Seems as though most commecial toilet seats, like you find in public places, are horseshoe shape. Thery are open at the front. Those in homes are not open on te front. Anyone know why?
From The Master:
I just wish more of them were like the toilet seat in the men’s room of the old Village theater in Chicago. It was designed by someone who knew men are pigs - it was spring loaded to flip up if nobody was sitting on it. You’d have to work hard to be able to piss on this seat. It was a little tricky to keep down while wiping, but it was worth the extra hassle to be sure of having a dry seat.
Cecil answers the question of why there are U-shaped seats, but not why seats at home are closed in the front. Presumably the same logic would apply in both locations…
Many of the public restrooms I see (OHare Airport, as an example) are switching to closed seats again because it allows for an automated toilet seat cover dispenser. I doubt this has hit the average gas station yet.
I am annoyed by small circular toilet seats and much prefer the oblong ones, open or closed. A little more room for the twig and berries to hang free instead of rubbing up against either the seat or the bowl.
I suspect the actual answer is inertia.
Absolutely. My brother, the Master Plumber, has installed elongated bowl, “handicap height” toilets in every bath in his, my and all out relative’s homes. The “standard” height ones are cheaper to make and ship.
And when will they invent a toilet that will actually flush with the restrictions on how much water a toilet can flush? I’d estimate that over 50% of the time my toilet gets clogged when going #2. I hate it.
Where can I buy a black market toilet that will do more than the standard 1.6 GPF?
In the past we slipped over the border and got them in Canada.
I visited the factory in Kohler, WI a number of years back when we were picking out fixtures. One which caught my eye was a powered flush toilet. Here is a link to Kohler’s latest offering in this niche market (presumably, the big producers):
The Class FiveTM Flushing System
“The Class Five technology,** engineered for extraordinary bulk flushing performance**, is available on Cimarron Comfort Height toilets. With names inspired by the raw power of whitewater rapids, this powerhouse features an industry-leading 3 1/4-inch flush valve, combined with an efficient, direct-fed jet, to maximize water flow and allow for an eco-friendly, 1.4-gallon flush setting option.” (emphasis mine)
The ones down the page are even more powerful, but with write-ups less worthy of posting here.
It sounds to me like you gotta get in touch with Master Plumber above and get one of these babies installed stat. Report back, please.
Incidentally, while I was there (this was a decade or so ago), I gave them a free name for the high-powered one: The Crapshooter. I am disappointed to see they did not avail themselves of this most excellent marketing name.
Toilet seats are made to fit toilets. Toilet bowls come in two basic configurations – round(ish) and elongated. Therefore, two kinds of toilet seats. If you like the longer seats, you need the longer bowls.
Trust me, a well designed 1.6 gpf toilet can flush anything you can produce. I have a Gerber PowerFlush here, and I can literally flush a baked potato. The “#1” setting uses only 1.1 gallons per flush, while the “#2” is 1.6. The only low-flow toilets that flush worse are poorly designed ones that don’t use pressure systems. It sounds like the toilet you have is a Yugo, and the one I have is a Porsche. They are both cars, might get the same gas mileage, but definitely don’t perform the same.
This system uses the pressure of the incoming water to compress air, that it stores in a tank. 1.6 or 1.1 gallons of water is then fired down the waterway. It’s literally the difference between dropping a glass of water with gravity and putting the same amount of water in a SuperSoaker.
Buying a decent toilet is going to be a lot easier than getting a 5 gallon gravity toilet. You can save water and have an effective toilet at the same time.
The clogging has little to do with the amount of water the tank holds. It has more to do with how the trap is designed and how forcefully the siphoning action pulls the waste through the trap. I recently replaced two 5 gallon toilets with Toto Drake 1.6 gallon toilets. The 5 gallon toilets sometimes had trouble flushing toilet paper (just a small amount of paper, no waste) in one try. The Toto has not required a second flush yet. The 1.6 gallons is used very efficiently, while the 5 gallon toilets simply let the water fall into the bowl in the hope that something would happen.
The problem with 1.6 gallon toilets isn’t that 1.6 gallons isn’t enough water. The problem is that you can’t design a 1.6 gallon toilet the same way you designed a 5 gallon toilet, but that’s what most manufacturers did when faced with the water restriction. The ones who put some thought into the engineering of their 1.6 gallon toilets, like Toto and Kohler, make toilets that use less water and flush better than just about any 5-gallon toilet.
On the subject of pigs pissing on seats I need a woman’s perspective on this…
I go into a public bathroom, lift the seat, do my business and leave the seat up. Why? If I put it down the figgity woman next in line knows for sure I didn’t pee on the seat. If I put the seat down, she doesn’t know for sure. Because she doesn’t know for sure her defailt position is that I am indeed a pig. Candidly, I don’t get much support for this position from women, but it makes perfectly good sense to me.
On a related subject whyizzit men are expected to put the seat down? Why aren’t women expected to put it up?
I saw on TV about the most “extreme” bathrooms that they have a place that is super “green” and its toilets have variable flushes! They have a little rhyme that goes something like “a half flush for me when I do a little pee; a full flush for you when you number two” or something like that posted by the toilets!
You expect women, the dainty flowers that we are, to have to touch the toilet seat!?
It comes with equality 
I’m hoping I’m being whooshed, but have you ever looked at the design of the toilet seat? It is clearly not an object that is meant to be left in the upright and locked position. When the seat and cover are up, you are clearly looking at the bottom of them. Both are meant to be put DOWN.
Why do women always leave the toilet seat down, thereby forcing men to have to handle the seat? Very inconsiderate.
I can’t speak for this in regards to a public toilet, but at home my wife and I have an agreement that we both have to ‘do something’ at the end of our bathroom session. That is, the lid and the seat have to be put down when we’re done with our business.
My SO and I just put in a bathroom attached to our bedroom in our house. When we were picking out toilets, we came along the U-shaped toilet seat and after some talking, we bought it for our house. It just makes the most sense and it would be a $20 change if we were to ever sell the house.
You are not forced to handle the seat. Just piss on it. That’ll learn’em.