6 ms·

And why do Americans keep using that kind of toilets with high water level and soft flushing that tend to get clogged? I mean, in my 37 years of life in Europe

And why do Americans keep using that kind of toilets with high water level and soft flushing that tend to get clogged? I mean, in my 37 years of life in Europe I haven't ever clogged a toilet, I don't think it's even a thing, at least if you don't throw anything that doesn't belong in there. But in my trips to America... I'm not going to be specific, but let's just say that some experiences have made me very cautious when I use the toilet there.

mewpmewp2 7y ago
Yeah same, just recently was in US and I think first time in my life I clogged a toilet. And it was a respectable hotel.
syshum 7y ago
Seems you visit some places with poor plumbing then. In my 40 years of life in the US the only time I have experienced a clogged toilet is because someone put something down it that did not belong (or the entire plumbing system was backed up do to tree roots or other issue unrelated to toilet design)
- turk73 7y ago
  My workplace has typical commercial toilets and somehow they manage to get clogged at least daily. I suspect the "nest builders" are somehow to blame for all this. I would hate to be a janitor here, honestly. They do keep the bathrooms clean here because we have a lot of foreign nationals whose toilet behavior is um, sorta 3rd World. There are signs all over the place in the bathrooms describing proper etiquette and requirements to wash hands afterwards, etc. So while disgusting, the company is at least trying to keep it under control. The funniest are the signs that show you should not stand on the toilet seats. Contrasting with previous workplace, it was much the same but the company didn't clean nearly as often and didn't have enough bathrooms. That place had mostly young, white guys in their 20s, and so Mondays you didn't even want to go near those bathrooms because all the excess food, alcohol, and probably drugs consumed over the weekend ends up in dire remorse by Monday morning. Sad, but totally predictable.
ComputerGuru 7y ago
I replaced every single one of mine with a Toto. I don’t care if it’s four times the price of American Standard or whatever: I have literally never had to use the plunger since.
- sjwright 7y ago
  I’m an Australian and I’ve never owned or used a toilet plunger in my life.
  - gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
    I would not even know where to buy one!
    - Slartie 7y ago
      In the US, they're for sale everywhere. And I must acknowledge their ingenuity when it comes to toilet plunger design: American plungers have an additional "lip" at the bottom of the rubber thingy that fits into their toilets quite nicely and seals them up better than the usual plungers in Europe would do, which don't have that extra rubber lip. Apparently the extraordinary demand for plungers resulted in better plungers, not in someone asking "why the heck are we so reliant on plungers?" and possibly making better toilets ;-)
      - jtms 7y ago
        It’s a plunger manufacturer conspiracy!
        jtms 7y ago
        No room for jokes here I guess... what a fun crowd
      - rsynnott 7y ago
        I think the ship has sailed on better toilets in America, unfortunately. A big part of the problem is just that the standard waste pipe is too small AIUI.
kbcool 7y ago
Hah so true. Having lived mainly in Europe and Australia I have never once managed to clog a toilet but without fail I seem to manage to clog almost every US hotel toilet. We're not talking about a few unlucky incidents but many. Just on the general topic of the number of bathrooms increasing surely it could be related to the obesity epidemic. They do seem correlated. People getting fatter and fatter every year, they need to relieve themselves more often and of more material, this all takes time so it goes without saying they would spend more time in bathrooms.
_-o-_ 7y ago
It's really convenient compared to low water level kind. No splashes, no marks left, no time for smell to develop.
- sjwright 7y ago
  Much of the smell in a toilet is your butt, not the bowl. If smell is an issue, wipe sooner or do an intermediate flush. (Or take the hint and change your diet.)
  - CriticalCathed 7y ago
    Are you claiming that your shit doesn't stink?
  - cluoma 7y ago
    Clearly you've never experienced the pleasure of having a toilet with a 'poop shelf'.
    - Slartie 7y ago
      I must say that I find it oddly satisfying to flush down poop from such a shelf. Especially if it goes down just fine every single time and doesn't clog.
    - dirktheman 7y ago
      Dutch toilets rule! Unfortunately you see them less and less...
    - sjwright 7y ago
      I’ve used one. I didn’t see the point.
Slartie 7y ago
Yeah, I totally get what you're hinting at ;-) I stopped counting the number of times that I clogged American toilets with...let's say "substances that clearly belong in there". Seriously, am I supposed to hold it in the middle of the action and flush? Another really, really backwards thing seems to be shower fixtures. If you aren't lucky and find a modern mixing valve, you are likely doomed to experiment with various push, pull, turn-while-pull, push-while-turn-then-pull, turn-until-searing-hot-then-go-on-because-warm-comes-after-hot-on-the-scale moves to get a decent water temperature. And not only is this totally unintuitive, it also differs between every single shower in every single hotel or motel room (especially motels seem to have these weird fixtures).
- StavrosK 7y ago
  And not only that, but every time you turn the water off to soap yourself up, the temperature resets so you have to freeze and burn all over again! Pretty terrible design.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    Americans don’t turn the water off in the middle of a shower.
    - mcv 7y ago
      You can save a lot of water that way, though.
      - kube-system 7y ago
        I could, but with water at a penny per gallon, and natural gas at a couple dollars per million BTU, it’s a cheap luxury.
        StavrosK 7y ago
        Funny how dumping carbon into the atmosphere isn't priced in there.
mcv 7y ago
I live in Europe (Netherland) and regularly clog toilets. I don't know if my colon is unusually big, but in my experience, both deep and flat flushers are quite capable of getting clogged, though deep flushers seem more vulnerable to it than flat flushers. I suspect that with deep flushers, it may help to flush immediately and not let the turd soak up water while you add more toilet paper.
kube-system 7y ago
A persons baseline of expectations is often formed through their own experience, especially when it’s not a topic of high interest.
yostrovs 7y ago
American toilets essentially suck water, pulling everything with it. Euro toilets just dump water from above. The disadvantage of Euro toilets is that they become dirty, which is why there's always a brush nearby. Also having that step with all your poop on it just sitting there is unpleasant, at least to me.
- jeltz 7y ago
  Most European toilets do not have that shelf, I have only seen them in a couple of countries.
  - wazoox 7y ago
    Germany, for instance. Though I had "German toilets" once in no other hotel than the Caesars Palace in Vegas.
- mindthegap 7y ago
  > Also having that step with all your poop on it just sitting there is unpleasant, at least to me. That's wildly exaggerating it. Normally the brush isn't really dirty and you can soak it in soapy water every couple of weeks/months and you are fine. The water pressure seems higher in Europe (or at least in Germany, where I lived before moving to the US). After you cleaned the toilet, you would normally still be able to clean the brush off with the water of the current flush (should that be needed). In fact, I find it bewildering that there is normally no brush in the US. It is unavoidable for almost all toilet types to get dirty and I find it frustrating if I can't leave the toilet how I would like to find it (clean), because there are still traces clearly visible in the toilet and no brush is available. Especially when I am visiting somewhere or we rent a vacation house with friends. Really awkward to see traces in the toilet of people who were in there before you (or the other way around).
  - Someone 7y ago
    ”The water pressure seems higher in Europe” I’ve never seen pressurized tanks in Europe. They flush from a tank that isn’t directly connected to the water mains, so water pressure in the water mains doesn’t play a role. The water just falls down from the cistern to the bowl, a height difference of about half a meter for modern designs and up to 2 meters for more traditional designs. Wikipedia says “it has been found by ceramic engineers that improved waterway design is a more effective way to enhance the bowl's flushing action than high tank mounting.“ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet#Flush_tanks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet#Flush_tanks)

