new construction home - toilet decision!!

[Adna]

Hi

We are building our home and are now in the process of selecting plumbing fixtures. We have been looking at Kohler since this is what the supplier carries and most models are within our allowance. This particular supplier does not carry Toto...

We have shortlisted the Cimaron Class 6 (1.6) and the Santa Rosa one piece (they have come out with Class 5 in this). After reading the posts on this forum, it seems that Kohler has its fair share of problems as have some other brands....

Whats important to us is the best flushability (twin 7 year olds!!), good bowl cleaning mechanism; looks and ease of cleaning.

Can you recommend the best Kohler and the best Toto model given these requirements? And how would they compare amongst themselves?

Thanks!!

 

[Jadnashua]

Several things to consider: quality of execution and quality of design. Kohler stuff often looks really nice. But, in the real world don't always function well. Another thing is repair parts. In most toilets, the fill valve and the flapper valve are the only real wear parts. Kohler seems to always be redesigning them, thus parts are sometimes hard to come by, and often expensive. Someone just spent $350 for a repair kit!

Many toilets are tested for the volume (weight) of stuff they can flush. Most of these tests are with plastic-wrapped paste. Don't know about you, but mine doesn't come out that way! As a result, they slide through the trapway fairly easily, and mask a poor 'real-world' performance issue. If you look at the trapway (often visible on many toilets) from the side, those on Totos are nice smooth arcs. Many of Kohler's (and some others) have some very sharp angles. These pose much harder challenges for the 'real' stuff to make it without clogging.

Toto is the largest toilet manufacturer in the world, and has a factory in Georgia (amongst many other countries). Doesn't mean the toilet you may choose will be made here, but you have a good chance. Performance-wise, they perform quite well. I have two in my home, and put two in my Mother's house. Never had to use a plunger in many years. Most of it with Toto is choosing style you like. Those Totos with the dual cyclone flushing system have their best bowl wash (a couple of examples: Drake II, Vespin II or any with the II moniker). Unless you are in the 1-2% with a medical problem and have large, hard stools, a Toto can handle anything that comes out of you.

Almost nobody sells the stuff at suggested retail, so don't let the prices on the www.totousa..com website scare you. Many places can order them, if they don't stock them. The Toto dealer locator tends to be stocking showrooms, but many other places do sell them, so call around.

 

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[Gary Swart]

I second what Jim said. Kohler is not the quality fixture we grew up with 40 years ago. Toto is on the cutting edge of low flow toilet technology.

 

[hj]

The problem with your question is that you are asking for a opinion, and that is highly subjective. If you ask a group of plumbers that question, you will seldom get a consensus. I have installed less than a dozen Toto toilets since they came out, and the other brand toilets I do install, (although because of price and design issues I seldom use Kohler), either do NOT have flushing problems, or the customers do NOT tell me about them, which is highly unlikely.

 

[Terry]

There are performance differences and quality differences.
There are some people that can use any bowl, and it's not an issue.
Some have special needs and some are about in the middle.
There are some that insist that nothing since 1992 will work. And yet they travel around using bathrooms with the new bowls all the time and don't realize that they just sat on a newer bowl. Even when you "tell" them that they used a new bowl they will insist that "New toilets don't work".
So there are two sides to that; the conjecture and arguments continue.
In the last five years or so, performance has been picking up. And even so, not everyone needs that much.
Sometimes the same bowl will perform vastly different depending on how it popped out of the mold.
Same brand, same model, can be an entirely different experience.

I don't sell a few bowls. I sell as many toilets in a week as hj replaces in a year.

And I do hear from the customers.

After selling thousands, I can safely say, there are differences.

 

[Gary Swart]

I wonder why if no one sells Toto toilets, how did Toto become the world's largest manufacturer of toilets? I know Terry sells tons of them, but surely there must be a couple of other places around that sell them. Just wondering????