28) Toto should be avoided. Most of the knowledgeable posters on here say that there is no material difference in performance between the two. Also, knowledgeable folks on here know how to convert a 1.28 to a 1.6 if they ever feel the need to. I know a lot of our participants who bought the 1.28 thinking that they could modify it if they had to, only to decide that there was no reason to do so. So "avoid the Eco" is a garbage comment.

We have the one-piece Carlyle II, which is basically a skirted Ultramax II. To say we love it is an understatement. Very nice looking, flushes great. (We also have a couple of original Drakes, which look nice and perform flawlessly.)

Regardless of whatever MAP scores any of these toilets have, you really can't go wrong with any Toto that has a 3" flush valve, which is basically any Toto over $200. So don't agonize. Pick the one that you think will best fit your needs, and you will be happy with it. It really is that simple.

(That said, I really haven't seen too many reviews of the Maris. It does have a new-style flush valve, operated by chains from the handle. But that shouldn't affect the flush. It should be similar to the Aquia. But if you want to go with the known quantity, get the Aquia.)

[jsnc]

Thanks for the replies. So, it sounds like I shouldn't really worry about any of the toto's being a disappointment. I'm trying to stay with the water sense toilets to qualify for a local water rebate and like the skirted look for cleaning, although I may think about replacing two of the lesser used ones with the drake ii 1g.

Is there a difference in functionality between the e-max and double cyclone systems? I've read that the double cyclone does a better job "self-cleaning" but is there an advantage between the two other than that?

[wjcandee]

What Toto generally calls the "E-Max" is the "G-Max" re-tuned to work well on 1.28gpf. That is, if you look at the current Toto (original) Drake design, that's basically the E-Max. You have a siphon jet in the bottom of the bowl and a rim with the traditional little holes it for bowl rinse. The old Ultramax and a few others used the GMax then the EMax, and it was an excellent flush. I think the Drake is pretty much the only unit that uses the GMax and EMax now. Interestingly, the Drake uses the same bowl for 1.28 and 1.6 now. They stopped making the 1.6 bowl and just used the more efficient 1.28 bowl for both. The tank porcelain is the same as well; only the guts inside each tank (ST743S and ST743E) are different, to measure different amounts of water into the bowl when flushed.

The Double-Cyclone flush is a newer design which uses two nozzles facing horizontally near the top of the bowl to shoot water in a circular motion to clean the bowl, and doesn't have a zillion little holes under the rim which can clog over time if you have hard water. It also has a siphon jet at the bottom of the bowl to move the waste. It seems to work pretty well on our Vespin II. That toilet does a very fine job of disposing of waste, and has a pretty decent sized water spot. Combined with the Sanagloss, the Vespin II (and by extension the others with double-cyclone) does a good job of cleaning the bowl. Not like a 5 gallon monster would do with its swimming-pool-sized water spot, but good enough. All the models with E in the model number are Watersense-certified.

The Aquia, like many dual-flush models, uses a washdown flush with no siphon jet. It just dumps the tank into the bowl, so you usually get the sense of a lot of activity, because you see all the water passing through, instead of having a siphon jet at the bottom using water to move the waste. The bowl rinse is decent on the Aquia, but probably not proportional to how much water it gives the appearance of using, if that makes sense. The Maris, on the other hand, actually tries to improve bowl wash to some extent by spinning the flush water with nozzles like the double-cyclone. Instead of buttons on top, it has a handle on the side which you push away for the liquid and pull towards you for the solids. Both the Maris and the Aquia are also Watersense, because of the dual flush.

For our purposes, the Double-Cyclone works well in disposing of waste as does the G-Max that we have. They are both good systems, and I wouldn't be concerned about using either one.

As to the 1G, you can go to the customer reviews for the 1G on that big book-and-other-stuff web site. Don't follow the link to the outside web site, look for the reviews right there on the big web site. Someone posted a video review there of the 1G, using soiled guacamole as their flushing substance. Interestingly, they also recite that "store clerks" said the Aquia had a "streaking" problem so they bought this instead. CLUE: It's not really logical that the Aquia would streak more than the 1G. The store clerk was trying to sell a 1G, methinks. However, both initially and after two months, these reviewers like the 1G. And it's pretty amazing to see in the video how little water seems to be used to accomplish the flush. That's a double-cyclone setup there in the 1G; it's just using a quart less water per flush than the standard Drake II. That extra quart might do a better job of removing any goopy "media" that doesn't land in the water spot than on the 1G, but I have to say that it does seem to get rid of the guacamole, probably due to the Sanagloss finish.