Eco Ultramax opinions?
- Thread starter monkeyman
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
The TOTO Eco Ultramax, made in Atlanta Georgia has been working very well. I would go for the rebate.
Sponsor
Paid Advertisement
Sevenfeet
New Member
I'm also looking at the Ultramax II. Some months ago after way too much research, I replaced a builder's toilet in my kid's bathroom with an Eco Drake. The new Drake is now the best toilet in the house although not perfect. I had bought it since my 8 year old autistic son had previously broken the last toilet by flushing toys down it (this is hilarious to him!). A couple of weeks after the Drake went it, he decided to "test it" as it were...and managed to clog it up with toys. Fortunately the plumber was able to get the Drake off the floor, clear it and reinstall. Since then, my son has elected not to repeat that bit of "fun".
Otherwise, the toilet has been outstanding. So my wife now wants to replace the guest room toilet on the ground floor. It's also a Briggs toilet that basically sucks at everything its supposed to do. Since it's the only toilet on the main level, it gets lots of use. I was thinking of a skirted design but the water valve is a few inches too far inward for me to risk ordering a toilet only to have it not work. Hence we're back to looking at the Ultramax. Right now I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between Cotton White and Colonial White (the Drake we got earlier is Cotton).
Last toilet to replace is the Kohler in the master bath but that bathroom will be renovated eventually and we may hold off replacing the toilet until then. Or my wife might just get mad at it and force the issue.
Otherwise, the toilet has been outstanding. So my wife now wants to replace the guest room toilet on the ground floor. It's also a Briggs toilet that basically sucks at everything its supposed to do. Since it's the only toilet on the main level, it gets lots of use. I was thinking of a skirted design but the water valve is a few inches too far inward for me to risk ordering a toilet only to have it not work. Hence we're back to looking at the Ultramax. Right now I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between Cotton White and Colonial White (the Drake we got earlier is Cotton).
Last toilet to replace is the Kohler in the master bath but that bathroom will be renovated eventually and we may hold off replacing the toilet until then. Or my wife might just get mad at it and force the issue.
Sevenfeet
New Member
An update: I ordered the Ultramax II CEFG a week ago from National Builder Supply in Atlanta and had it shipped to my home in Nashville. I thought the short trip would be ok for shipping this kind of product. Once we got the box, it was clear it was shipped to survive a war. There was spray foam between the inner Toto box and the outer shipping box as well as other packing foams and bubble wrap. Despite all of it, the toilet still arrived with a damaged base. Since you have two days to report damage, we were able to call them back, arrange a pick up with FedEx and the new unit should arrive sometime this week.
One lesson learned if you buy from them: because of the spray foam, the outer and inner boxes end up glueing together in the process so it's near impossible to just lift the inner box out of the outer box. I ended up cutting the edge of the box at the corner from the top to the bottom, and then repeating it on the other side. That way I could fold the side of the box down to inspect the contents (You repeat the process with the inner box). Once we found the damage, we just folded the box sides back up and used packing tape to restore the sides.
Hopefully the second delivery will end up being better.
One lesson learned if you buy from them: because of the spray foam, the outer and inner boxes end up glueing together in the process so it's near impossible to just lift the inner box out of the outer box. I ended up cutting the edge of the box at the corner from the top to the bottom, and then repeating it on the other side. That way I could fold the side of the box down to inspect the contents (You repeat the process with the inner box). Once we found the damage, we just folded the box sides back up and used packing tape to restore the sides.
Hopefully the second delivery will end up being better.
And that's why I suggest people buy locally. I can't tell you how many times local people here have tried to get me to replace their broken toilets that they bought that way from other vendors. I am not the "replacement" vendor for those firms. If they can't bounce a toilet across the country without breaking it, that's their problem.
The product I get, packed tightly from the factory is never broken. I would guess that 20% of the shipped singly product arrives with damage.
The MS604114CEFG Ultramax II is a good product. I sell a lot of them.
In Nashville you can check with Southern Supply
The product I get, packed tightly from the factory is never broken. I would guess that 20% of the shipped singly product arrives with damage.
The MS604114CEFG Ultramax II is a good product. I sell a lot of them.
