New Customer Review-Toto Aquia

[Mike50]

I'll preface this with saying I live in the land of 110 golf courses and consequent massive waste of water resources. This is the desert.
The billion dollar tourist trade justifies the squandering to many people.
Water costs 200-300 per person per year.

I have only lived with this toilet for a week now. It's also been "reviewed"
by a couple friends. They love it.

All I can say is: If you can afford to buy one-do so. It works great and long term you will set an example of helping save our finite resources.
I'm not a treehugger-I don't like to be told what I should do and believe.
This is a no brainer though:
A family of 4 will save over 5 THOUSAND gallons annually just by installing
one Aquia. Pretty simple isnt it?

The toilet is an engineering marvel. As a layman I'll call it
"gravity on stereoids" The .9 low flush will make liquid and paper waste disappear literally in the blink of an eye. Seriously the liquid waste removal isnt too much more than a about a second or two.
The Low .9 flush is remarkably powerful. Big surprise. I wasn't expecting that.

Regarding the 1.6 solid waste removal-I would call it competitive with regular models. It has a smaller water spot.
How you review the solid waste removal will differ from person to person
imo.

In my particular situation-this toilet will in fact pay for itself in a year or two. That's a bonus as I would have purchased it anyway.

There have been I believe 3 different manufacturers to release dual flush toilets and I think you will find that one stands out-the Toto Aquia.
Reliability-function-appearance and price.
This is the one to buy. Go for it.

 

[inquirer22]

Regarding the 1.6 solid waste removal-I would call it competitive with regular models. It has a smaller water spot.
How you review the solid waste removal will differ from person to person
imo.

Mine won't be installed for several more weeks, so I still don't have experience with it. However, your comment above kind of concerns me. I detect from what you are saying that you have to lower your standards for solid waste removal. You don't say it gets the job done on solids, rather you say "call it competitive with regular models".

You also say different people will review it differently. I don't see how solid waste removal would differ that much from person to person. If I were to give it rating scale:

highest: Removes all solid wastes including toilet paper without any skid marks left behind. (In other words, the bowel should fill back up with water that is totally clear
without any indication that the toilet was just used for solid wastes.)

2nd highest: Same as above, but a little skid marks.

3rd highest: Same as above but substantial skid marks.

4th highest: skid marks and toilet paper left behind.

5th highest: skid marks, toilet paper, solid wastes left behind.

Try to understand that I come form the 3.5 gallon world. So your comments make me wonder if I need to have a toilet bowel scrubber and a bucket of water by the side so that I can take care of any skid marks and even possible toilet paper that might not go down. Is that the case?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Bob NH]

your comments make me wonder if I need to have a toilet bowel scrubber and a bucket of water by the side so that I can take care of any skid marks and even possible toilet paper that might not go down.

If there is a post-use toilet inspector in your house, and you want to eliminate all "skid marks" so it is not apparent that the immediately prior occupant used the device for its intended purpose, then you need a brush. The bowl serves as the bucket of water.

Skid marks below the water line will usually disappear with the next flush. Skid marks above the water line should be removed because they will dry on and not be removed at the next flush.

 

[Mike50]

Mine won't be installed for several more weeks, so I still don't have experience with it. However, your comment above kind of concerns me. I detect from what you are saying that you have to lower your standards for solid waste removal. You don't say it gets the job done on solids, rather you say "call it competitive with regular models".

You also say different people will review it differently. I don't see how solid waste removal would differ that much from person to person. If I were to give it rating scale:

It removes solids as well as my other toilet. period.
I worded that post on purpose as I did. The previous poster has more experience than I. He is right on the money. Read it again.

I use this as a 2nd toilet and I live alone. OK?
Firstly dont worry about the new toilets-they work as well as the 3.5 from my personal experience.

Let me answer this way: I have a new Kohler memoirs and a new Toto Aquia. If I need 3 more toilets they would all be Aquia.
The water spot on my Kohler is almost twice the area of the Aquia.
Some people are going to have more smearing (below the water line) with the Aquia impo. Which can be flushed away with the .9 flush easily if needed.
For ME and my lifestyle the issue is neglible.

