3.5 gallon toilets
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Gary Swart
In the Trades
Here's the deal. When the 1.6 gallon toilets first came out, most were awful. They required frequent plunging and almost always needed to be flushed twice to get everything cleared out. The better 1.6 gallon toilets on the market today flush quite well although some do not clean the bowl as well as others. I'd advise you to consider a Toto. I'm not sure if an 3.5 gallon toilet would pass inspection in a new addition.
WINDSOR, Ontario - During Prohibition, Americans rowed across the Detroit River to this border city to buy whiskey. A generation later, young people drove across the river to buy marijuana. But today, the border contraband run is to score a different kind of Canadian pot, one that gives a different kind of thrill - the forbidden flush. “Why do I need the government to tell me what kind of toilet to buy?” Linda Walton, a visiting American asked one hot Saturday morning after her husband, Tony, wrestled into their van three 35 gallon-capacity toilets.
The Waltons and their two boys, Kyle and Ian, had made the 5 1/2-hour road trip from Indianapolis in search of suburbia’s new holy grail: the kind of old-style, big-flush toilet that Americans took as their birthright until 1994. That year, a federal water conservation law went into effect, mandating that all new toilets use only 1.6 gallons a flush.
Border towns from New Brunswick to British Columbia now offer what one Vancouver plumber has called Canuck commodes. On any given Saturday knots of Americans can be found inspecting a gleaming array of "3.5s" in Seafoam green, Bahama pink, Jamaican beige, Tiffany rose and the safe decorating standby, white bone. Some potties even carry the sticker: “For Export from the U.S. Only.”
Under the new law, conviction for distribution and sale of taboo toilets inside the United States can mean fines of $100 a toilet. But if American toilet manufacturers, like American Standard, Mansfield, Kohler and Eljer, may now make jumbo toilets only for export, there is no law to stop Americans from driving them back across the border. Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement, if the toilets are made in the United States or Canada, they come in duty-free.
Once home, Americans face the hurdle that new houses will not pass inspections if they are outfitted with old-style big flushers. But with inspections behind them, some Americans indulge in a new, closed-door suburban passion: toilet swapping.
“We have people building million-dollar houses, but they come in here to buy an old toilet,” Tim Harmon, the owner of Tim & Billy’s Salvage Store in Indianapolis, said in a telephone interview, “Everybody new ones,” he said. “The biggest argument that you hear is that you have to flush it two or three times to get all the waste down, so who’s saving water?”
Advocates of low-flush toilets respond that the newer models work better than early versions. In a recent study, Consumer Reports said that the late 1990s models “worked just fine almost always on one flush.”
Advocates also calculate that the 50 million low-flush toilets installed since 1994 save 500 million gallons of water daily, cutting the cost of expanded water supply and sewage disposal. Toilets, they estimate, can account for a quarter of household water use. Ed Osann, a natural resources consultant who lobbied almost a decade ago for the conservation legislation, said, “The argument for water efficiency is pretty clear. We face growing demands for water and wastewater infrastructure investment in the United States.”
Rep. Joe Knollenberg, a Republican from an affluent Detroit suburb, is sponsoring legislation to restore toilet choice. The congressman assails Washington for imposing a one-size-fits-all toilet on the entire nation.
The Waltons and their two boys, Kyle and Ian, had made the 5 1/2-hour road trip from Indianapolis in search of suburbia’s new holy grail: the kind of old-style, big-flush toilet that Americans took as their birthright until 1994. That year, a federal water conservation law went into effect, mandating that all new toilets use only 1.6 gallons a flush.
Border towns from New Brunswick to British Columbia now offer what one Vancouver plumber has called Canuck commodes. On any given Saturday knots of Americans can be found inspecting a gleaming array of "3.5s" in Seafoam green, Bahama pink, Jamaican beige, Tiffany rose and the safe decorating standby, white bone. Some potties even carry the sticker: “For Export from the U.S. Only.”
Under the new law, conviction for distribution and sale of taboo toilets inside the United States can mean fines of $100 a toilet. But if American toilet manufacturers, like American Standard, Mansfield, Kohler and Eljer, may now make jumbo toilets only for export, there is no law to stop Americans from driving them back across the border. Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement, if the toilets are made in the United States or Canada, they come in duty-free.
Once home, Americans face the hurdle that new houses will not pass inspections if they are outfitted with old-style big flushers. But with inspections behind them, some Americans indulge in a new, closed-door suburban passion: toilet swapping.
“We have people building million-dollar houses, but they come in here to buy an old toilet,” Tim Harmon, the owner of Tim & Billy’s Salvage Store in Indianapolis, said in a telephone interview, “Everybody new ones,” he said. “The biggest argument that you hear is that you have to flush it two or three times to get all the waste down, so who’s saving water?”
Advocates of low-flush toilets respond that the newer models work better than early versions. In a recent study, Consumer Reports said that the late 1990s models “worked just fine almost always on one flush.”
Advocates also calculate that the 50 million low-flush toilets installed since 1994 save 500 million gallons of water daily, cutting the cost of expanded water supply and sewage disposal. Toilets, they estimate, can account for a quarter of household water use. Ed Osann, a natural resources consultant who lobbied almost a decade ago for the conservation legislation, said, “The argument for water efficiency is pretty clear. We face growing demands for water and wastewater infrastructure investment in the United States.”
Rep. Joe Knollenberg, a Republican from an affluent Detroit suburb, is sponsoring legislation to restore toilet choice. The congressman assails Washington for imposing a one-size-fits-all toilet on the entire nation.
I did talk to Joe Knollenberg years ago and he told me that there was a senator setting on that rule and was determined to keep the toilets 1.6 flush law. It seems logical that if we truly want to conserve , why not start with all the water we put on grass. Lush subdivisions and large green industrial parks look nice, but I'll bet they waste much more water. If you could get a handle on that we could save a lot more than a 500 mil. a day. But the poor flush toilet was easier to mandate and control.
I sell toilets to Canadians.
I have Canadians buying toilets from me in the Seattle area.
I sold thirty Toto ADA Drakes to one customer.
The Drakes work better than the old ones anyway.
I have Canadians buying toilets from me in the Seattle area.
I sold thirty Toto ADA Drakes to one customer.
The Drakes work better than the old ones anyway.
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