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What To Look For When Buying A Toilet

There are a lot of reasons why you may be looking for a new toilet, maybe your last one cracked very badly, or you just want to upgrade. No matter what why you are deciding to replace your toilet, you want to make sure you get a really good one. But, buying a toilet is not simply a matter of picking out the one with the colour you like the best. There are a lot of different factors to consider. What size you want, what sort of flushing mechanism, etc. You are probably going to use the same toilet for over a decade, so buying the best model for you is very important. To help you out and make your life easier, we have compiled an easy to follow guide that will help you pick out the perfect toilet, or toilets, for your home.

A note on installation

Before getting into the actual guide, it should be noted that you should not try to install a toilet yourself unless you have a lot of plumbing experience and the correct tools at your disposal. An improperly installed toilet can result in flooding, leaking, and horrible odours filling your house. So, it is advised that you call a licenced plumber to remove your old toilet and install your new one. Also, it should be noted that it is illegal in Western Australia to do any sort of plumbing work without being a licenced plumber (very similar to how it is illegal to do any sort of electrical work without being a licenced electrician).

Measure your toilet

Before getting your current toilet taken out, measure your current toilet. And then, once your toilet is taken out, measure the space where you want your new toilet to go. Toilets come in a lot of different sizes. The standard size of toilets is around 30 centimeters, but they can range anywhere from 25 centimeters to 48 centimeters. So, to make your life easier, get accurate measurements of everything. This way you do not need to guess what size you toilet you need, and you remove the risk that you will buy a toilet that is too big.

Environmentally friendly toilets

Now, it used to be that your main choice when buying a toilet would be between a low flow toilet or not. Now days, most modern toilets are required by law to use a certain amount of water, so buying a low flow toilet does not really matter anymore, since modern toilets do not use anywhere near the amount of water that they used to. Of course, you can still find “efficient” toilets that use less water than regular toilets, but the difference is rather minuscule. If you want to get an environmentally friendly toilet, then you are going to need to buy a specialty toilet. Like a dual flush toilet (Caroma is a big Australian producer of these types of toilets), which allows you to use less water when flushing liquid waste and use more water when flushing solid waste. You can also get a squat toilet or a composting toilet (both are very uncommon in the west, but some people use them), both of which use either very little water or no water at all to get rid of waste.

Toilet types

There are two main types of toilets you can consider getting; you can either go for a gravity fed toilet or a pressure assisted toilet. The main difference lies in how each toilet flushes.

Gravity fed

As you can probably tell from the name, these toilets rely on gravity to help them flush. When you flush these types of toilets, water drops from the tank into the bowl and uses force to push the waste down the toilet. It is simple and unsophisticated, but also less prone to breaking down and every bit as effective as pressure assisted models. Gravity fed toilets tend to be both quieter and cheaper than pressures assisted toilets. That being said, many gravity fed models are not strong enough to handle a lot of waste at once, and so you are probably going to have flush these types of toilets more than once when there is a lot of waste in the bowl.

Pressure assisted

These models use air pressure to help push the waste down the toilet. The water in the tank compresses the air, which is then used to force down waste when the toilet is flushed. Pressure-assisted toilets tend to be very powerful and are able to handle a lot of waste without having to be flushed multiple times. Also, because they use air pressure instead of just simple gravity, pressure assisted models use a bit less water than gravity fed models (as was said earlier, the difference is minuscule, but if you are environmentally conscience, every little bit helps). If you experience problems with sweating tanks, then a pressure assisted model is for you. Because the water is kept in an inner tank, sweating is not really an issue with pressure assisted toilets. That being said, pressure assisted models are more expensive than gravity fed models and they are a lot noisier.

Be willing to spend money

It can be very tempting to save money wherever you can; but when you are buying a toilet, do not get a budget model. You can find really cheap toilets for under $200. But, they break easily and the quality of the toilet will be low. As we already covered in the beginning, you will be using your toilet for well over a decade, so buy the highest quality toilet you can. Yeah it sucks to have to spend more money, but if you do not, then you will be kicking yourself when you have to buy a new toilet in a year or two. But at the same time, do not spend unnecessarily. Some toilets try to offer unnecessary add-ons like custom seats; avoid these, you are just spending extra money for no reason. If you need more help with buying a toilet be sure to get in touch with the experts here at Service Heroes.