I think it's important to point out that the old "low flow" toilets, commonly known as "double flush" toilets because they were so ineffective that you usually had to flush them twice, are a completely different animal from the modern WaterSense labeled toilets. These WaterSense toilets are actually more effective than traditional toilets but use much less water; they're even more effective than the thunderbuckets you see in the UK where the tank is located way up near the ceiling.

These new toilets use very little water but use it at high pressure and have specially designed bowls to eliminate clogging. Ignore people who warn you away from low-flow toilets, but be sure you look for the WaterSense label, otherwise you could be getting one of the "double flushers" that everyone loves to hate.

I agree -- I bought the Drake almost 3 years ago and have never had to use a plunger. The soft-close is what sold me on it...

The oval seat feels a bit odd at first but you get used to it.

Yup. We got our Drake some years ago, so they're probably even better now. The one that it replaced one of the transitional low-flush models that used almost twice as much water because it had to be flushed at least twice per deposit. The Toto was, as much as a toilet can be, a revelation. Although salespeople at the plumbing store that carries Totos say the older brands have about caught up now. They probably won't get us back, though.

It's also a very quiet and quick flush cycle.

Sorry to butt in, so to speak, but I've been waiting to make a metacomment about CT: Does anybody have any idea what this notice is supposed to mean?

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As a guide to doing something right, this has to be among the least cool tools around, unless it's a parody of Catch-22. Had to finally get that out of my system (how's that for a segue back on topic?)

I bought a standard 1.6 gpf toilet for about $100 several years ago and it works fine. Compared with the Eco Drake I use .32 (1.6 - 1.28) gallons of water more per flush. My water utility company charges me $3.00 for 1000 gallons or $0.003 per gallon, which comes out to $0.00096 more per use than the Eco Drake toilet. So that extra $138 ($238 - $100) paid for the Toto unit will be recovered in about 144,000 flushes! I don't know about Michael's frequency of BMs, but if this toilet gets flushed 6 times a day (for maybe 2 people), that comes out to about 66 years to pay for itself (and I haven't even accounted for having the extra $138 now instead of over 66 years). I think I'll stick with my present setup.

My toilet has been in place since 1947. I am unsure of its water usage, but It works too well to replace. If I had to replace it, my first thought would be to find another one that was manufactured in 1947.

My young daughter has figured out how to clog a Toto toilet: tennis-ball size balls of TP.

Other than that, the only repairs I have had to do in 8+ years is replace the diaphragm assembly in the Corky QuietFill valve every 3 years or so (we have hard water in Orange County, CA).. No tools needed, takes less than 5 minutes once you have the part.

@Hank: If you don't mind using a lot of water, and it works, there's no reason to change. But building codes in most places in the US now require using less water to flush. Not every toilet design does that well.

My grandma just got one of these (although I believe it was the standard Drake, not the Eco), and let me tell you, that thing can handle large, uh, loads. I'm completely sold on Toto toilets after seeing that in action. Nearly everything I found online before she bought it said that Totos were among the best, if not *the* best, and I'm happy to say that they seemed to be right.

cl

"It isn't as comfortable for extended—reading sessions."

A toilet should not be comfortable for extended use. If you have time to read, you're not getting enough fluids and/or fiber.

"It isn't as comfortable for extended—reading sessions."

A toilet should not be comfortable for extended use. If you have time to read, you're not getting enough fluids and/or fiber.

Before renting my townhome out, I added a bathroom, and so got to shop for a toilet. Its my understanding toilet "flush quality" is measured objectively by, basically, filling a toilet with golf balls and seeing how many of them it can reliably flush. I wanted a low-flow toilet, but wasn't willing to sacrifice flush quality in the process. Imagine my surprise when I found that the cheapest ($99) toilet at my local Home Depot was one of the lowest-flow, AND was rated with a 5/5 flush quality. What's my motivation to spend two or three times as much again?

Sorry, but I don't recall the brand or model.

As another who had frequent experience with a plunger, I got the previously cool (and more expensive) Toto UltraMax several years ago. It does work much better than most toilets, though it has clogged a small number of times. It's good to know that the state of the art continues to improve.

More praise for the Drake. We had considerable problems with clogging, both with pre-water-restriction toilets from the good old days and with the lousy first-generation low-flows. We now have Drakes in all our bathrooms and have NO problems.

@Jim - No one addressed what you said, but my first thoughts were exactly what you wrote. And you did the math. A Home Depot 1.6 gal. is a hundred bucks instead of $238. Portland, always ahead of the curve, offered a rebate -- only then would it make *economic* sense.

We are going to be short of water, even here in the Northwest. .32 adds up over a lifetime. And the use of water has a somewhat hidden energy cost, so reducing is always the way to go. Of course there's the flush noise level to consider as well -- I'm thinking this model is quieter than the low-end Home Depot models? If it's one of those airplane vacuum sucking sounds, fugetaboutit.

@Davey - Want to second your metacomment re: the confused comment notice box.

I've had a Toto for 4 years now and can attest to it's efficacy. I'm not sure what model ours was but I know it was cost effective vs. Kohler and other better brands.

We've had low flow toilets in CA for over a decade and there is a great deal of improvement in the newer models from all manufacturers.

What I like best about the Toto are: does not retain soil like others, the seat soft close feature (already described) and the styling vs. price equation.

