Have a Running Toilet? Here’s What You Can Do!

[@Sparky-ww5re]

While on the subject of toilets and wasted water, something else sometimes overlooked, specifically for toilets in the US manufactured before Jan 1, 1994 was the amount of water needed for a complete flush. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 passed by congress and signed into law by George HW Bush, set standards for water consumption and energy efficiency, going into effect in 1994 and limited toilets to 1.6 gpf, older toilets averaged 3.5 gpf with very old models using up to 7gpf. I've heard of old timers placing a brick or two in the tank to reduce the amount of water held thereby saving a gallon or so of water per flush, but over time the bricks slowly disintegrate clogging passages and causing some major headaches down the road. And the first generation 1.6 gpf toilets from what I sort of remember, had poor performance sometimes requiring a second flush and clogged easily since they were basically a bowl designed for 3.5 gpf with a smaller tank, while other models could have larger tanks for increased pressure so long as the flush valve mechanism allowed no more than 1.6 gallons to pass.

[@TopHomeowner]

Thats really interesting. I remember people complaining about the more efficient toilets not performing as well early on, but that makes sense if they weren't really designed for that lower flow. 1.6gpf is still a lot when you think about it, but 3.5 and 7gpf is an insane amount.

[@Sparky-ww5re]

@@TopHomeowner I'm just going by my experience with the toilets in the apartment my parents moved into during my first year in middle school, that would have been late July or first week of August 2001 and the research I've done over the years, and the apartments were about 5 years old at the time, built right around the time of the 1.6 gpf mandate and , well let's just say I've plugged them on more than one occasion while doing my business, and lived there 4 years too long, an awful experience compared to the toilets in the duplex we lived at previously that were built in the early 40s with the original toilet that was very powerful and never plugged to my knowledge, but if it did it would've been a flood, because it had a tank larger than anything I recalled before or seen since, mounted on the wall, with a chrome pipe connecting the bowl that was separate. That thing was an easy 7gpf at least, if I had to guess.