What is the first rule of a clogged toilet?

[gerti]

I've never understood why everyone needs water saver toilets and showers just because they make sense out West. Here in Michigan, we need to conserve water like Arizona needs to preserve sunshine.
.

Besides: in Germany the water-saving went so far that the solid-to-fluid ratio in sewers vote so much out of whack that they have to add thousands of gallons of water to keep them going...

[capncarl]

Dang you guys jinxed me. My Eljer comfort height that I had just bragged on, even after I boasted it would flush down a beach towel, just ran over on the floor. Just a virus it think.
Capncarl

[capncarl]

gerti,
Having actually had flood water over the top of my toilet, I too wonder about some of the water saving features that we are saddled with.
capncarl

[JimD]

When the lower water usage toilets were newer, like back in 1999 when we were building a house, you had to be careful what brand and model to get. I did some research and we used Elger Patriot models. They worked well. I broke the lid on one and replaced it with a taller Glacier Bay from Home Depot. The inexpensive house brand. It worked great. The ceramic was a little rougher than the Elgers so it was a little harder to clean but flushed great. The current house has two really old high volume toilets that don't flush very well but have worked OK so far. When I get to remodel the bathrooms, they will be replaced with low volume models because that is all you can buy these days and they will work a lot better than the old ones.

The only problem we've had was with the newer lower volume toilet and it was because one of the ladies in the house put in WAY too much toilet paper. I know ladies use more but there has to be a limit. Used reasonably, that toilet works fine. A plunger fixed the one instance where it didn't.

We are on a well with septic so I don't really care much about water usage. But low volume toilets work fine. Difference between brands isn't very large.

I also put flush master valves in all new toilets. Waste of time to use what they come with.

[Tom Slick]

When we moved into our current house it had early 80's American Standard toilets that were terrible flushers. They used a lot of water and flushed poorly, usually requiring 2 flushes for serious business. I replaced them with Kohler Cadet 1.8 gpf toilets and have had zero problems and the flush almost as fast as pressure-assisted toilets.

[gerti]

I also put flush master valves in all new toilets.

Google did not show obvious results for flush master valves, could you elaborate? We are a few months away from remodeling our tiny master bathroom so I am interested in anything that makes it a better place ;-)

Thanks

Gerd

[Tom Slick]

Fluidmaster?

http://www.fluidmaster.com/

They make good stuff.

[woodturner]

I also put flush master valves in all new toilets. Waste of time to use what they come with.

I installed FluidMaster valves a few years back, based on the recommendation of someone here. They worked OK at first, but I've had to replace them - they don't flush consistently, the flappers often don't close, the tops of the valves break off, etc. Something is apparently different in my installations - older toilets, maybe higher water pressure, etc.

I'm curious how long they last in your situation. Maybe they just need to be replaced every few years and won't last decades like the original. In any event, my point is that it's YMMV and they don't seem to work well in some applications such as mine.