To make it way more luxurious and negate most of the green aspects, add a Washlet Seat by Toto or ( for much less money Takagi, we did, it's great!)

Another point about costs: even if you don't pay directly for your water and sewer services (i.e., they're unmetered), it's worth noting that the treatment and distribution of water and wastewater is one of the largest single expenses for local governments. According to EPA, American public water supply and treatment facilities consume about 56 billion kWh per year—enough electricity to power more than 5 million homes for a year.

Therefore, if enough people buy low-flow toilets and other water-saving devices (low-flow showerheads, faucet aerators, front-loading washing machines, etc.), the costs to local governments could decline and households' municipal tax bills could be reduced or at least not rise as rapidly as they would otherwise.

If your water and sewer use are metered, installing water-saving devices typically saves about $170/year. Once those savings pay off the initial difference in price for this equipment compared with conventional water-guzzling stuff, the rest is all clear profit.

We got this toilet last summer. I have been pretty happy with it ... it is very quick and very quiet, and it has not clogged or needed double flushing. I am a little irritated by the seat - it is designed so that it is easy to remove for cleaning but tends to be loose. Also the underside of the seat seems to get dirtier than the old one did. I agree that it may not pay for itself at current costs, but prices are likely to go up over time. And saving water is a good in itself, I like to do it especially if it can be done at a cost of money rather than comfort or cleanliness.

This is one of the benefits of living close to the US-Canadian border. When US bureaucrats in their zeal to "improve" our lives go bonkers and ban something we cross over, buy the embargoed product, and come home.

Which is not to say this product is not good. It just shouldn't be forced on anyone.

@Dave: your logic makes sense as long as you don't turn around and complain that your local taxes are too high. Those "US bureaucrats" are trying to rein in government spending on water and sewer services by preventing the purchase of water-guzzling equpment. A Watersense-labeled toilet can save 11,000 gallons per year compared with a conventional one.

I suppose it has become the American thing to do to look after one's own short-term self interest at the expense of the longer-term public interest, but if everyone behaved the way you do you'd eventually end up paying even more taxes than we do up here in socialist Canada. But I guess that's logical too: you have to pay for freedom of choice one way or another. ;-)

We did a gut renovation for Syracuse University a few years back - the head of facilities directed us to specify Toto toilets. For me, from this guy, that was a very compelling endorsement.

I used 2 of these from Home Depot at my house, they were $88 :

http://bit.ly/9K1c1j

They used to be marketed under the brand name "Pegasus". The flapperless technology is by Niagara. Be sure to get that one. Flapperless means that there is no flapper valve. The water is dropped from a suspended tank, which gives it more flushing power. There are no submerged rubber seals that get nasty after a year.

Other than having to adjust the tube supporting the water tank to make it level, they have been great. Occasionally, a second flush is required.

The seats need extra rubber bumpers to prevent them from sliding around.

Home Depot sells another Glacier Bay model which apparently is to be avoided. I saw a number of them that had been returned when I bought mine.

--tom

We installed pressure-enhanced low-flow toilets when we build our house 19 years ago. They are Kohler but are no longer made, I believe. They are noisy, but can handle anything with just one flush, and in those days they were the only ones that could make that claim and had the performance to back it up.

To the person who noticed that the underside of the seat seems to get dirtier -- I think the pressure-enhanced toilets have more "splash-up" for lack of a better word, and that the droplets deposited on the underside of the seat and lid will make those surfaces funkier, faster, than a more gently flushing toilet. So we need to wipe them down with a vinegar-water spray ever so often. However, having read studies of contamination of toothbrushes by vaporised toilet water, we ALWAYs close the seat when we flush.I'd rather contaminate the underside of the lid and seat than the bathroom countertops. (This also keeps the dog and water-loving kittens out of the toilet water, but that is another subject.) This phenomenon is known as the "aerosol effect" -- google "toothbrush contamination toilet" for fun details.

For anyone interested in getting deeper into the topic of flush performance, the best resource I’ve found is “Maximum Performance (MaP) Testing of Popular Toilet Models” by Veritec Consulting Inc. and Koeller and Co. Updated every four to six months, the report list the performance of more than 1,200 toilets, using the best testing protocol I’ve seen: instead of golf balls or sponges, they use a more accurate (and giggle-inducing) soybean paste to better simulate reality. The report is worth a glance just to admire its rigor and completeness. The full, 93-page PDF can be found here: http://www.cuwcc.org/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=12778.

As for my personal experience specifying toilets for multi-family housing projects, Toto toilets generally perform very well. It may be worth noting that the MaP report rates the performance of the elongated-bowl, ADA-compliant version of the EcoDrake considerably higher than that of the round-bowl version that’s apparently the subject of this review.

Love my two Drakes. Not overly styled and as someone said above, I've never had to use a plunger.

Love the toilet hints as I am soon to be in the market for one and baffled by the options.

Also, I think you meant you wanted to be "discreet" rather than "discrete."

We thought about buying anew toilet but it was cheaper to buy a dual flush toilet kit instead http://www.aquabarrel.com/product_one2flush.php

Here in Chapel Hill, NC, water rates quickly escalate per 1000 gallons from $2.36 to $5.73 to $7.03 to $9.82. So, you're very quickly paying much more than $3 per thousand gallons. Plus, rates are increasing about 10% per year. Buying a more efficient toilet makes sense considering where rates are headed.