Sanagloss, a customer poll and reviews

[Terry]

Other homeowners want to know how good Toto's new idea in bowl glazing, Sanagloss is.

You can post your comments here.

[normwu]

Thanks for posting the poll, Terry.

I contacted Terry about an article I'm writing on nanotechnology and toilets for http://www.totousa.com/Default.aspx?tabid=83. If any of you homeowners who have a Toto SanaGloss toilet would be willing to share your thoughts and be quoted in the article, please email me via the Members List and include your phone number. I can only gather input through Friday morning this week, May 20. Thanks.

--Norm Wu

[jadnashua]

Being single and having two bathrooms, plus being at work for a good portion of the day, my toilets don't get used that much during the week. The toilet bowl water grows algae. It takes much longer to start, grows slower, and just brushes off clean. The original toilets took a lot more work to clean up and it grew back faster.

I'd have to take Toto's word for the fact that it holds fewer germs. Since the design of the toilets are so much different, I can't say if the water actually flows faster, but will say that it disappears very fast - much faster than in the old design.

[keithdeanne]

I just recently finished a new half bath and from the recomendations on this site I purchaced a toto sanagloss. I have to say I love it. It's fantasic! Quiet, quick and stays clean. Now my wife wants me to install yet another toto sanagloss in our other bathroom. Problem is, there isn't one...lol I plan on replacing that toliet with another toto in the next year or so.
keith

[Terry]

By Norm Wu
May 23, 2005
Over the past four years Toto has, in fact, been rolling out a self-cleaning feature across some of its toilet line. Called CeFiONtect (Ceramic Fine Ion Technology) in Asia and SaniGloss in the U.S., Toto's ceramic glaze coats the inner bowl with a non-porous, super smooth surface at the nanometer scale. According to the company, stubborn waste is as small as a few microns. Their patents suggest that the "roughness" of a SaniGloss surface may be under 30 nanometers. By eliminating the microscopic nooks and crannies that conventional glazes have, there are no places for dirt, mold or bacteria to get a foothold. Toto achieves this smoothness by applying a secondary transparent glaze over the conventional colored glaze whose pigments and opacifiers create surface unevenness. In addition, anti-bacterial metals can be added to this layer.

The rest of the story


Norm,
I'm glad I clicked on the rest of the story.
Very well though out and written.
Thanks,
Terry Love

[kenyoung]

