What's wrong with American toilets???

Factual Questions
1

Crap! I clogged my offices toilets one more time! Some people may say that I am a big asshole, but I think I’m kind of average on that matter.

So, what’s the deal with those weird American toilets? Coming from Europe, where we have large pipes I never had this problem, even after eating like a pig at aunt Delphine’s wedding.
The difference can be detailed in those following points:

  • The exit pipe is bigger. Bigger means that bigger ‘solids’ can go through, so far less chances of clogging. Simple, isn’t it? [Note] I am talking about the average toilet. In some urban area where the old piping is smaller you may have to require an electric grinder, but that’s not the subject [end note]

  • There is no wide puddle.

    • First thing, you don’t get sprayed when the ‘solids’ hit the water. Good.
    • When you flush, you begin to see the level of water rise (and when I say water, it’s everything with it) and slowly the whole thing begins to twirl and turn, smearing all your white porcelain. Then somehow the level drops, everything goes down, until it’s empty. That’s when you have a slight back-up of water, bringing back usually a little bit of what you don;t want back. In European toilets, what has to go just go, helped by the wide tubing. Period.

  • The so called low-flow issue. As we saw, the toilets can be clogged, requiring several flushes (my experience at work says 3), and are usually smeared, requiring another flush to clean up the mess (so that’s 2). Tell me where is the water economy? In Europe we have the double-flush lever, emptying half of the tank for #1 and the full tank for #2. Simple, isn’t it?
    So my General Questions are:

  • is there a legal limitation in the pipes size?

  • what’s the avantadge of the disgusting puddle?

  • low-flow : do we know if it saved water after all? any studies on that?

Yes. What’s wrong with American toilets? This country is a mine of engineers, leader of the scientific progress, ready to send people on the moon again… But stuck with eecky toilets. :confused:
So what’s the Straight Dope on American toilets?

Some research in the SMDB brought:
\about the low-flow

\about low-flow and National Building Code

\and a funny one

2

Dunno man, in my experience compared to UK and Ireland, American toilets rock. The main thing is the depth of the drop - over here there’s a hell of a long way for solids to fall, leading to terrible splashback, and therefor the necessity to put paper down, which is wasteful (pardon the pun). In the US, no problem with this. The only bad thing I’ve encountered with toilets in the US was padded seats in some people’s houses. I mean c’mon. How big a wuss is your ass if you need a padded toilet seat? It felt like I was shitting into a sofa.

Interestingly, although irrelevantly, because of their former colonial masters, sitter toilets in Hong Kong are based on the UK model, while Philippines toilets are based on the US model. It was nice crapping in Manila.

3

The last time I was in France, I encountered a “toilet” which consisted of a hole in the ground with two painted-on footprints on either side.

This was in a reasonably nice bar in Paris.

In the ladies’.

The worst thing I can think of about American toilets is the construction of the stalls in the public ones (I really don’t like to be watched while I pee by everyone waiting in the queue).

4

Sounds about right. The porcelain bit we normally sit on is a “commode”, and I noticed as well, that France wasn’t terribly big on those.

The first time I’d encountered the “hole in the ground with a bit of porcelain to stand on” design though was in 1994 during a family holiday to Pakistan. Boy was I shocked. You literally have to undress to do anything!

5

I’m not a plumber but I’ve redone a couple of bathrooms over the years.

The plumbing that the toilet drains into is 3" inside diameter. That size has been the engineering standard for 50-ish years. Nothing coming out of your body is that big around. The internal passages in the toilet are smaller, partly to increase water velocity and hence flushing power.

The “puddle” is there to reduce odors. After the feces slips underwater it doesn’t stink nearly as much as if it’s laying there on the porcelain exposed to the air.

Finally, the low-flow design was mandated by US Federal law some time in the late 70s or early 80s IIRC. As is normal Congressional practice, the law went into effect a year or two after it was passed.

And also in typical US fashion, the manufacturers spent the entire two years in court trying to stop it from coming into effect, rather than in designing toilets that’d work well with the new restrictions.

So when the law first came into effect the toilets available didn’t work very well and often needed two or three flushes. Coincidentally that was during a big building boom in the US. There was a HUGE black market in toilets smuggled in from Canada. Yes, I’m serious.

A few years later the engineers got the problem solved and a modern US toilet will absorb damn near anything you can put out with just one flush. But since toilets last for 30 or 40 years, there are still lots of the early low-flow models still in use.

