[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: Toilets that Work

[Lawrence Lile]

Forwarded to the List, from Sabrina......

________________________________

From: Sabrina Free [mailto:sabrinafree at gmail.com]
Sent: Fri 12/22/2006 5:35 PM
To: Lawrence Lile
Subject: [BULK] Re: [Greenbuilding] Toilets that Work


hi,
i am so out of it that i cannot figure out how to reply to the whole list, and somehow have to take a shower and be to a party in 37 minutes.  the party is a half hour away and since i don't have a shower in my house, the place i take a shower is 7 minutes away. 
why i am writing an email is beyond me.
except that i work IN home depot.  i work for the little, family owned nursery that would have been put out of business by HD but instead fought back and got a contract to supply them.  hd has no control over our waste, and i demanded (yes, do this or i quit is what i said - and i sell more than anyone else) that we recycle everything.  so, all of our waste is recycled.  the plastic gets re-used (they saved 15K the first year at my store alone) and the dirt and plant matter all goes to habitat for humanity for compost that they then sell. 
maybe what you are thinking is, what does this have to do with me and my toilet?
well, could you not buy a used toilet somewhere?  rather than buy one at hd?  it seems like all the plumbers around here have tons of old toilets, ones that are old enough they flush without even doing any math.  or fake poop made out of soybeans. 
(i really don't want to go to this party.)
it is positively, absolutely, grossly, (there are just not WORDS for this) disgusting how much perfectly good STUFF HD throws in the dumpster.  my first year there (before i realized i had any power) it was part of my job, and i threw away 250K yes, 250K worth of plants into the dumpster.  oh, that was just annuals, not even counting trees, shrubs and perennials.  
i work there because of the family owned business.  i buy nothing there, and wish everyone realized how truly bad they are.  i do know that i am inadvertantly supporting them by working for their supplier, and make no pretense at justifying it.  i hate that fact, and have been trying to quit for two years but can't find anyone else to do the job right, and don't want the company i work for to suffer.  (their entire family survives on this business) 
they might be waaaay behind walmart, but they are also the closest thing TO walmart.
sabrina,
who will be very late as usual :o)



On 12/22/06, Lawrence Lile <LLile at projsolco.com> wrote: 

	I decided to go this route with a toilet.  I'll have a composter, plus a standard toilet for the un-initiated guests, the Building Inspector, and the Realtor who tries to sell my house in 20 years.  If I'm going to have a zero-GPF composter, there is no point in spending extra money on a super-low water use toilet - the greatest method of conserving water is to avoid flushing.  What I want is a toilet that actually works. 
	
	If the 1.6GPF toilet takes three flushes and a round of plunging to actually clear itself, then it is really a 6.4GPF toilet, and also only useful as a boat-anchor.
	
	There is a consulting firm that has done an extensive study of toilet performance.  You can find thier research here 
	
	http://www.cwwa.ca/pdf_files/freepub_6Ltoiletreport04.pdf
	
	and an updated version with more models here
	
	http://www.cwwa.ca/pdf_files/MaP%206th%20Edition%20Feb%2010%202006.pdf
	
	They measure all sorts of metrics, like gallons per flush, and so on, but they actually worked out a scheme to test the ability of the toilet to clear solids, the metric I'm very interested in.  They call it MaP testing, for Maximum Performance. 
	
	They make little sausages out of soybean paste, (essentially Miso) and flush them, until they find a quantity that the toilet can't clear.  Now, many people think Soybean products are only good for flushing, and testing toilets might be the highest use for Miso, but I am not one of them. 
	
	Amazingly, some of the most expensive toilets will not clear 150 grams of solids.  The average waste load is about 250 grams, so these toilets would require two flushes and a plunge nearly every use.  Some water savings, huh?  I think that is the kind I got stuck with. 
	
	I went through an extensive price/performance matrix at a local Lowe's and Home Despot.  The result is that the American Standard Cadet-3 (not Cadet) Flush-Right model 4021 tank and model 3014 or 3011 bowl was one of the cheapest brand name toilets on the market at $130, yet has the highest solids clearing performance at 1000 grams.  There is no information on the box at the store that would give the consumer more than a clue that a toilet would actually work by any rational metric. There are some that claim to flush "150 feet", which is completely meaningless. Others claim to be "#1 in independant tests" when that particular model was not in the top performers. 
	
	American standard makes some real losers too, their plain Cadet model is on the bottom of the list.  The worst model tested was a Komet brand, able to flush only 75 grams of material without a plunger.    To put this in perspective, a peanut butter sandwich (on the kind of bread I eat anyway) weighs more than 75 grams. 
	
	None of the sub-$100 toilets were on the testing matrix, so I didn't look into them, except for the Glacier Bay (Home Despot House brand), which was useless at 175 grams.  All of the major manufacturers - Kohler, Eljer, Gerber, American Standard, have some flush-impaired losers among thier most expensive lines, price had absolutely nothing to do with solids clearing performance. 
	
	    Lawrence Lile, P.E.
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