About 2 months ago I purchased 3 Toto Elongated Ultramax toilets. 2 of them had no sanigloss, which cost me $360 a piece and one had Sanigloss, which cost $410. I had been reading this site for several years. I had been experiencing clogging problems in my 1.6 gal toilets for some time in my last 2 homes, and had come very close to buying pressure-assisted toilets from Lowe's and Home Depot, but I am glad I did NOT....In my current home, which I had purchased 2.5 years ago, the developer used Kohler Wentworth gravity toilets. Consumer Reports actually wrote a good review on these toilets flushing ability, but it was only this site (Terry Love's site) that criticized and questioned the validity of the Consumer Reports study partially by pointing out that they did NOT think real plumbers were doing the study I did find that though the Kohler Wentworth 1.6 gal gravity flush toilets did NOT clog as much as the 1.6 gal toilets that I had used at my previous house, they still did clog and overflow, which was causing my wife and kids a lot of heartache and grief...It was only on this site that I "discovered" TOTO and its G-MAX technology. The TOTO toilets did solve my clogging problem, and my family is extremely pleased and happy with this....However, on this site I discovered that TOTO had this Sanigloss technology, which I had never heard of before. Was Sanigloss worth the extra money (which is about $50 to $60) more??? I did NOT get a clear answer to this from reading user comments on this web site (or in fact any web site)...The most useful comment I got was that the Toto Ultramax (without Sanigloss) was already a pretty clean toilet and did NOT need Sanigloss. Over the last 2 months, I would ask my wife if she thought the Sanigloss toilet was better or cleaner than the non-Sanigloss toilets...My wife's simple answer to the question was that she really did NOT see a difference...She however did say that because of the small amount of water in the toilet bowel of our Toto toilets (versus the "fuller" amount of water in our Kohler Wentworth toilets) that Toto toilets did need to be kept cleaned....When you look at the Sanigloss TOTO Ultramax toilet and the Toto Ultramax toilet with NO Sanigloss, you CANNOT see a physical difference EXCEPT for the fact that there is a little sticker on the Sanigloss toilet labeling it to have Sanigloss. Based on what my wife said and what I read on Terry Love's web site, I would not buy the Sanigloss again and save the $60 cost fee....However that WAS BEFORE I read Norm Wu's outstanding technical article "Nanotech Toilets Take Off" on Sanigloss on this web site...From the electron scanning microscope diagrams, it shows that BOTH brand new porcelain toilets from TOTO with Sanigloss and WITHOUT Sanigloss were RELATIVELY smooth. After about 3 years, the porcelain on TOTO toilets without Sanigloss (and, in fact, any toilet) became rougher and more susceptible to staining & "dirt". This helps to explain why right now on all my brand new TOTO toilets I do NOT see any real difference....I do NOT like seeing my wife (or any member of my family) spending time cleaning toilets. From Norm Wu's article, sanigloss is a special material "baked-on" to the toilet bowl surface at about 800 to 1200 degrees Centigrade, and will keep your toilet bowl relatively smooth and like new for about 100 years...This will help minimize time and work spent on cleaning toilet bowls by about 50%, especially as the toilet ages...I also read in the article that Terry Love sells a lot of Sanigloss toilets to doctors....For these reasons, if I had to buy my TOTO toilets again, I would buy them all 100% with Sanigloss...You cannot buy TOTO toilets in a retail hardware store like Home Depot or Lowe's. However, I am sold on TOTO toilets, and reluctantly have to admit that they are indeed superior to their American counterparts.

Ken Young

[BigFan]

I've been using the Carlysle for about 2 months now, and I absolutely love it. Not only we don't have to clean the bowl, the flush (G-MAX) is super quiet AND powerful (It doesn't appear to be that way at first since it's so quiet). And the tank fills it up fast. I sometime wonder if it really needs a regular tank since it appears not using much water at all.

The bowl is really amazing. If something sticks after the first flush, it'd be flushed away the 2nd time. I've not yet used a toilet brush or 3rd flush yet. This is all because of the sanagloss bowl. It's as good as advertised.

The quiet close seat is also very good if you have young kids at home. It's comfortable and it won't "slam" down to the bowl.

My 2 cents.

[sulconst2]

very happy with the ultramax sanagloss. dont drop anything in while its flushing or its gone! plus i have a nickname for the softclose. "MANSEAT". get done peeing and flip it closed. no worries. asked my wife how she likes it and she never noticed! duh, i guess if i sat when i peed i wouldnt notice either. lol. for the sanagloss i guess i cant tell being its new.

[florida_wen]

We are definitely convinced TOTO toilets are superior to all others, as we had two in our house that we recently sold, and they were always reliable and worked great. We are about a month away from replacing the two toilets in THIS house we recently purchased (and hope to stay here for many, many years) but I see that Sanagloss is only available in WHITE. Why can't they use the Sanagloss process on the other colors ?? I think Bone is a very popular color, although not as popular as the traditional white, and that is the color we want to purchase.

[Terry]

Toto has Sanagloss #03 Bone(almond)#12Beige(biscuit/linen) and #04Gray in their Vespin and Carlyle models.

I've been selling the standard height elongated bowls with Sanagloss CST744SG-01 Cotton White


Cotton White

[Vitaliy]

Is my Ultramax TOTO model number MS854114S-01 SanaGloss or not?
I have not seen “SanaGloss” mentioned in spec, on box and
even on TOTO web page next to Ultramax toilets.

