Flushmate repair or replace the toilet?

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GreenGiant117

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So I have three Gerber toilets that have the Sloan Flushmate Series 503 accelerators in them.
One of them had a habit of if it hadn't been used in about 2-3 days it didn't have enough volume/pressure to flush anything down, the following flush would work, but not quite the volume/pressure of the other two in the house.
Looking at the resources, they suggested the one way valve at the top, or remove and check the cartridge, cleaned and checked the valve, no change, their manual where it says use the handles of a set of pliers to remove the cartridge wouldnt budge it.
I just dealt with it until the toilet started moving during use, tightening the T-bolts resulted in one just coming up and up, so either it had popped from the track or the flange was rotted out.

Pulling the toilet revealed a rotted flange, no biggie, chip it all away, remove the screws (got really lucky with all of them coming out) and using a repair flange.

I figured at this time I would replace the flushmate tank with a standard valve and flapper... Going to test the toilet and it doesn't flush.
The water level rises a little bit, but not (fast) enough to cause the siphon effect to flush anything but urine down.

I think the toilet was designed FOR the flush accelerator...

I was able to remove the cartridge from the flushmate tank (through a very large crescent wrench and a long screw driver after breaking it) at this point I have 3 options:
1) I can get a replacement cartridge for ~$40 USD but I have no idea if that cartridge is the issue.

2) I can get a whole new flushmate tank from Home Depot for $130 which would fix the issue, but is this going to happen again down the road? I have no idea how old these toilets are and this one in particular is in our guest/kids bathroom (currently they are too young to use it, but in a few years it will be heavily used)

3) I can replace the toilet with an American Standard Vormax for ~$180-200 which seems to be good for cleanliness and for flushing ability, or really any toilet sold at a big box store if anyone has recomendations.

Any thoughts on whether to repair/replace the flushmate or just get a new toilet?
 

Terry

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The Ultraflush with Flushmate needs the pressure assist for that bowl. Gravity doesn't work on a pressure assisted toilet.

There has been a recall on some years of the Flushmate tanks. For my mothers home, I replaced the entire tank, not bothering to just replace the pressure tank. You can see if your tank is in this range.


Most of the newer toilets are working much better than when they first dropped to 1.6 gallons in 1992.
I'm not a fan of Vormax with the double flapper system. Adding more parts to replace and adjust years down the road doesn't impress the plumbers having to work on them.
For American Standard, the Cadet Pro series is nice.
Kohler has products at the home centers that will work for you.
I wind up selling a lot of the TOTO product, but then I don't buy from hardware stores and I like the quality and how well they work.
 

GreenGiant117

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The Ultraflush with Flushmate needs the pressure assist for that bowl. Gravity doesn't work on a pressure assisted toilet.

There has been a recall on some years of the Flushmate tanks. For my mothers home, I replaced the entire tank, not bothering to just replace the pressure tank. You can see if your tank is in this range.


Most of the newer toilets are working much better than when they first dropped to 1.6 gallons in 1992.
I'm not a fan of Vormax with the double flapper system. Adding more parts to replace and adjust years down the road doesn't impress the plumbers having to work on them.
For American Standard, the Cadet Pro series is nice.
Kohler has products at the home centers that will work for you.
I wind up selling a lot of the TOTO product, but then I don't buy from hardware stores and I like the quality and how well they work.
Unfortunately I have no idea when they were installed, I'll put in the serial.numbers and see if mine are affected though, thankmy.ou for the information!

I wasn't aware that the Vormax had a double flapper system, it seemed to me that the molding just directed the water in a circular path around the rim vs a traditional edge around the rim style. Can you elaborate? I can't find anything specific on the Vormax system.

I did like the Kohler flapper replacement from an engineering standpoint, but I can't see how opening 360 of a 2 inch hole vs an angled flap.woukd cause that much better flow in such a low pressure system.

It sounds like you're advocating for replacing the whole toilet, as far as I can find there aren't any Toto dealers in my area, so besides their toilets what would the top recommendation be? I'd prefer to spend a little extra getting something that will work for 20+ years vs saving a bit and having to replace every 5-10 years, especially given the toilet in question services 3 bedrooms, two of which will be full time kids and the third at least 5-7 times per month having an extra person
 

Terry

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Looking inside the Vormax tank by American Standard

heritage-06.jpg


The bottom of the tank.

vormax-wall-hung-terrylove-04.jpg


The bowl

vormax-wall-hung-terrylove-03.jpg
 
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