Toto: We're Not in Deep S**t Anymore

For just a few days short of SEVEN years, we have put up with the indignity of low-flush toilets. Yes, I say "indignity" because there's nothing dignified with operating a plunger and swearing.

But those days are over. Yesterday, Ken Waterman installed two (TWO!!) new MS854114S-12 TOTO Augusta Decorative Collection Ultramax Toilet 1.6GPF - Sedona Beige toilets. They are great! Don't know whether or not I have succeeded in creating a challenge because everything disappears with a single flush!

But, wait! Surely you noticed the TOTO GPF figure: 1.6 gallons per flush. That's the same as an ordinary low-flush toilet. So what does the TOTO do that ordinary toilets do not? Here's what Tom Haws has to say:

I am a civil engineer (water, sewer, flooding, paving). At my office the landlord recently installed a Toto toilet, and I am effusive about it! I don't know which model it is, but it is amazing, and in inspecting it, I can see it has a double siphon below the bowl. The only thing I can't understand is why there aren't more double siphon toilets around, unless Toto has a patent on the double-siphon concept.

Let me explain briefly why the Toto is so simply amazing. Most toilets have a single siphon below the bowl that gets started when you dump water into the bowl (by flushing it the normal way or with a bucket) and then stops when the siphon gets broken either 1) by running out of water in the bowl and letting some air in the top (making that end-of-flush gurgle) or (and this is the catch) 2) by slowing down to the point that water dribbles away and lets air enter from the sewer and break the siphon. But Toto toilets have a second siphon near the floor that doesn't let the first siphon break until the flush is done and water runs out in the bowl. This forms what Toto calls a Power Gravity Flush. You get the vacuum effect of the entire height from the bowl down to the floor pulling the water and solids out of the bowl.

Sounds simple, doesn't it?

I'm not throwing away my plunger (mine is orange) quite yet, but I'll be surprised if I need it.

Here's a nice feature Toto calls "SoftClose". This is a real-time video!




Whew! Happy New Year! :-)