Would I install a Toto Aquia's in a mens Locker room?-NO I probably would not.


From my limited personal experience there is no problem at all. It removes waste and paper great.

And I'll say this again: The .9 flush is surprisingly fast and powerful.
Paper literally disappears in one second or maybe even less....

I hope that helps.

Mike50

 

[inquirer22]

Yes that helps. I only questioned what you said earlier because everything else you said about the Aquia was very glowing in the review.

My current toilet is an American Standard from the 1970's (3.5 gal). Lately we've had problems with it, sometimes it swirls but nothing goes down. I suspect the problem is because there has been some calcium buildup under the rim that might be affecting the swirl. (A plumber came out about 1.5 years ago, and scraped the rim, and the problem went away until the last 3 or so months. We originally figured we needed the sewer line snaked. It worked fine after that.) When the toilet works, skid marks only happen once in a blue moon.

The main reason we are replacing the toilet is that we are remodeling the bathroom -- only the bathtub will be the same. (The bathtub is fine, and as heavy as it was there didn't seem to be a great desire to try to replace it.)

Since this 1970's toilet has porceline stains and we've had these problems re-occure again, it just made sense to get a new toilet. My only hesitation at all was that other than these recent problems, this 3.5 toilet has done a great job for 30+ years.

I've already bought the Aquia. It is just going to be a few more weeks before we have the time to install it.

 

[Mike50]

The old "3.5 flush is better because more is better"-is a Myth from my personal experience.
The engineering on the new toilets is spectacular. My old 3.5 was horrible and it's now in a landfill. I think that's pretty clear.

I think a new generation of green products will be even better.
The new Toto Drake coming out in fall 2006 will be a 1.28 flush-so you can see the direction this is all going.

All the plumbers rave about the drake-and it's not very often a manufacturer will monkey around with a proven successful formula like that unless they are very sure of what they are doing. Not to mention alter the name to "Eco-Drake" or whatever it turns out to be....

"Green" will be mainstream in a big way in 10 years impo.

New technologies bring questions...fear of the new and sometimes there are tradeoffs. Example: The Aquia toilet seat (for me) isn't as comfortable as the wooden one I installed on my Kohler memoirs.
BUT...the benefit of the soft close feature outweighs my issue with that.

The icing on the cake is that I believe the Aquia is the best looking design
out there and a lot of the architect/design people agree. Except for the Kohler hatbox or Toto Neorest which are both in the 3000 price range.

For Toto & Kohler to convince the public to spend 3 grand on a toilet will be like trying to herd cats. Not gonna happen.

New current reviews on Aquia:
https://terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3397&highlight=aquia+confusion


I think it's really important to very honest about new products.
Why do you think some people hate "greens?" Well one reason is Because they run around touting the wonders of green products and technology self righteously leaving out information.
No doubt they told everyone how wonderful the *first* generation 1.6 toilets were.
As you will read here-those toilets were awful...and didn't work well at all.
People don't forget things like that.

Is the Aquia .9 flush **100%** as efficient and clean as regular technology-no it's not imo. But again...it's negligible and will not disappoint you.

and so it goes...

Kohler Hatbox

 

[Mike50]

My current toilet is an American Standard from the 1970's (3.5 gal). Lately we've had problems with it, sometimes it swirls but nothing goes down. I suspect the problem is because there has been some calcium buildup under the rim that might be affecting the swirl. (A plumber came out about 1.5 years ago, and scraped the rim, and the problem went away until the last 3 or so months. We originally figured we needed the sewer line snaked. It worked fine after that.) When the toilet works, skid marks only happen once in a blue moon.

I think many people (and myself) with old toilets think that it's normal for the flush cycle to take 20-30 seconds. Nope. Some of these new toilets are almost as fast as airline toilets.

I would have been inclined to also hire a plumber to "repair" the poor water flow issues associated with old toilets. Which thanks to this MB I realize is pretty ridiculous. IF you consider paying 1-150 for a plumber...why the hell wouldn't you just replace the damn thing for few dollars more?



Mike50