mewpmewp2 7y ago

Yeah same, just recently was in US and I think first time in my life I clogged a toilet. And it was a respectable hotel.

syshum 7y ago

Seems you visit some places with poor plumbing then. In my 40 years of life in the US the only time I have experienced a clogged toilet is because someone put something down it that did not belong (or the entire plumbing system was backed up do to tree roots or other issue unrelated to toilet design)

turk73 7y ago
My workplace has typical commercial toilets and somehow they manage to get clogged at least daily. I suspect the "nest builders" are somehow to blame for all this. I would hate to be a janitor here, honestly. They do keep the bathrooms clean here because we have a lot of foreign nationals whose toilet behavior is um, sorta 3rd World. There are signs all over the place in the bathrooms describing proper etiquette and requirements to wash hands afterwards, etc. So while disgusting, the company is at least trying to keep it under control. The funniest are the signs that show you should not stand on the toilet seats. Contrasting with previous workplace, it was much the same but the company didn't clean nearly as often and didn't have enough bathrooms. That place had mostly young, white guys in their 20s, and so Mondays you didn't even want to go near those bathrooms because all the excess food, alcohol, and probably drugs consumed over the weekend ends up in dire remorse by Monday morning. Sad, but totally predictable.

ComputerGuru 7y ago

I replaced every single one of mine with a Toto. I don’t care if it’s four times the price of American Standard or whatever: I have literally never had to use the plunger since.

sjwright 7y ago
I’m an Australian and I’ve never owned or used a toilet plunger in my life.
- gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
  I would not even know where to buy one!
  - Slartie 7y ago
    In the US, they're for sale everywhere. And I must acknowledge their ingenuity when it comes to toilet plunger design: American plungers have an additional "lip" at the bottom of the rubber thingy that fits into their toilets quite nicely and seals them up better than the usual plungers in Europe would do, which don't have that extra rubber lip. Apparently the extraordinary demand for plungers resulted in better plungers, not in someone asking "why the heck are we so reliant on plungers?" and possibly making better toilets ;-)
    - jtms 7y ago
      It’s a plunger manufacturer conspiracy!
      - jtms 7y ago
        No room for jokes here I guess... what a fun crowd
    - rsynnott 7y ago
      I think the ship has sailed on better toilets in America, unfortunately. A big part of the problem is just that the standard waste pipe is too small AIUI.

kbcool 7y ago

Hah so true. Having lived mainly in Europe and Australia I have never once managed to clog a toilet but without fail I seem to manage to clog almost every US hotel toilet. We're not talking about a few unlucky incidents but many. Just on the general topic of the number of bathrooms increasing surely it could be related to the obesity epidemic. They do seem correlated. People getting fatter and fatter every year, they need to relieve themselves more often and of more material, this all takes time so it goes without saying they would spend more time in bathrooms.

