Let's be fair... My Toto Entrada wasn't all that great

[John Q Florida]

While I want to be fair, I literally drank the kool-aid and bought a Toto, and it's important to say, it's not nirvana, they're not perfect.

The water in the bowl was so small, it got filthy easily. And with a family member who is notoriously hard on toilets with respect to paper use, it clogged easily, because the mountain of paper didn't get wet (because of the very small amount of water in the bowl), and it just didn't flush that well. It clogged pretty easily actually.

I do know the answers I'll get... it wasn't installed right (it was); it wasn't cleaned enough or properly (then why didn't its predecessor or the other two toilets in the house get dirty too?) And wait for the toilet paper to get wet or flush twice (that's making excuses).

Thanks for listening. I'm still torn, because I like that Toto's use standard parts. And all those snuggie-wearing cult members changing 'klaatu barada nik-toto' can't all be wrong. But fairness in reviews is important.

 

[Sylvan]

The only brands I used during the "greater NYC toilet change out" was Gerber avalanche or the Crane 1.6 elongated with a Sloan Royal flushometer

Over 7,000 toilets installed not a single call back and not one complaint

The only brand I now use is Gerber avalanche elongated when possible as I hate call backs and 0ver 25 years later I had to change 4 possibly 5 flappers and NOT a single Sloan Royal failure in all these years they are still working perfectly

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Terry]

How about a picture of the fill tube and where it's directed. There is a small tube from the fill valve that refills the bowl after a flush. If the bowl doesn't have the right amount of water in it, the siphon won't start. I noticed the same thing with a video that Consumer Reports made where they took video of a bowl without the correct amount of water in the bowl. Someone at Consumer Reports needs to learn about plumbing. And Sylvan, they really pan the Gerber Avalanche. Which is also funny because many plumbers use that one as their go to product. Their top rated toilet was one that nobody seems to sell. Some of their top rated stuff I have a hard time adjusting to work well. And then they stuff we sell they don't like. We need to take them under our wings I think.

A little bit of Kohler that I installed for a customer. I sell and install all brands.

All recent toilets no matter the brand work much better than before.
If you are pulling out something from the 60's or even before the 80's you will notice that the bowls hold less water. That part is true. Less water means less bowl rinsing. That's just science for you. I try to remember to take some cleaner and a nylon brush to my bowls occasionally. Even the old water guzzlers needed cleaning too. I sometimes go into old homes and there a a green ring around the water line. Hey people...........those needed cleaning too. Maybe get maid service.

 

[Sylvan]

Terry you would be shocked at some of the things people try to flush down a toilet

Before I picked Gerber and Crane I used my old stand by to to test each toilet at the plumbing expo in NYC as every brand was there just before NYC was changing several million toilets to conserve water

My toilet test is simple I place 30 sheets of toilet paper in the bowl and flush.

The toilet has to have a great vortex, be quiet and of course does not leave skid marks on the walls so I look for the scouring action

The reason I like Gerber it works great (normally one flush ) and it is cheap , easy to repair and last decades with no need to make repairs

Some of my accounts are schools and nursing homes when I needed a baby bowl and other places needed ADA and and tight spaces I was able to get a 10" rough up to a 14" rough.

As you know I have a Lexus LS 460 L AWD and a BMW 750 I L Xdrive BUT my favorite car is a Subaru Legacy with Turbo

The Subaru is very,very dependable, very cheap to maintain has amazing resale value and is possibly the most dependable car I ever owned .

Much better than the 500 Series of Mercedes which I hated as it was a death trap in the snow or rain

An ambassador told me "propaganda" as people unfortunately are judged by the car they drive or the way they dress

As an expert witness depending on the borough I am going to which car to use

Manhattan is is mostly conservative so the Lexus is the car I use to meet the older lawyers and older accounts as it is classic and the most comfortable car I ever drove / owned

The younger group likes sports cars but most also like comfort so the BMW or the Infiniti Q 50

Same with fixtures . Kohler says " the bold look" but I never saw the word "quality"

I will not install or service a Kohler faucet or toilet. When a company had "how to repair" on the inside bottom of the tank cover that alone set up a red flag

II replaced so many Rialto's over the years with Gerber

Gerber and Crane do not advertise so many consumers never heard about them

The Gerber 4" C C and 3 and 4 valve shower body were the industry standard for decades along with Sterling

Brass stems, brass body , easy grip handles, seats can be bought in almost any hardware store

The only shower body I now install is Delta multichoice and allow the consumer to decide what trim they want

All of the showers we install have integral stops as it just common decency for the next person who needs to make any repairs if needed

The Japanese do make fantastic cars I will give them that

 

[Terry]

The Japanese do make fantastic cars I will give them that

In the last two weeks I have sold and installed six of the TOTO Ultramax II toilets, made in the USA.
I sometimes sell Gerber, but not often. Where do they make them now? It's a Chinese company.

