A good, modern low flow works better than the old high flow toilets. A few years ago I lived in a new house with a Toto low flow. It was the best toilet I've ever used.
Toto used to be one of the few brands which figured out how to make low-flow toilets which didn't easily clog and which didn't require high pressure (which is noisy). They just have a large diameter flapper.
American Standard now has this technology (but they use two standard sized flappers instead of one large one)- they call it "VorMax". I have one of each- the American Standard has a rimless bowel and is easier to clean.
In my experience, the US toilets from ~2000 to ~2005 were crap (heh), but since then they've figured out how to make a low flow toilet that works, and it's fine.
Most toilets in Western Europe, at least new ones, have two buttons for low and high flow. Low flow is not an unalloyed good, though, it leads to sewer lines getting clogged, which can be a pretty expensive thing to fix depending on where the sewer access is.
Just need to upgrade the hardware to something more modern. Any mid-grade or better low-flow toilet made in the past 10 years or so can flush a lot of TP without any difficulty. Some of the early low-flow toilets weren't particularly good at it, and the high-flow toilets from the 70s were amusingly bad given the sheer quantity of water they use.
Also, encourage people to use bidets. Those are the best.
One of the best things you can do in a house is replace "early post-ban" toilets with modern ones, the very first low-flow toilets were absolutely ... shit.
Exact opposite experience for me. The traditional toilets in my childhood home (mid-90s) were (still are) slow, took several flushes for solids, and clogged constantly. The modern low-flow toilet in my current home flushes quickly, never needs more than one flush and never clogs.
Anecdata is anecdata. It's most likely that some toilets are just bad and some are good, regardless of flow amount.
As for the issues flushing large, ahem, amounts of waste with the low-water toilets, it's mostly just cliche now. When the restrictions were first added, the toilet manufacturers weren't ready. Probably a lot of the complaints were from experiences with these early models.
Now, low-flow toilets have an amazing amount of research and design put into how to meet the guidelines while still performing as well as, and often better than, old 4+ gallon flushes.
A few (ill-informed) complainers aside, this actually seems like a win all around. Toilets don't cost more than they used to, they use less water, and perform better than ever.
Even TOTO's bare-bones low-volume-flush toilets are remarkably effective and well-designed. I replaced some very expensive Kohlers with TOTOs and was impressed.
For what its worth, look into actual modern toilets. The first batch of low water use ones were somewhat lacking. Modern ones are typically better than the old high water use of a decade ago.
Is kind of like LED lights. First batches were garbage. Nowadays, they are better in basically every way compared to what they replaced.
A modern low flush toilet is excellent. They flush considerably better than the old 5 gpf toilets. I’ve seen plumbers advise replacing old 5 gpf toilets with 1.28 gpf toilets to reduce the frequency of clogs.
For amusement, you can look up MAPS testing. People flush varying amounts of standardized pretend poop to make sure that toilets work well.
(But yes, there was a generation of low flush toilets that were essentially 5 gpf toilets modified to use less water per flush. They worked poorly.)
Also, a covered pool uses surprisingly little water.
Dual-flush toilets have been used in Europe for many years. When we moved there in 1998, we had an apartment that was kitted out with one that looked to be more than a decade old at the time, and it worked fine.
I can confirm that modern Toto toilets are also a wonder of engineering. My wife and I are planning on replacing all the old toilets in the house, now that we have a Toto downstairs. Not only does it use much less water, it can also handle way more ... material ... than anything else I have ever seen. Worth the money at ten times the price.
And yes, you can get Toto toilets that also do the dual-flush.
Early low-flow toilets were really poor. Modern ones clog less than ever. I have a 1.2 gallon-per-flush toilet now (Champion 4) and it's never once clogged even under trying conditions.
It's just a design problem to work around.
(Yes, the Prius interior isn't well finished for its price, but they managed to make it roomy inside and small outside even under aerodynamic constraints.)
With improved (and patented) design, they can flush much better. And they have better coatings on the ceramic, so that your "output" washes off much easier, and doesn't stick to the walls so easily.
The modern tests for toilets are much tougher than the old tests, and the best modern toilets will pass with flying colors on those tougher modern tests. Older toilets, and lesser quality toilets, can't hold a candle to the kind of performance you are able to get with the better and more modern toilets.
Toto is just one example. They're not the only one with top performing toilets. You can look on Consumer Reports to see the tests they run, and which toilets do well on those tests.
You can't cheat physics. If you dump X gal of water from Y height it will have Z kinetic energy minus efficiency losses. We've greatly improved the efficiency of the water dumping mechanism over the years but a high end low flow toilet of today is still nothing compared to a high end toilet of decades past. That said, there's a lot of crappy old toilets out there that don't flush any better than a modern low flow toilet and take 5+gal to do it.
Source: Moved into a house that was once owned by wealthy people. The upstairs toilet was clearly top of the line circa 1940s and is awesome. The downstairs toilet was clearly subject to some serious compromises for packaging reasons and is nothing special.
Sounds like you need a better designed toilet. Good low flow toilets do exist.
We replaced the old 3.5 gallons per flush toilet in our house with a new Kohler 1.28gpf unit and it flushes and clears the bowl just fine - no worse than the previous toilet with about 1/3rd the water use.
I can confirm this. My house had cheap low-flush toilets that were absolutely horrible. They clogged daily and were difficult to plunge and I began storing a bucket near every toilet so I could efficiently carry out the routine plunging sessions.
I was hesitant to buy new toilets because I figured they’re all low-flush, so what difference would it make? I found a top-reviewed model on Home Depot and it made a huge difference. Went from everyday clogs to a clog maybe once every few months. I replaced all my toilets and it’s the best home upgrade I ever did.
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