In Nashville you can check with Southern Supply
Last edited:
Sevenfeet
New Member
I'm not disagreeing with you on the "buy local" thing. The main reason why we went this route is that I wanted the Ultramax II and I'm not completely price elastic as I'd like. Ironically we've now had two circumstances in this purchase with broken product. The first was the toilet itself as I described earlier. The second was strangely the Toto soft close seat, which arrived damaged. The reason was in the way it was packaged in the outer box. The Toto main box is packaged inside an outer box which contains the padding, spray foam and the boxes for the ceramic lid and the seat. The prow of the Ultramax sits right up against where the box for the seat is located, and all it takes is enough of the weight to shift for the Ultramax to move a bit and penetrate the seat box, cracking that product. When we got the original shipment, the seat was ok but I did notice that it's box was bent a bit. In this case, the seat box was bent and the damage actually occurred this time. The Ultramax is fine and installed now, but I'm having to find a seat locally since we have guests staying in the house who will be using that toilet and I cannot wait for National Builder Supply to ship me a replacement.
When I do get the replacement seat from them, I'll keep it until we replace the toilet in the master bath. I'll just buy that Toto without a seat. But lesson learned on all the trouble.
By the way, I'm not familiar with Southern Supply (there is a Southern Supply in St. Louis). Our Toto dealers are Kenny and Co. (the high end place), Triton Stone (where we got our EcoDrake) and Winnelson (which I haven't visited yet).
When I do get the replacement seat from them, I'll keep it until we replace the toilet in the master bath. I'll just buy that Toto without a seat. But lesson learned on all the trouble.
By the way, I'm not familiar with Southern Supply (there is a Southern Supply in St. Louis). Our Toto dealers are Kenny and Co. (the high end place), Triton Stone (where we got our EcoDrake) and Winnelson (which I haven't visited yet).
Last edited:
Southern became Winnelson. Sorry about that.
I used to buy in Nashville from Southern before it became Winnelson.
We sold 11 of the MS604114CEFG Ultramax II's this month. All perfect.
We sell hundreds of the TOTO every year, and we get maybe one or two that need returning.
However, when I was shipping single units out, 20% were damaged in shipment. That's all I'm saying. One out of five were damaged by being shipped that way. I accidentally shipped a toilet to myself from Brooklyn NY one time. After bouncing in the back of a semi that many miles, there was a hairline crack that wasn't noticeable until water was added to the tank. It happens.
If you are in Tennessee, I would give Winnelson a call.
I used to buy in Nashville from Southern before it became Winnelson.
We sold 11 of the MS604114CEFG Ultramax II's this month. All perfect.
We sell hundreds of the TOTO every year, and we get maybe one or two that need returning.
However, when I was shipping single units out, 20% were damaged in shipment. That's all I'm saying. One out of five were damaged by being shipped that way. I accidentally shipped a toilet to myself from Brooklyn NY one time. After bouncing in the back of a semi that many miles, there was a hairline crack that wasn't noticeable until water was added to the tank. It happens.
If you are in Tennessee, I would give Winnelson a call.
Sevenfeet
New Member
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind when we shop for our master bathroom toilet later this year. I just installed the replacement seat and all seems to be well.
Sevenfeet
New Member
Just a epilogue...the Ultramax II has been installed for nearly a week and it's an awesome product. But it wasn't the easiest thing to get installed mostly because of problems with the bathroom floor. When the house was built, some idiot builder (whom I went to high school with ) thought it was a classy upgrade to put the same oak paneled flooring found in most of the ground floor also in the guest bathroom. NEVER ever use an organic material as a floor to a bathroom as it's hard to get the smell out of the floor for urine misses (and my special needs 8 year old son is notorious for this on purpose...he thinks its hilarious).
Anyway, after 20 years of use, the wood underneath the toilet is hardly flat...more like a valley. That meant that the plumber had to shim the hell out of the thing just to get it stable. My wife and I were initially looking to redo our master bathroom which certainly needs it and we suspect may be having subfloor issues under the shower (not good). But the guest bathroom and its small size (30 sq feet not including shower) might end up getting priority just to replace the floor with an attractive tile...and trash the builder-quality lavatory, and ditch the late 80's wallpaper and...well, you get the idea. But at least we have a nice toilet.
