Replacing your old toilet with high efficiency one
I started shopping toilet earlier this month and could not find one good site for all useful information I need. So I am going to write up what I have learned and share with all of you. Hopefully this will help you and help the world by saving some water here and there.
High-efficiency Toilet Rebate Program
Many counties across the country pay you to replace your old toilet. Several counties in northern california bay area that pays $125 toilet (up to 3 per each household) with such rebate program are as followed:
County of Santa Clara, list of qualifying toilets (pdf)
County of San Francisco, list of qualifying toilets (pdf)
House Call - Water Saving Tips/Tools
Each county also provide a free service called, House Call, which will come to your house free to check your water consumption and provide suggestion on how to conserve water. I have done that in Santa Clara County, which the service was quick and very helpful. The girl who did the House Call also pre-approved the toilet rebate qualification.
She first checked the water meter and see if there is any leakage in my house. She also taught me how to read the meter such that I can cross check the water bill in the future. She measured the water flow (gallon per 10 seconds) of each water outlet inside the house, like kitchen faucet and shower head. She gave me free aerator if too much water comes out. She also gave me flapper for free if you toilet shows any sign of leakage. She also gave me a low-flush shower head but I have not installed it yet. My home does not has any sprinkler system, otherwise, they will also analysis and provide you with the best water-saving watering schedule.
Which Toilet is the best?
This is the first question I asked myself, where can I find such information. There are plenty of review site for high-tech gadget, but I never heard of a toilet review site. :D
After some research, I found this report, Water Closet Performance Testing Report. It does not contains ALL the toilet in the world, but it covers quite a wide range of brand and the most common model. It gave me a very good sense which brand I should buy. The most important page you want to look is Appendix D1, where it ranks the toilets with their "Flush Performance Index". The lesser is better, and you can see Toto is ranked the highest.
I once asked the girl from House Call which toilet is the best. She said she cannot answer that question, however, she said the most popular ones is Toto Drake. Seriously, after looking at the list above and the price of Toto Drake, I think this is very true.
Where to buy them?
This was where the frustration starts and how this webpage comes alive. I went to HomeDepot and Lowes trying to look for the toilets that qualifies for the rebate. As usual, they are the one-stop-shop for most of us working on home improvement. Sadly, they only provide one brand of toilet that qualifies for the program.
Home Depot only sells Cottage EL and Ecologic EL, while Lowes only sells Mansfield Eco-Quantum and Quantum One. I never heard of them and it is very difficult to find any reviews when you google them. So at this point, I know I need to get it off some smaller plumbing store or online. By the way, just for your information, these 2 stores charge about $150 installation fee per toilet, which Home Depot charges $125 for the 2nd toilet.
So after doing my homework, I found this site http://www.faucetdirect.com, where I eventually bought my toilets. Even they charge $90 for shipping, their price makes a lot more sense as long as you order more than 1 toilet. What I did was to ask around my friend and we ordered more stuff and share the shipping cost. Not bad, huh ...
A Toto Drake costs around $190 and qualifies for the $125 rebate in most counties. So what you really need to pay is only $65 plus tax. This toilet uses only 1.28 gpf (gallon per flush), is the best water saving among that price range. This is not the best looking toilet in the world, but this is definitely the best deal out there you can find with a decent look.
If you are more into style and want a 1-piece toilet instead of the 2-piece Toto Drake. You are going to like the best selling Toto Ultramax (or Ultimate some store called). This is also a 1.28 gpf toilet, and same as Toto Drake, which has very good reviews from ToiletsThatWork.com. You cannot really beat the price at FaucetDirect.com, which is $327 (around $200 after rebate, not bad). I have googled many websites and they have the best price.
As you can see from this point, I am totally biased toward Toto brand. The models from Toto I mentioned above all qualify for the Santa Clara Water District rebate program. There are many that qualfiy as well.
The one I looked at that I feel comparable with Toto (style and price wise) was Kohler K-3564
and Kohler K3597.
Toilet Seat
Make sure you order a toilet seat if you are buying a 2-piece from Toto. Something like SS114 would be the basic or SS204 would fit Aquia the best. If you are ordering a 1-piece toilet, e.g. Ultramax/Ultimate or Supreme, it comes with toilet seat.
