Brand new Drake owner here

[MaintenanceMan]

I found this forum while doing some research online for a new toilet. I have to say I never thought I would find myself so interested in water closets. I'm a maintenace man in southern IN and am currently finishing an addition to my house. I have about ten years experience, prior to my current job, in HVAC.

About 5-6 years ago I remodeled our only bathroom and then installed a Briggs Vacuity. It's always flushed well for us, but twice now the inner tank started to leak. Just recently it stopped flushing properly. I decided I was already tired of it, started looking around, found this site, Installed a Drake two days ago. Thus far we're pretty happy. We're in the process of putting it through it's paces.

We're not quite far enough along with our addition to install another WC yet, but assuming we are satisfied with the Drake, we will most likely be putting another in soon. In our current bath the WC is right next to a supply register that caused our antique, pink, crane toilet to sweat profusely. The Briggs didn't do this because of the plastic liner inside the tank. When I talked to our Toto dealer they said Toto didn't have insulated tanks. I was able to inform them (thanks to this site) that they in fact did and was even able to tell them the # to look for. They said they wouldn't be able to order one until after the first of the year. So I brought home a non-insulated tank hoping that the fact it doesn't use all the water in the tank would help it not sweat.

Well it's been a few days and the tank is sweating a bit. Enough to drip off the tank at times. Unfortunately moving the register isn't really an option. So I think about all I can do is get another Drake for the addition and order the insulated tank. I'd put the insulated tank in our current bath and the one I have now out in the addition. I'm just curious if anyone has found that the insulated tanks actually solved their sweating problems. Or maybe there might be other options I can try? I don't consider the sweating a huge problem, but it is kind of a pain.

Again, I'd like to give a big thanks for all the info I've found here. It's been very helpful.

 

[Jadnashua]

FIrst, make sure you aren't holding the flush lever down...just push it down all the way and immediately release. It is not designed to empty the tank, and holding it down wastes water. If that doesn't solve it, there are two ways, one absolute, and one that works most of the time: put on a tempering valve, or try the insulated tank. This time of year, unless you are running a humidifier and emptying the tank on a flush, I'm kind of surprised your humdity levels are high enough to get condensation since the mix with the water left in the tank normally tempers it enough on its own. Repeated use and flushing in a short time would mean the water in the tank would end up colder. Keep in mind, insulation only slows the transfer of heat...use the toilet frequently enough and even insulation won't help...you'd need to put in a tempering valve since the tank will eventually get cold, insulation or not.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[MaintenanceMan]

I had thought of a tempering valve, but doubted it would work well. This WC is so far away from the water heater that I figured it would take several flushes in order to get any hot water to the valve. We've been flushing it properly. I suppose I just have my doubts that an insulated tank would do any good too. Like you said it's only going to slow the transfer. I'm still leaning toward paying the extra money and waiting the additional 2-3 weeks for one though.

 

[Verdeboy]

The two options Jim outlined are the best. Other things people do for sweating toilets are install a drip catcher, buy a tank liner kit, or install those furry tank and bowl covers. The covers would insulate the tank and absorb any moisture, but you would have to throw them in the laundry periodically.

 

[Terry]

The insulated tank has Styrofoam lining inside the tank.

I don't think it gets better than that.

ST743SD

 

[MaintenanceMan]

Yeah, it really seems like it's my easiest option.

It's dripping sweat again tonight. I'll be getting the insulated tank as soon as they can order one.

Thanks for the input.

 

[SteveW]

What is the relative humidity in your house?

I would really wonder if you don't have a moisture problem.

My sister-in-law had a really humid powder room in the basement - turned out her dryer vent was disconnected and pumping humid air into the basement.

 

[Kingsotall]

Steve, not only humid air if it was a gas dryer.

 

[MaintenanceMan]

What is the relative humidity in your house?

I'm not sure what it actually is, but it has been raining real good here for 2-3 days and I've been having drywall work done. So there's been some guys coming and going, albeit on the other end other house. The relative humidity is higher in the house I'm sure, but the sweating problem is nothing new to toilets in that bathroom.

The original toilet was a Crane 5 gallon. Every fixture in the bathroom was pink and the walls were painted a crimson color. Talk about a nightmare. That toilet rained sweat in the winter. After I remodeled the bath and put in the Vacuity it didn't sweat for the longest time. But that was how I knew the Briggs was leaking on inside liner. One day I noticed about 1 1/2-2" of sweat on the bottom of the tank. Fast forward to now. The Drake has been sweating about half way up the tank. At times it's dripping.

Like I said previously, I don't consider this a huge problem, more of a nuisance. The main thing is it flushes good and thus far we're all real happy. I'll order the insulated tank first and if that doesn't work I'll probably go ahead and try a tempering valve. I just have to wait until January and then wait 2-3 weeks for it to come in. I think we can make it until then.

I really have found a lot of info here helpful though. The facilities I maintain has somewhere around 25 toilets and only two of then are 1.6 gallons. Gerbers with the Sloan Flushmate. Now that I've found Toto, learned some about them, and will be giving one a try in my own home, I will feel alot better about replacing all those out of date toilets (whenever I get approval ) with something I know won't give me a lot of trouble.