Thank you,

- Vitaliy

[Terry]

The Toto website lists the Ultramax with Sanagloss as the MS854114SG-01

It's my biggest seller in the Seattle area.
Ultramax with Sanagloss

The toilet will come with a stick-on "Sanagloss" emblem.

The bowl is shinier too. Anything with Sanagloss from Toto with have the letter "G" in the model number.

I always refer to those models as SG's.
G-Max is S
Sanagloss is G

[Vitaliy]

Hi Tery,

Ops, I missed “SanaGloss” on general description Toto web page.
However spec does not have word “SanaGloss” in it.
My unit did not have any sticker/emblem or so but yes, bowl looks shinier.
So is it “SanaGloss” or it is a passivity it is not?
Anyway we like it a lot - fast but quiet!

Thank you,

- Vitaliy

[Terry]

The Sanagloss Toto are stil one of my biggest sellers.

Smoother than glaze, which most bowls have.

I just installed a Sanagloss Ultramax in my downstairs.
It's working pretty good.

[decisions, decisions!]

I read conflicting reports regarding the ADA Drake-does it come with sanagloss or not-so I called Melinda (Toto rep in Georgia-the number/address was posted recently). She said they were available but a supplyhouse had to order 30 of them. I have an ADA Drake (no sanagloss) and an Ultramax (with sanagloss) on order-I wish I could get both in sangloss. I also ordered 3 bath sinks with the sanagloss!

[keithdeanne]

Originally Posted by keithdeanne

I just recently finished a new half bath and from the recomendations on this site I purchaced a toto sanagloss. I have to say I love it. It's fantasic! Quiet, quick and stays clean. Now my wife wants me to install yet another toto sanagloss in our other bathroom. Problem is, there isn't one...lol I plan on replacing that toliet with another toto in the next year or so.
keith

Well, It's been less than a year and I am currently finishing up the remodel of the main bathroom. I purchaced yet another toto "SG". The only thing I didn't get again was the toto soft close toliet seat. That thing although nice to look at, dosen't show promise to last but a year or two, because it is made out of a cheap thin plastic. I haven't had one stitch of problems with the toto in my basement. Fact, is in the six months or so that it has been installed I have yet to scrub the toliet. Don't get me wrong, the toliet is cleaned weekly, but the cleaning agent it only applied and then flushed away an hour or so later. The toliet is "almost" self cleaning. My father who has trouble with "standard height" toliets loves the ADA toliet in my basement. I am sure it will only be a mater of time before he calls me up to install a toto in his house.

[Teutonaddict]

Hey Terry-

Thanks so much for the informative site. Based on all my research, I've opted to go with the Toto Ultramax elongated/ADA (MS854114SL-01). Is this model available in Sanagloss finish? The incremental cost described seems reasonable when you're toying with higher end models.

And finally, do you sell/ship to customers in TX? I noticed you list shipping to Seattle/LAX, and I'd prefer to support the forum administrators if prices are competitive.

Again, Thanks!
-Dave

[Terry]

The Ultramax ADA does not come in ADA.

They do make tall bowl one-piece 16-1/8" high Soiree and Guinevere models with Sanagloss.

And, I don't ship to Texas anymore. Sorry.

Tall one piece toilets by Toto with Sanagloss are
Guinevere
Soiree
Gwyneth

[jdsoreacres]

After reading the forums and toilet info on Terry Love's Plumbing I could only buy Totos for our recent remodel. I bought the UltraMax with SaniGloss for our bathroom and the Drake ADA for the guest bathroom.

I am not a regular housecleaner and i notice that the UltraMax needs more than an occasional whisk with a toilet brush. Especially in the narrow front bottom. I can't seem to reach the grim that has settled there. Also there seems to be a water line of deposit on both toilets.

Since these are new and expensive toilets I have not used the old toilet tank disinfectants and bowl cleaners that I used before. What do you recommend for cleaning?

[Terry]

Any of the liquid bowl cleaners should work. I've been using the Clorox with Teflon.

With 1.6 gallons, you will be cleaning more than with the older 3.5's and 5.0's