--
** References
Review site for Toto brand toilets
http://www.toiletsthatwork.com/
Water Closet Performance Testing Report
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/watercon/downloads/NAHB-ToiletReport.pdf
List of toilet review sites
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/house_and_home/toilets/reviews.html
High-efficiency Toilet Rebate Program
Many counties across the country pay you to replace your old toilet. Several counties in northern california bay area that pays $125 toilet (up to 3 per each household) with such rebate program are as followed:
County of Santa Clara, list of qualifying toilets (pdf)
County of San Francisco, list of qualifying toilets (pdf)
House Call - Water Saving Tips/Tools
Each county also provide a free service called, House Call, which will come to your house free to check your water consumption and provide suggestion on how to conserve water. I have done that in Santa Clara County, which the service was quick and very helpful. The girl who did the House Call also pre-approved the toilet rebate qualification.
She first checked the water meter and see if there is any leakage in my house. She also taught me how to read the meter such that I can cross check the water bill in the future. She measured the water flow (gallon per 10 seconds) of each water outlet inside the house, like kitchen faucet and shower head. She gave me free aerator if too much water comes out. She also gave me flapper for free if you toilet shows any sign of leakage. She also gave me a low-flush shower head but I have not installed it yet. My home does not has any sprinkler system, otherwise, they will also analysis and provide you with the best water-saving watering schedule.
Which Toilet is the best?
This is the first question I asked myself, where can I find such information. There are plenty of review site for high-tech gadget, but I never heard of a toilet review site. :D
After some research, I found this report, Water Closet Performance Testing Report. It does not contains ALL the toilet in the world, but it covers quite a wide range of brand and the most common model. It gave me a very good sense which brand I should buy. The most important page you want to look is Appendix D1, where it ranks the toilets with their "Flush Performance Index". The lesser is better, and you can see Toto is ranked the highest.
I once asked the girl from House Call which toilet is the best. She said she cannot answer that question, however, she said the most popular ones is Toto Drake. Seriously, after looking at the list above and the price of Toto Drake, I think this is very true.
Where to buy them?
This was where the frustration starts and how this webpage comes alive. I went to HomeDepot and Lowes trying to look for the toilets that qualifies for the rebate. As usual, they are the one-stop-shop for most of us working on home improvement. Sadly, they only provide one brand of toilet that qualifies for the program.
Home Depot only sells Cottage EL and Ecologic EL, while Lowes only sells Mansfield Eco-Quantum and Quantum One. I never heard of them and it is very difficult to find any reviews when you google them. So at this point, I know I need to get it off some smaller plumbing store or online. By the way, just for your information, these 2 stores charge about $150 installation fee per toilet, which Home Depot charges $125 for the 2nd toilet.
So after doing my homework, I found this site http://www.faucetdirect.com, where I eventually bought my toilets. Even they charge $90 for shipping, their price makes a lot more sense as long as you order more than 1 toilet. What I did was to ask around my friend and we ordered more stuff and share the shipping cost. Not bad, huh ...
A Toto Drake costs around $190 and qualifies for the $125 rebate in most counties. So what you really need to pay is only $65 plus tax. This toilet uses only 1.28 gpf (gallon per flush), is the best water saving among that price range. This is not the best looking toilet in the world, but this is definitely the best deal out there you can find with a decent look.
If you are more into style and want a 1-piece toilet instead of the 2-piece Toto Drake. You are going to like the best selling Toto Ultramax (or Ultimate some store called). This is also a 1.28 gpf toilet, and same as Toto Drake, which has very good reviews from ToiletsThatWork.com. You cannot really beat the price at FaucetDirect.com, which is $327 (around $200 after rebate, not bad). I have googled many websites and they have the best price.
As you can see from this point, I am totally biased toward Toto brand. The models from Toto I mentioned above all qualify for the Santa Clara Water District rebate program. There are many that qualfiy as well.
The one I looked at that I feel comparable with Toto (style and price wise) was Kohler K-3564
and Kohler K3597.
Toilet Seat
Make sure you order a toilet seat if you are buying a 2-piece from Toto. Something like SS114 would be the basic or SS204 would fit Aquia the best. If you are ordering a 1-piece toilet, e.g. Ultramax/Ultimate or Supreme, it comes with toilet seat.
--
** References
Review site for Toto brand toilets
http://www.toiletsthatwork.com/
Water Closet Performance Testing Report
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/watercon/downloads/NAHB-ToiletReport.pdf
List of toilet review sites
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/house_and_home/toilets/reviews.html
posted by Unknown at
1:35 PM
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