• Gerber Plumbing Fixtures Corp. acquired by Globe Union Group, Inc. 2003
• Crane Plumbing Corp. merged in February 2008 with American Standard Americas and Eljer to create American Standard Brands.

I find porcelain products are being made in
USA
Canada
China
Vietnam
Mexico
Chile
Japan
Ecuador

Pretty much anywhere you can find some good clay.
CR gives the Avalanche a 43 rating
Their top rated Icera gets a 78 rating
Looking at the comments many would not purchase the Icera again. And yet that's their top rated toilet. Funny.
I have looked at their ratings and I can't make any sense of them. It just seems random. I work with all of them, and my experience in the field is much different than theirs. I would say that many of them could be rated very close together. And performance across the board has improved dramatically over the years. It does look like they read my forums though. If I like something and my customers like it, that gets played down. I find that very weird and wonder what the clubhouse atmosphere is like at CR? I would love to hang with them to see where they are coming from.

Crane tanks: I've been replacing tank to bowl hardware on them as many are rusted out. And some tanks have been cracking.
I haven't seen that with Gerber.

 

[Sylvan]

Kohler Mexico?

I found over the years consumers ratings are like American career politicians they are the best money can buy

When I am called as an expert witness I now ask which side am I representing . Opinions a like belly buttons everyone have and depending on the client which way my opinion goes

 

[Terry]

When you go to the CR site, it has shopping links where you can buy the bowl of the toilet. Not the complete toilet with a tank, but you can buy a bowl.
Most of my customers need both parts. So is CR now a shopping site? I'm dealing with spammers trying to link fake reviews that link up to stores now. Most of those sites from around the world have never even seen the products they review. Cool, live in the South Pacific on an Island and review products sold in North America.

A DXV I installed.

 

[WJcandee]

I would like to see a picture inside the OP's tank.

If he's complaining about the water spot, the Entrada has a similar-sized water spot to any 1.28 or 1.6 gpf toilet. So either it's not refilling correctly, or he's bemoaning the loss of his old 5-gallon-per-flush model. Sorry, those aren't coming back, and they didn't actually work all that well anyway.

I have, um, "used" any number of Gerber Avalanches, and they don't seem to bowl-clean or flush any better than our several models of Toto. But they are obviously a well-made unit.

One thing that is unique about NYC is the number of residential apartments that were equipped with flushometer toilets. Must have been a fine ride for Sylvan as co-ops, etc., took the incentives to replace them.

I notice that in commercial flushometer use there are more and more Totos being installed in public places, most of which are made in the US to comply with various laws, and they seem to work fine. Sloan and Toto auto-flush systems seem to work about equally-reliably in my limited sample of usage.

 

[John Q Florida]

Thanks, Sylvan, Terry, and WJ. I no longer have that house or the toilet, but the amount of water in the bowl looked just like it does at the start of the first video.

• What the water amount looked like in my Toto Entrada - (this isn't my video, btw, it just was conveniently there on Youtube) -
• 
  
• • For example purposes, this is a video from Toto themselves, but a better/fancier model. At the 0:56 second mark is a very clear picture of the amount of water in the tank of a Toto toilet.
  • 
    
  • All I'm saying is my Toto Entrada had what appears to be the perfectly normal/expected amount of water in the bowl for a Toto.
• What the water amount looks like now, an American Standard Cadet Pro 1.28 -

I respectfully acknowledge that many of you here are real plumbers and I'm not (However, I somehow got the American Standard to work and flush just fine.) I'm simply calling for outright accuracy in reviews/recommendations. If the Toto Entrada isn't as good as other models in the Toto line, or even on the open market, or even if it just comes down to (gasp) acknowledging some weaknesses, why is it that hard to just say it out loud? Just a thought! Thanks.

 

[Terry]

If the Toto Entrada isn't as good as other models in the Toto line, or even on the open market, or even if it just comes down to (gasp) acknowledging some weaknesses, why is it that hard to just say it out loud? Just a thought! Thanks.

I've sold and installed thousands of toilets John.
The TOTO Entrada works very well. On independent testing they give it 1,000 grams for flushing. And that's with a 1.28 GPF flush.
I prefer it over the A/S Cadet and the Champion. I have no trouble saying that.
It uses the same trapway as the others in the TOTO line, a trapway that I like and prefer.

If you have back to back toilets and one is flushed, depending on how it's plumbed, one toilet can push water out of the opposing bowl. That happens with most all of the new toilets being sold today. The old toilets from the days of Rome used larger quantities of water supplied by the aqueducts into the city. Bowls held pools of water that you could bath in, and removing that water required so many minutes that you could brew yourself a cup of coffee in the meantime.
Now toilets are switching to faster flushing models that take mere seconds in comparison and because of that, it changes how you should arrange the fittings below.