6

Oh yeah! I forgot about those!
** ruadh **, you used ‘toilettes a la turque’ (Turquish toilets), they used to be a very common feature in very old places, or “basic” workers area. You don’t see them that often now. I used one several times in an autoshop. I hated that. And I am a man. Those are a nightmare for woman. The advantage for the owner is that you can just hose them to clean them, so it’s very convenient in public areas, or in areas where people have difficulties to aim (bars…). The one in the auto shop had a wooden part you could put on it, and take a shower. Practical, very unexpensive.
** “hey! Can I take a shower in your toilets?” :smiley: **
For those who don’t know : http://ve2.ele.etsmtl.ca/~va2mek/parisdivers/toilette_turque.jpg

And you’re right about the stalls! Privacy! I want my right of privacy!

jjimm, the puddle is wide, hence backsplashing anyway. I waste a little bit of paper too.

  • This thread is becoming very technical and detailed on the use of toilets. I sense the next question : to you flush while you are on the porcelain bowl or once you stood up? :slight_smile: *

French joke : No, it’s the Belgians who invented the Turquish toilets. the Turks just added the hole

7

Anti-backsplash hint:

Before you sit, carefully float a few squares of toilet paper on the surface of the water in the bowl.

You’ll stay dry.

8

** LSLGuy **, the diameter used (France/Belgium at least) is between 3.5 and 4.3 inches. I’m pretty sure the difference in diameter helps a lot in flushing whatever would be stuck here.
The tubing is usually in a vertical S shape, preventing odors to come back. Very simple. The flushing goes by gravity.
There is a small pudlle anyway (top of the S) where anything solid would sink, hence helping reducing odors. Anyway, according to my wife’s complaints, the American odor-reducing puddle seems NOT to be working :slight_smile:

I still not understand the way this thing works (filling, twirling, emptying, backuping), and I’m not pretty sure about the efficiency…

9

The average trapway (the passage between the bowl and the sewer pipe) is only 1.75 inches, with a maximum in some models of up to 2.125 inches. Anything larger than that, and the suction cannot be maintained and the siphon action, which draws the water & waste out of the bowl, breaks down and the toilet won’t flush.

http://www.briggsplumbing.com/products/whispervac.asp

http://www.pmengineer.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2732,28999,00.html

10

Wow. 1.75 inches? No wonder I keep on jamming the toilets !

Here is an example of a state-of-the-art European toilets by Villeroy & Boch (suspended toilets for easier cleaning). You’ll notice the simple U shaped (S with the next bend down the drain) exit pipe, with no fancy restricting loops. The exit pipe is 102 mm, so 4 inches.

http://www.villeroy-boch.com/fileadmin/miscdb/pdf/pdf_Zeichnungen_Bad/768710.pdf
simple U 4 inches vs. twisted looped 1.75 inches. That answers a lot of my questions…
Thanks ** Fear Itself **.

11

Just have to interject for a moment…I may have to post a more scathing version in the Pit to express how I really feel.

It’s funny that the two or three French people I know in person are all unbearable in their unrelenting bashing of American customs.

“Why do you do X that way?”
“In France, we have/do/use/copulate with Y.”
“It’s better in France because…”

Continuing, literally ad nauseam.

I have a similar working relationship with a couple Brits, and while they have as strong a national pride as anyone, they seem to be able to appreciate the favorable parts of American culture. And they certainly don’t harp on things they find superior about life in the UK. The Aussies I’ve met have been simliar in this regard. And people from less developed countries don’t complain too much about anything here, because it’s usually a whole lot better than what they’re used to. Which is why they’re here.

But the French seem to have nothing better to do than hate everything American. For Christ’s sake…you’re bashing our toilets now!

I’ll take an under-powered, low-flush, too-narrow-for-your-seemingly-gigantic-turds toilet built in the good ol’ U.S. of A. any day over some French shithole in the ground.

[/hijack]

Anyway… I, personally, have rarely had issues with American-designed toilets. I’ve never had an early-style low-flow anywhere i’ve lived. My house now has one very new toilet (1.x gal/flush), and one ancient relic that rarely gets used (approx 10 gal/flush :wink: ) Both do the job just fine.

On trips to Europe, I’ve uses their variants, and was particularly unimpressed. Sure, they exhibit good flushing behavior. But that’s not enough to make up for receiving such healthy backsplash. In a public restroom, backsplash is my problem…but poor flushing is the next person’s problem. Given the choice, I’ll take the American method.

Maybe there’s your answer. American designers choose to take care of the current user of the commode, and fuck the next guy. But then again, that’s just what’s wrong with America, now isn’t it?

