Toilets

Every house has at least one, and most have two sometimes upwards of five.  One of the common questions I get is “What kind of toilet should I buy?”  This is a tough question as there are so many different types of toilets on the market today.  It is important to do some research of your own to discover what toilet will fit you and your family’s needs.

A standard toilet will have a outlet of 2 and an eighth to 2 and 3 eights.  There are some toilets that have larger outlets but that just means that if someone flushes something too large then it gets stuck in the sewage lines instead of in the toilet.

My Favorite Toilets

These toilets are the ones that I have had the most luck with as far as installation goes. In no particular order.

Amercian Standard

Caroma

Eljer

Gerber

Toto

Western Pottery

Over the years I have installed many different types of toilets, the problem was that some of those toilets failed right away.  I won’t mention which ones failed as I have not kept up with the newer versions.  I do have a third party review section on this website that you can check out and see what others have thought as well.

Types of Toilets

As compared with the brands that are available you will find that each brand will have one of these types.

Two Piece Wall Hung

One Piece Wall Hung

Two Piece floor mount with rear exit

One Piece floor mount with rear exit

Two piece floor exit

Once piece floor exit

Flushometer with handle (commercial)

Flushometer with sensor (commercial)

Pressure assist

Elongated

Round

ADA or a taller style

10″ and 12″ centers

Concealed trapway

In most cases in your house you will need a 12″ center with a one or two piece style.  You can choose a regular or a concealed trapway but the concealed trapways are much heavier and can be much more difficult to install.

Also if you have a banjo type counter in your bathroom you will need to buy a unit that will not just fit underneath the counter but leave enough room to work on the toilet in the future if you require any repairs.

Other Information About Toilets

The first toilets were all at least 5 gallons per flush or 20 Liters per flush.  Today we have units that flush with as little as 4 Liters!  Or composting style toilets that do not require water at all.

Back in the day you needed the extra water to flush as well as clean the bowl.  Older styles would use a siphon hole to activate the S trap which would then suck the water completely out of the bowl.  At the same time holes around the rim would clean the bowl as much as possible.  As water conservation began to be a priority to a lot of people this design had to change.

As there became less and less water in each tank the tank would have to be taller and slimmer than older models.  This has to do the gravity.  For every foot water rises there is an increase of pressure of .434 pounds.  Then there was new designs of the bowls.  Now steeper, and the rim holes smaller and in many cases instead of a siphon hole at the bottom there was a larger rim hole in the front center of the bowl.  This larger hole in the rim was still capable of activating the S-trap.  What I mean by activating is helping to start the siphon action that the S-trap uses naturally to empty the bowl 100%.

Then with less water came less of a swirl like you would see when you empty out your bathtub or kitchen sink.  You should still get a gurgle sound when you flush.  If you don’t there are a few things that have gone wrong.  Not so much with the installation but more so with the rest of your plumbing system.  With an older toilet the problem could be with rim holes.  As those age they become filled with mineral deposits.

If the toilet is new then the problem could be the venting system.  The venting system for your toilet starts at the toilet as a wet vent for the rest of the bathroom.  This means that the vent for the toilet is also the drain for part of the bathtub and the drain for the sink.  If this drain is plugged then your water closet might not drain proper.  The next part of the vent is the upper portion of the sink drain.  Normally this will never get clogged unless your sink became plugged and debris was able to get up into the vent area.  The other way this portion of the event can get clogged is through the vent at the top of your house.  The way the vent works is if rain gets into the vent it will flow through to the drain and into the city sewer system.  If however, there are leaves that are also in the vent these might get stuck somewhere which will cause a partial plug.

Another type of plug you might get is in the winter.  With some of the snow falls we get here in Edmonton and area sometimes this will fill the vent on your roof.  This can also happen in combination of ice build up.  Your vent is there to vent sewer gases out of the mains which are much warmer than the temperature outside in the winter.  This creates condensation and then freezes closing the vent over time.

Learn more about toilets here.

Installing a Toilet

Depending on what you buy will dictate on how easy the installation will be.  The reason for this is many toilets now require extra parts to get the proper flush that is required in the newer low flow versions out there today.

You will still need a wax seal and t-bolts, as well as you might need a new shutoff valve and supply tube.  Kramer Plumbing and Radiant Heat always changes out the supply tube to a new braided stainless tube for added security and peace of mind.  Now, depending on what toilet you buy you might get another part that generally is included with your purchase.  This other part is an uni-fit adapter and comes in a variety of forms.  These will need to be secured to the floor with the t-bolts as well as floor anchors.  Then the toilet will sit on top or push in from the front and be secured with screws through the side.

Color

The common color as of this writing is white.  The last time I did an installation with another color was about 2 years ago and that was for a black toilet.  I have installed a few off white, almond, or beige colored units in the last 5 years, but white is definitely the color people seem to want today.  This means that if you want to buy something other than white you will have to spend a lot more money and take a lot longer to get.  The reason for this is because most manufacturers will wait until there is enough orders to justify firing a new color.  The wait can easily be 6 to 8 weeks.

We have installed 100’s of toilets throughout Edmonton, Sherwood Park, and Strathcona County.  If you need a professional plumber to come and install a new toilet for you please give us a call at 780-264-0878

Thanks,

Kelly

Kramer Plumbing and Radiant Heat
249 Grand Meadow Crescent NW, Edmonton, AB T6L 1W9

(780) 264-0878