The history of the modern toilet

I don’t want to go too far back in the quest for toilet history. Hole in the ground, wooden box, moon shaped hole in the door, splinters… you get the idea.

                         IceHouse                                           

Lets start off in the early 90s. We were happily flushing along. We were using 3.5 or more gallons per flush, and it worked pretty good. It wasted a lot of water…but it worked. In 1995 we had the 1.6 gallon flush mandate from the federal government. All the manufactures did the best they could. They looked like toilets, they made a flushing sound like a toilet, but they did not work. (I suspect a conspiracy. Never underestimate the power of the plunger industry. I normally refer to it as “Big Plunger”) America got very skilled at plunging their commodes. Or they turned to back alley, black-market 3.5 gallon toilets. America could not maintain a war on drugs, and toilets! Sure we were saving water, but some us dreamed of more, a toilet that worked, and saved water. There were some power flush options that sounded like a NASA rocket launch every time you depressed the “fire” mechanism. Then one day, I saw it. It was strange, yet compelling. It did not seem like it was working correctly when you depressed the lever, there was a quick vacuum. No swirling, no rising water level, just a quick suck, and the water was gone. It wasn’t loud. It was a Toto….

Not that Toto, but a toilet brand named Toto. Anyway, they have this G-max flushing system, and  the thing worked! Now I am seeing similar toilet designs by other manufactures. I still like the Toto Drake, but if you have to have something else, here are a few that can flush with the best of them.

• American Standard
• Kohler

The next thing is the dual-flush 1.6 or .8 depending on what you are flushing. We have had good success with these so far also.

I’ll overview them later.

http://www.history.com/exhibits/modern/toilet.html

http://www.bathandmore.com/productinfo.php?CategoryID=13&ProductID=1126

Radiant Plumbing Service

Austin Texas

(512) 263-9988

www.radiantplumbing.com