12

This site has some good info on the low-flow toilet and also on the pressure-assist and vacuum-assist types.

We’ve installed pressure-assisted toilets and you could flush an entire cow down the damn things.

13

On my trip to the UK last summer I was introduced to those crazy European toilets, and believe me, I’d rather clog my toilet weekly than get sprayed with that nasty water.

14

You know, it’s funny that whenever someone dares mention something negative about the US, then it automatically means it’s America bashing, especially if the negative opinion comes from a European.

I’ve been to the US on numerous occasions, and lived there for 9 months at one time. That hardly qualifies me as an expert, but it certainly gives me the right to make casual observations and ask questions about things I don’t understand. Some of those things might be: “Why do you guys do it like that? We’re doing it this way, and in my opinion, that works better.” without it being bashing of America, its people or things American.
In the same way, there are things in the US, that I find totally superior to how things are done here.
I know you touched on this when you mentioned people from other countries, but I just have to say: Overreact much? Would you have ranted that way, had the OP been from Germany?

As a general observation, the too small distance 'tween the surface of the water in the bowl and the seat makes things that dingle on me dangle on the surface. Very annoying, and as a consequence, I semi-squat when taking a dump in the US.
The stalls in private restrooms are not very private and I find that annoying too.

15

[hijack]
** Audilover**, sorry if hurt your feelings. It’s right French people complain all the time and feel that they are superior in any thing, which is wrong and comes from usually just a change in their little habits and a whole life of media anti-american propaganda.

(Belgian joke: how do a French commits scuicide? By shooting himself above his head, in his superiority complex)

I am one of the few French who really loves America and thing that somehow this country with a better healthcare system would be really the best country in the world. A lot of things are better done here than in France. The Fire department and Police organizations are a model we should get inspired from, for example. The links between the universities (the MIT here in Boston is a vivid example) and the business world accelerate drastically the technical progress of this country. I drive the American car, a Vette. Etc, etc, etc.
On the other side, a lot things appear better in France because we’re paying a huge amount of taxes and they get redistributed, so better roads and signage, healthcare, retirement, etc. But it’s just a facade. Less taxes and we would do shit. Maybe not even good toilets :wink:

So I apologize, it wasn’t meant that way. I really was trying to understand the way the american basic toilet was working. Sounds stupid, but when you clogg twice a week your offices crapper and when you flush twice your own at home, you got to ask yourself some General Questions.

The 1.75 inches vs. 4 inches was a very good answer to a big part of it.

[/hijack]

16

To The Gaspode: I admit, I would not have acted similarly had the OP been from Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, or just about anywhere else. Because, for most other places, I would find such sentiment to be less than universal. (Although, anti-Americanism is becoming stong in Germany…they just don’t do it here). But the French seem to have a fetish for telling Americans to their faces how shitty our country is…and french frog backed that up, validating my point. Straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.
And to french frog, no hurt feelings at all. I was just venting. Your hoesty and candor (not to mention a funnny joke) go a long way in helping smooth over tense Franco-American relations. Which reminds me… As for shooting himself above his head, it sounds like a matter of convenience. Aren’t a Frenchman’s hands usually up in the air, anyway? :smiley:

But seriously, you asked a valid question, and some Yank with a chip on his shoulder came along with a social gripe. It wouldn’t have happened had I not had my French co-worker tell me just the other day how much is wrong with “[my] country.” The fresh memory of my conversation with her made me jump on you. For that, I apologize.

But I still say nothing is wrong with “our” toilets. :wink:

17

I learned more about toilets than I ever knew. I feel enlightened and, yes, informed.

18

Having used toilets in a dozen countries and being a very “toilet conscious” person, I have to say that in general I think European toilets are somewhat better than US. Save for the pressure assist ones, which I have never seen in a European residence (but which may exist there). The US PA toilets do stand out as being superior to anything I’ve seen in a home. My PA toilet has never clogged, although once did require two flushes when I had foolishly stuffed an entire kitchen roll in there (cleaning tile…not what you think).

19

I’ve never gotten worse toilets than in Europe.
Perhaps because I use cheap hotels.
Any tank at the ceiling will give a wimpy trickle and require a second or third flush.
One Italian toilet was inside the shower. I suppose that means either you don’t take many showers or you like to dry off the toilet a lot.

20

OMIGOD - I’ve heard of those, but never seen one. :eek:

I’ve seen the “litterbox” toilets in Spain too. Stepped in one on accident. My range of reactions went something like :confused: :eek: :mad: :o