Comments | syzygy_lj: A Tale of Two Toilets

syzygy_lj

A Tale of Two Toilets

Feb 09, 2010 22:59

Hey, Internets. What up? Sorry for not updating in, like, forever, but I've been busy. Two jobs, husband, visitors, and oh, yeah, have I mentioned that we're renovating our bathroom? It's almost finished, but not quite, because we're still waiting for Home Despot to deliver our sink and vanity. But in the meantime we have a fully-functional, if not ( Read more... )

reno, bathroom, condo

Comments 10

profrobert February 10 2010, 15:53:57 UTC

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a "dual flush" toilet? It's not one of those Japanese toilet/bidet combos, is it?

Clare's brother-in-law the contractor is coming over from the UK for a month starting mid-March and will redo two of our bathrooms. (When he's between gigs, he likes to come over and fix my house.) I can hardly wait.

syzygy_lj February 10 2010, 16:46:26 UTC

No, it's not one of those weird Japanese toilets. It's an environmentally-friendly one. The toilet has two flush capacities: a light 4.5L flush for, uh, #1, and a heavier 6L one for #2. To put it delicately. It uses less water, even with the heavy flush.

I wish we had a contractor in the family who liked to come over and fix our house. We have John's dad, who is a bit of a handyman, but he wasn't up to doing a bathroom.

profrobert February 10 2010, 17:32:45 UTC

I am enormously fortunate in terms of in-laws.

Are there two levers/buttons on the toilet, or does it have two positions? I'm fascinated by this, as you can tell. You Canadians are so mod!

The low-flush toilets here suck, or more accurately, don't suck enough. The one that is going to get moved constantly clogs up -- I've been needing to snake it for ages.

syzygy_lj February 10 2010, 18:57:41 UTC

You can see the flusher in the photo with the two toilets in it. That model has buttons (one inside the other, if I recall properly). But the replacement model has a lever that goes two ways-- clockwise for light flush, counter-clockwise for heavy. I don't know how Canadian the replacement toilet is (it may be from a US company), but the original was made in Quebec, which was another reason why we liked it. Support home-grown industry and all that.

So far, the new one hasn't given us any trouble. It works well, was easy enough to install, and it takes no time at all to refill.

columbina February 10 2010, 16:56:32 UTC

This is one of the reasons I really don't like one-piece toilets. If they'd been two-piece ones, you could have used the non-leaking tank from one and the non-broken bowl from the other!

What did you end up doing with the two toilets in your living room?

syzygy_lj February 10 2010, 17:04:10 UTC

Actually, the leak was in the base of the toilet, in just about the same place as the giant hole in the first one. But yeah, I've learned my lesson. No more one-piece toilets.

As for disposal, Home Depot didn't want them back, and the city doesn't recycle stuff like this. Both toilets were completely useless, so we couldn't donate them. So we called a junk-removal company. They haul away stuff like sofas and old fridges, and they salvage what they can. I hope they were able to use something.

profrobert February 10 2010, 17:33:53 UTC

You should have saved them as patio furniture!

syzygy_lj February 10 2010, 18:50:17 UTC

John suggested that, but I vetoed it.

kefira February 11 2010, 05:39:01 UTC

So much drama for a toilet. It usually takes someone up high speaking up to get the store folks to actually act like they work in customer service.

Glad it worked out - maybe no as well as you would have liked but sounds like it could have been worse.

I loved the vanity you guys chose so I cannot wait to see the before and after pics.

syzygy_lj February 11 2010, 14:29:09 UTC

Glad it worked out - maybe no as well as you would have liked but sounds like it could have been worse.

Oh, absolutely. All told, the major renovations took about a week. The plumber came in on a Tuesday, and demolished the tile and installed the new tub and plumbing. The tile guy was in Thursday and Friday. They did a great job, and I am very pleased.

I loved the vanity you guys chose so I cannot wait to see the before and after pics.

I can't wait to see the vanity! It's tied up in Back Order Hell, and we have no idea when it will get here. John called the Home Depot yesterday, and they're going to call the manufacturer and get back to us today. Meanwhile, we still have the white melamine vanity, so at least the bathroom works. But it's very white in there right now.