{"id":20527,"date":"2011-03-23T07:27:32","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T13:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=20527"},"modified":"2011-03-23T07:27:32","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T13:27:32","slug":"going-with-the-low-flow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/23\/going-with-the-low-flow.html","title":{"rendered":"Going with the low-flow"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Okay, so it's not quite as glamorous as pictures of our new couch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Coincidental with Houseapalooza, a couple of things happened.\u00a0 Two of the toilets in the house started giving us problems — the downstairs one jamming up a bit frequently, and the master bath one refusing to fully flush.\u00a0 The answer, of course, was to replace them.<\/p>\n

Now it so happens that Denver Water has (well, had, at the time we did this) a very nice rebate program if you bought a low-flow toilet — 1.28 gallons per flush (gpf).\u00a0 So, in fact, that rebate made all the difference at Home Depot between buying a Nicer Brand-Name Toilet at $250-300, or a You’ll Regret Buying That Crap (So To Speak) Toilet for $80.<\/p>\n

We went with the former option, ending up with a pair of Kohler Highlines (yes, they all have very chi-chi brand names in the toilet business — they all sound like Cadillacs, or perhaps suburban housing tract home models).\u00a0 In so doing, I learned a lot about toilets I hadn’t really thought about until now.<\/p>\n

First off, there’s the whole water flow thing.\u00a0 Current\u00a0 “standard” is 1.6 gpf.\u00a0 That’s actually down from older models, but the new low-flow models are 1.28 gpf.\u00a0 (There are also split models with double handles — often a 1.6 gpf for solid waste, 1 gpf for liquid only.)<\/p>\n

Now, everyone jokes about low-flow toilets, and having to flush 2-3 times to do what a single flush used to, but the word seemed to be that there have been a lot of advances made in “doing more than less,” and you get technology terms like “Class 5” and “Class 6” bandied about in the literature a lot.\u00a0 The latter is the latest-greatest, and seems to add another $50-100 to the price, so we ended up with a “Class 5.”<\/p>\n

More importantly (in some respects), there are now different height toilets — the standard height we all grew up with, and what’s called “comfort height” or “chair height” or “ADA-Compliant Height.”\u00a0 Which is an inch or two higher, which, yes, makes for a much more comfortable sit-down as an adult (though, in point of fact, the whole internal process is more straightforward and less strained if you’re squatting further down).<\/p>\n

Yeah, we went for the taller height.<\/p>\n

So the toilets were installed while I was off in another hemisphere.\u00a0 And how do I like them?<\/p>\n

Well, comfort-wise, they’re fine.\u00a0 The Kohler seats are kind of light-weight and will probably need replacement soon, but the higher seat (and enlongated bowl) works just fine.<\/p>\n

Flushing-wise?\u00a0 Well, I’ll quote one guy on Amazon (on another Kohler model): “The flush, somehow, seems — well — not emphatic enough. I realize that’s very subjective, but you want to see action when you hit that flush lever. And instead everything just quietly disappears. That’s a real plus, I know, but it’s difficult to get used to.”<\/p>\n

And that’s pretty much it — there’s a light swirl of water, the bottom level rises, then whoosh it all sucks away.\u00a0 Very quick, and while not quiet it’s less noisy than a the previous toilets.\u00a0 And it gets rid of mostly everything — sometimes\u00a0 some skid marks remain in the bowl, but generally vanish at the next usage.\u00a0 It’s within the parameters I’m comfortable with.<\/p>\n

So, overall, success to date.\u00a0 Or at least no troubles to date.\u00a0 And, after all, isn’t that (with a bit of water efficiency) what we want from our plumbling?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coincidental with Houseapalooza, a couple of things happened.\u00a0 Two of the toilets in the house started giving us problems — the downstairs one jamming up a bit frequently, and the master bath one refusing to fully flush.\u00a0 The answer, of course, was to replace them. Now it so happens that Denver Water has (well, had, … Continue reading “Going with the low-flow”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-improvement"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/kohler_highline.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":27903,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/13\/toilet-problems.html","url_meta":{"origin":20527,"position":0},"title":"Toilet Problems","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 13-May-12 10:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We got nice, shiny, low-flow, high-seat, wonderful toilets with our remodel last year. They work like a dream, are comfortable, and, of course, are water-efficientUntil I noticed, when I got home from my business trip, that the one in the master bathroom was leaking, in terms of the water periodically\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8053,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/06\/07\/and_on_a_somewh.html","url_meta":{"origin":20527,"position":1},"title":"And on a somewhat more serious note …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Jun-05 1:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've barely had time to post my own original \"odd things that have happened to me\" posts over the last week-and-change, let alone keep up with other folks' blogs. But...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51658,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/02\/kitchen-project-day-239-home-home-with-a-range.html","url_meta":{"origin":20527,"position":2},"title":"Kitchen Project – Day 239: Home, Home with a Range!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 2-Jul-15 7:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, they said it would never happen -- but today it did! We now have a range, a refrigerator, and, essentially, all of our appliances installed and (largely) operational!The range is a big six-burner GE Monogram (ZDP366NPSS), with a humongous oven. We are inaugurating it with a pizza and cookies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/IMG_20150702_140919406_HDR.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2552,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/05\/and_just_to_sho-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":20527,"position":3},"title":"And just to show I can say good things about companies, too …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Jun-02 9:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I received a $4 rebate, unsolicited, from Amazon, since they dropped the price of their Harry Potter tapes after I bought mine....","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128137,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/22\/the-universal-new-yorker-cartoon-caption.html","url_meta":{"origin":20527,"position":4},"title":"The Universal "New Yorker" Cartoon Caption","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Sep-15 7:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Which, for a variety of personal reasons, is a hell of a lot funnier now than it would have been six months ago. 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View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}