Find a New Toilet (or throne) - Wisler Plumbing & Air

We don’t think about them very often, but toilets are one of the most used (and useful) items in our house. Makes you thing, eh?

One of the best ways to figure out what features you need in a new toilet is by looking at the problems you’ve had with your current toilet. Does it become clogged or stopped up easily? That can be a very embarrassing, unpleasant experience. The best kind of toilet to prevent stoppage has a powerful flush. Researching the toilet’s flushing power will prevent you from having to keep a plunger handy all the time.

The technology in the design of current toilets have a much more powerful flush than toilets from a decade ago. Toilet flush performance is measured by an independent third party who determines how many grams of bean paste can be flushed at once. A top tier toilet can flush 1,000 grams (2.2 pounds) of bean paste!

At a bare (get it, bare!) minimum, we would recommend a toilet that can flush 600 to 800 grams. There are toilets that can only flush 250 grams – be prepared to keep a plunger handy, because they will give you trouble very often. It may be tempting to pick one of these underpowered toilets because they are so inexpensive, but what good is a toilet if it doesn’t even fulfill its main function?

In addition to flushing power, there are some other aspects of functionality that make the toilet more comfortable and easy to use. First is something called comfort height. If you’ve never used a comfort height toilet, the closest thing to it would be the accessible toilet stall in a public restroom. The accessible toilets are higher up, which will often be much more comfortable than shorter toilets.

Another useful feature is soft close toilet seats. There are many times when young children will slam the toilet seat, causing people all the way across the house to jump. Sometimes people will even slam the seat by accident when not paying attention. Slammed toilet seats can damage to the toilet and let’s not forget hurt your ears. As the name implies, soft close toilet seats contain a hinge that applies gentle resistance, resulting in greatly reduced force on the lid.

A feature most people don’t know they need until they actually give it a try is an easy clean toilet seat.  Toilets tend to get grungy and nasty around the crevices and back of the toilet seat. We have deluxe toilets available that are equipped with an easy clean feature. With the twist of two knobs, the whole toilet seat comes off. All areas of the toilet are immediately accessible and cleaned with minimal effort. Within 30 seconds, the toilet seat can be securely fastened back on (without having to use any tools).

One of the least obvious things to consider about a toilet is the distance from the wall to the pipe. Especially in older homes, this distance may be a bit long. If the toilet would be replaced without taking the distance into consideration, there would be a large and unsightly gap between the wall and the back of the tank. In some newer homes, the distance is extremely short. Instead of an ugly gap, the toilet may not even fit because there isn’t enough room.

Finally, there are different shapes of toilet bowls to choose from: round or elongated. Elongated bowls are much more comfortable to use in most cases. There is simply more room to use the function of the toilet. Elongated bowls tend to be about 2 1/2″ longer than a round bowl. In bathrooms with very little space, round bowls may be an option. However, less than two years ago new compact elongated toilets have become available. These toilets fit in the same space as a round toilet bowl, but still provide all the comfort of an elongated bowl.

Go. Now that you know what you need to look for, find your new thrown… I mean toilet.