_-o-_ 7y ago

It's really convenient compared to low water level kind. No splashes, no marks left, no time for smell to develop.

sjwright 7y ago
Much of the smell in a toilet is your butt, not the bowl. If smell is an issue, wipe sooner or do an intermediate flush. (Or take the hint and change your diet.)
- CriticalCathed 7y ago
  Are you claiming that your shit doesn't stink?
- cluoma 7y ago
  Clearly you've never experienced the pleasure of having a toilet with a 'poop shelf'.
  - Slartie 7y ago
    I must say that I find it oddly satisfying to flush down poop from such a shelf. Especially if it goes down just fine every single time and doesn't clog.
  - dirktheman 7y ago
    Dutch toilets rule! Unfortunately you see them less and less...
  - sjwright 7y ago
    I’ve used one. I didn’t see the point.

Slartie 7y ago

Yeah, I totally get what you're hinting at ;-) I stopped counting the number of times that I clogged American toilets with...let's say "substances that clearly belong in there". Seriously, am I supposed to hold it in the middle of the action and flush? Another really, really backwards thing seems to be shower fixtures. If you aren't lucky and find a modern mixing valve, you are likely doomed to experiment with various push, pull, turn-while-pull, push-while-turn-then-pull, turn-until-searing-hot-then-go-on-because-warm-comes-after-hot-on-the-scale moves to get a decent water temperature. And not only is this totally unintuitive, it also differs between every single shower in every single hotel or motel room (especially motels seem to have these weird fixtures).

StavrosK 7y ago
And not only that, but every time you turn the water off to soap yourself up, the temperature resets so you have to freeze and burn all over again! Pretty terrible design.
- kube-system 7y ago
  Americans don’t turn the water off in the middle of a shower.
  - mcv 7y ago
    You can save a lot of water that way, though.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      I could, but with water at a penny per gallon, and natural gas at a couple dollars per million BTU, it’s a cheap luxury.
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        Funny how dumping carbon into the atmosphere isn't priced in there.

mcv 7y ago

I live in Europe (Netherland) and regularly clog toilets. I don't know if my colon is unusually big, but in my experience, both deep and flat flushers are quite capable of getting clogged, though deep flushers seem more vulnerable to it than flat flushers. I suspect that with deep flushers, it may help to flush immediately and not let the turd soak up water while you add more toilet paper.

kube-system 7y ago

A persons baseline of expectations is often formed through their own experience, especially when it’s not a topic of high interest.

yostrovs 7y ago

American toilets essentially suck water, pulling everything with it. Euro toilets just dump water from above. The disadvantage of Euro toilets is that they become dirty, which is why there's always a brush nearby. Also having that step with all your poop on it just sitting there is unpleasant, at least to me.

jeltz 7y ago
Most European toilets do not have that shelf, I have only seen them in a couple of countries.
- wazoox 7y ago
  Germany, for instance. Though I had "German toilets" once in no other hotel than the Caesars Palace in Vegas.
mindthegap 7y ago
> Also having that step with all your poop on it just sitting there is unpleasant, at least to me. That's wildly exaggerating it. Normally the brush isn't really dirty and you can soak it in soapy water every couple of weeks/months and you are fine. The water pressure seems higher in Europe (or at least in Germany, where I lived before moving to the US). After you cleaned the toilet, you would normally still be able to clean the brush off with the water of the current flush (should that be needed). In fact, I find it bewildering that there is normally no brush in the US. It is unavoidable for almost all toilet types to get dirty and I find it frustrating if I can't leave the toilet how I would like to find it (clean), because there are still traces clearly visible in the toilet and no brush is available. Especially when I am visiting somewhere or we rent a vacation house with friends. Really awkward to see traces in the toilet of people who were in there before you (or the other way around).
- Someone 7y ago
  ”The water pressure seems higher in Europe” I’ve never seen pressurized tanks in Europe. They flush from a tank that isn’t directly connected to the water mains, so water pressure in the water mains doesn’t play a role. The water just falls down from the cistern to the bowl, a height difference of about half a meter for modern designs and up to 2 meters for more traditional designs. Wikipedia says “it has been found by ceramic engineers that improved waterway design is a more effective way to enhance the bowl's flushing action than high tank mounting.“ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet#Flush_tanks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet#Flush_tanks)