Hoping that plumber or know-a-lot-about-plumbing Dopers can provide some suggestions here.
My bathroom has a Kohler 1.6 gallons/6 liters per flush toilet installed. The problem I have is that it flushes very weakly. Urine is removed just fine but other… waste… well there is no sense in being shy with the details so:
If I poop in the toilet I have to use a very small amount of toilet paper, otherwise it does not get flushed out of the bowl. I’m now using cheap toilet paper like Scotts as the double-plys or “quilted” stuff just doesn’t go away on the first flush. Usually the poop goes, but the TP remains. Most times, it remains stuck to the side of the bowl. If, lord forbid I have a less than delicate movement, and there are fecal matter splattered on the walls of the bowl, the water does not remove it.
It is almost like the water level in the bowl is lower than it should be which causes the TP dropped in the toilet to hit/stick to the side of the bowl and not be in the water itself. More significantly, the strength of the water being pushed through the bowl when flushed is not sufficient to dislodge it and push it down. The low-flow toilet at my girlfriend’s house does not have this problem. I’ve never noticed this problem with any other low-flow toilet I’ve used in previous homes I’ve used.
As an FYI - the internals on the toilet have been replaced less than 2 years ago by a plumber so I don’t think it is a result of old internals.
I am not a plumber but I have some questions they probably will want to know the answer to:
Has it always flushed weakly, or has it only recently started to have the problem ?
Are the bowl and tank a set or were they installed separately ? I know you can get a really weak flush effect if you take an old bowl designed for a 5 gallon flush and just slap a 1.6 tank on there. Does the water come out of the tank really fast and the water level rise pretty high and then fall slowly, or does it seem like it takes awhile for the water to come out of the tank at all ?
Hold the lever down until the tank completely empties when flushing ‘solids’.
Make sure the tank completely fills, the water level should be close to the top of the overflow pipe. Adjust the float on the fill valve to max out the level.
I don’t know how old the total unit is, I purchased this house 4 years ago. It does not seem to be an old toilet but then again I don’t know how you could tell other than general appearance/condition. Likewise, although the bowl/tank designs seem to compliment each other I have no idea if the tank was a replacement at a later time. The bowl has the Kohler label and the 1 gallon/6 liter per flush markings.
This did not just start to happen, it has always been this way.
The water does not come out of the tank fast nor does it fill the bowl quickly nor to a high water level. It is a “weak” flush, even compared to other low-flow toilets I’ve seen (for example the girlfriend’s toilet) The water level sits at less than 1/4 the bowl’s volume (guess-timation). When you flush, it seems like a very little water is dispensed down the bowl. The water comes down in thin trickles and the water level never rises above the standing level.
My 2¢: If you need to replace the toilet, try a “Cadet.” These go on sale at Home Depot for under $100, and work extremely well - the one I installed flushes far better than the high-flow toilet it replaced.
Well, definitely is the toilet itself then - both Moonshiner and Baracus have good suggestions, see if those help. If not a new toilet should fix your problem - you probably have one of the least expensive ones with the smallest outlet size and flush valve they could buy. If you get a new one with bigger flush valves and outlet size you should be fine (as described here: Best Toilets | Low Flow And Water Saving). If you never ever want to have a problem with anything going down you could always get a pressure assist toilet too - those can be loud though (and I don’t really think are that necessary for a residence).
My wife and I purchased two Toto Eco Drake low-flow toilets to replace the ones in our house when we bought it, and they both work extremely well. We have not had a stoppage yet (and nothing close, either).
You can watch videos on YouTube of the toilet in action. Don’t worry, there’s no actual solid waste involved.
Toilet tank fills to about an inch from the top of the overflow pipe. I can play with the unit (there is not a float that I can see) to get an extra inch of water in there but… holding the lever down doesn’t increase the flow-rate of water down from the rim through the bowl. The toilet suctions out the water/waste in the bottom of the bowl almost immediately and only the small trickles I described above come down the bowl.
Looking at your provided website (Thank you!) I think I have the smaller flush valve. I don’t have a tape measure handy at the moment but will confirm this later. I am assuming this cannot be changed without replacing the tank?
For the outlet size, if I replaced the bowl with a larger outlet capability does this mean I may have to change the plumbing below to support that size? As you can imagine, this would result in a larger project/expense than just replacing the bowl and/or tank.
If there is enough fall in the sewage pipes the problem seems to be with the unit itself. If you need to replace the toilet I second the Toto Eco Drake.
Despite commercials to the contrary, in my experience Kholer toilets are not that great. Either way the forums at Terry Love will give you better answers than here:
Can you explain what would be enough fall in the sewage pipes? I replaced the floor in the bathroom a year or so ago and saw the pipes. They run horizontal to the floor under the toilet approximately 2 1/2 feet before connecting to the mainline and dropping down through the house and out.
Ditto what others have said above. I put some very high end Kohler dual flush toilets in a recent house project and I am very disappointed in their performance. The much lower end Rona dual flush in my home far out performs them.
Early model low flush toilets were known to perform poorly compared to newer models.
Look hereUNAR for lists of toilets, their efficiency and performance. Performance is in grams, 350 is the minimum requirement and a most toilets are above 600. The Kohler I was disappointed in rates at 600.
Replacement is quite simple. Water closet fittings are standardized and should fit pretty much any toilet, the rough-in (the distance between the bolts and the wall) is usually 12" but can vary. Just make sure your rough is sufficient for the replacement.
Many older toilets won’t work correctly with lower water consumption mecanisms, (in general) a toilet concieved for 14 litres of flush with the modern 3/6l systems, there is just not enough flush water to evacuate the siphon.
Replacing the whole thing for a good quality, well finished toilet is no big deal, I don’t know about your area, but here in France I am starting to install the latest 1.5/4 litre toilets, with good results for the time being. Don’t opt for discount toilets, good engineering, and high quality enamel (speeding up flush) are both necessary, but all the reputed makers have reasonable prices on mainline products.
Do verify your sewerage venting, primary venting (air input) at identical pipe diameter is an absolute necessity.
This is my experience as well and as a designer I’ve remodeled a lot of bathrooms.
I’ve done it myself. The are many YouTube videos that will walk you through the process. Be sure to use a new wax ring.
Toto toilets, for example, are one of the very few (if not the only) toilet maker who glazes the entire trapway. This makes TP and waste pass through much easier. A quality toilet will last long enough to justify not buying a discount brand.
Unless your plumbing is strange the flange and pipe below are much larger than the outlet capacity of your current toilet and should be fine. You definitely want a new tank and a new bowl - the bowl design you have must be pretty poor if the TP remains almost every time even with the smaller flush valve.
A while back I had to buy a new toilet when I remodelled my bathroom and found that because I moved a wall slightly, I needed a toilet that could be mounted 10 inches from the wall instead of the usual 12. I got a Toto, and my problems are the same as yours, though less pronounced.
The water level in the bowl is not very high. This is because the height of the water is controlled by the height of the trap…I can set me flush mechanism to try to fill the toilet higher, but the water slowly trickles back down to a low level anyhow. It also splashes a lot when flushing because of the low water level in the bowl, and it often requires 2 flushes to clean the bowl of “debris.”