) thought it was a classy upgrade to put the same oak paneled flooring found in most of the ground floor also in the guest bathroom. NEVER ever use an organic material as a floor to a bathroom as it's hard to get the smell out of the floor for urine misses (and my special needs 8 year old son is notorious for this on purpose...he thinks its hilarious). Anyway, after 20 years of use, the wood underneath the toilet is hardly flat...more like a valley. That meant that the plumber had to shim the hell out of the thing just to get it stable. My wife and I were initially looking to redo our master bathroom which certainly needs it and we suspect may be having subfloor issues under the shower (not good). But the guest bathroom and its small size (30 sq feet not including shower) might end up getting priority just to replace the floor with an attractive tile...and trash the builder-quality lavatory, and ditch the late 80's wallpaper and...well, you get the idea. But at least we have a nice toilet.
Sevenfeet
New Member
It's been three years since I wrote this and thought I'd share another story. To recap, I have a special needs son (now 11) who every now and then likes to flush foreign objects down toilets to see what happens. My house came with builders toilets from 20 years ago. First he flushed foam toys down the toilet in the kids bathroom...I replaced it with a Drake and it's been good since. Then he flushed something down the guest bathroom toilet that stuck and we replaced that toilet with the Ultramax II (talked about earlier in this thread). The Ultramax II nearly met its match though when my son decided to try flushing a toothbrush down it a year later, which stuck in the trap. It took a local plumber to take the toilet off the floor, take the unit outside, get out the scope camera to find the sucker and figure out a way to push it out. He was successful so the Ultramax II is back on duty. That left the Kohler toilet in the master bathroom.
Because of the build date of the house, all the toilets were originally first generation 1.6 gpf toilets, and being first generation they sucked royally. Well, the Kohler in the master bath was of better quality and generally flushed better than the others. But now the Kohler was the last legacy toilet standing...until last week. During a spring break respite, my son who was being lightly supervised by me decided to flush something down the Kohler and it stuck hard. This had happened before and I'd managed to use my snake to get ahold of the piece of clothing and retrieve it. No dice this time...in fact it seemed like the snake was only making the problem worse....instead of a slow flush, the toilet was stopped up tight.
My wife and I had planned not to replace the Kohler until we actually remodeled the bathroom. But budget won't allow that this year so it was time to look for something to replace it. Another Ultramax II would have been nice but my wife and I have always preferred the higher height of the ADA Drake to the ADA Ultramax II...there is a difference. So this time we opted for a Drake II 1.28 gpf. It's not as pretty as the Ultramax but it should get the job done. We ordered Sanigloss like the Ultramax (the original Drake in the kids bathroom was ordered without).
Although this site has plenty of self-help install guides, I'm just not brave enough to install my own plumbing like this. Good thing too since the flange was weird and the toilet had clearance problems with the back wall (surprisingly). And it needed to be shimmed a lot like the other toilets in the house (thanks original house builder!). But at the end of the day, I have a new stable Drake II that works. Hopefully my son won't test it anytime soon.
So now we have nothing but Totos in the house. Thanks to Terry for all the information and insight on thus board over the years.
Because of the build date of the house, all the toilets were originally first generation 1.6 gpf toilets, and being first generation they sucked royally. Well, the Kohler in the master bath was of better quality and generally flushed better than the others. But now the Kohler was the last legacy toilet standing...until last week. During a spring break respite, my son who was being lightly supervised by me decided to flush something down the Kohler and it stuck hard. This had happened before and I'd managed to use my snake to get ahold of the piece of clothing and retrieve it. No dice this time...in fact it seemed like the snake was only making the problem worse....instead of a slow flush, the toilet was stopped up tight.
My wife and I had planned not to replace the Kohler until we actually remodeled the bathroom. But budget won't allow that this year so it was time to look for something to replace it. Another Ultramax II would have been nice but my wife and I have always preferred the higher height of the ADA Drake to the ADA Ultramax II...there is a difference. So this time we opted for a Drake II 1.28 gpf. It's not as pretty as the Ultramax but it should get the job done. We ordered Sanigloss like the Ultramax (the original Drake in the kids bathroom was ordered without).
Although this site has plenty of self-help install guides, I'm just not brave enough to install my own plumbing like this. Good thing too since the flange was weird and the toilet had clearance problems with the back wall (surprisingly). And it needed to be shimmed a lot like the other toilets in the house (thanks original house builder!). But at the end of the day, I have a new stable Drake II that works. Hopefully my son won't test it anytime soon.
So now we have nothing but Totos in the house. Thanks to Terry for all the information and insight on thus board over the years.
WJcandee
Wise One
That's a nice story, illustrating the best of loving parents. My best to you and your family.
Do you notice difference with Sanigloss, or is the difference subtle?
Similar threads
