Kohler touchless toilet

[VAWellDriller]

I just built a home and my wife and I selected (now I'm really wondering) Kohler toilets with the touchless flush. The tanks do not have a manual flush mechanism or hole to install one. We've been in 6 months now and are having problems with 2 toilets flushing on their own. 1 will do it randomly a few times a week from what we can tell...the other will start flushing and continue flushing over and over until you take the batteries out. I have tried new batteries and adjusting the installation height but can't get them to work right. Does anyone know of a fix??? or should I just push for them to pull all of them out and install tanks with regular handles while I may still be under warranty with my builder? I have 6 toilets and am on septic...so it would be pretty easy to overload the septic system if more of them start acting up when we aren't around.

 

[WJcandee]

Maybe our resident Kohler fan has some insights....

I don't think it's going to be as easy as just swapping a tank, because all tanks don't fit on all toilets, but maybe you'll get lucky. I would definitely bring it to the attention of the builder.

You can read on this forum about reliable toilets with standard, easily replaceable tank parts.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Gary Swart]

Another Kohler invention that either cost an arm and leg to fix with their special order parts?

 

[VAWellDriller]

Maybe our resident Kohler fan has some insights....

I don't think it's going to be as easy as just swapping a tank, because all tanks don't fit on all toilets, but maybe you'll get lucky. I would definitely bring it to the attention of the builder.

You can read on this forum about reliable toilets with standard, easily replaceable tank parts.

Its a highline classic and I know there are several compatible tanks that aren't too expensive. We really want to keep what we've got and get them all to work right. They have been great toilets so far except for the phantom flushing.

 

[Jadnashua]

In my limited experience (and from monitoring this forum for a lot of years), my feelings about Kohler are that they seem to excel at NIH (not invented here) syndrome...if they didn't invent it, they don't want to put it in their products. This means that they are not getting the reliability of industry standard parts, their parts catalog is huge to account for all of the tweaks they made along the way, and some of their stuff plain just doesn't work great. It tends to look good. They have few things that keep the same design for long, making it less likely that a secondary supplier would be likely to make replacement parts for older things, forcing you to only get them from Kohler, and, because things change so often, finding a repair part locally is harder and often expensive. As a result, I avoid their products. Many of the other manufacturers may tweak their trim to match current styles, but the guts are often the same (this is by no means an absolute).

 

[Plumbs Away]

I just built a home and my wife and I selected (now I'm really wondering) Kohler toilets with the touchless flush. The tanks do not have a manual flush mechanism or hole to install one. We've been in 6 months now and are having problems with 2 toilets flushing on their own. 1 will do it randomly a few times a week from what we can tell...the other will start flushing and continue flushing over and over until you take the batteries out. I have tried new batteries and adjusting the installation height but can't get them to work right. Does anyone know of a fix??? or should I just push for them to pull all of them out and install tanks with regular handles while I may still be under warranty with my builder? I have 6 toilets and am on septic...so it would be pretty easy to overload the septic system if more of them start acting up when we aren't around.

Pull and replace the tanks. Kohler's notorious for springing a product on the public and pulling it after a couple of years, with little support. All of the Highline series use the K-4199 bowl, except for the pressure assist model. The Highline 1.28 GPF tank is Model No. K-4467. The 1.6 GPF tank is K-4468. The "standard" Highline is the first photo shown below. The Highline Classic (second photo) tank is available in 1.28 GPF, Model No. K-4456. All are available in White, Biscuit, Almond and Black Black. Personally, I prefer the look of the non-Classic Highline, but either will work. If you Google those model numbers, you'll find the solo tank prices are not prohibitively expensive. I hope this helps!

 

[FullySprinklered]

Every time I see something new and wonderful come along in the plumbing world, my eyes roll back in my head. Stick with the simple, tried and true as best you can, because the failure rate on the cutting edge stuff is pretty high.