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50 years? You'd have to have perfect water for a toilet to last 50 years of residential use. 15-20 in my area and they will be calcified without water treatment

50 years? You'd have to have perfect water for a toilet to last 50 years of residential use. 15-20 in my area and they will be calcified without water treatment. A Toto Drake isn't that much more than even a cheap builder-grade unit. I've been through a number of different ones and I am a stingy tightwad; and I'd still buy a Toto. There are cheaper ones that will flush the same amount of debris, but Totos wash the bowl better; and I appreciate that as someone who doesn't like to spend a lot of time scrubbing ahem "debris". I think their flush is quieter too, but I haven't measured it.

Turing_Machine 11y ago
My last house was built in 1949, and the original toilet was working perfectly. The water quality there was far from good. Calcium deposits are what toilet bowl cleaners are for. According to my local Home Depot, a utility-grade toilet is $79, and the cheapest Toto Drake is $189. That's more than twice as much. If you estimate that there's roughly one toilet per person in the United States, an extra hundred bucks per person comes out to 30 billion dollars wasted for each replacement cycle (except in the very limited areas, like California, where these things actually make sense).
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  Not the bowl, inside the water passages, they get constricted, the toilets lose their flush action. Sure, you can religiously pour muriatic acid down the things, but that will etch away the non-glazed surfaces, and metal sanitary piping (but it's good for roots). I'm pretty happy about my Toto toilets but I'm not getting commission or anything. I wouldn't fight you over it. You enjoy your $79 HD specials and your extra hundred bucks. Try not to spend it all in one place.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    I would rather that the $30 billion dollars (minimum) be spent in a lot of places, rather than being wasted on unnecessary toilets. And no, the water passages in my 60 year old toilet weren't "constricted". It flushed fine. Likely still does. Of course, your claim that toilets last only a few years only means more money wasted on these gizmos, not less. But hey, you enjoy whatever sense of satisfaction you get out of spending money to solve a "problem" that is largely nonexistent, other than in California.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

My last house was built in 1949, and the original toilet was working perfectly. The water quality there was far from good. Calcium deposits are what toilet bowl cleaners are for. According to my local Home Depot, a utility-grade toilet is $79, and the cheapest Toto Drake is $189. That's more than twice as much. If you estimate that there's roughly one toilet per person in the United States, an extra hundred bucks per person comes out to 30 billion dollars wasted for each replacement cycle (except in the very limited areas, like California, where these things actually make sense).

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
Not the bowl, inside the water passages, they get constricted, the toilets lose their flush action. Sure, you can religiously pour muriatic acid down the things, but that will etch away the non-glazed surfaces, and metal sanitary piping (but it's good for roots). I'm pretty happy about my Toto toilets but I'm not getting commission or anything. I wouldn't fight you over it. You enjoy your $79 HD specials and your extra hundred bucks. Try not to spend it all in one place.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  I would rather that the $30 billion dollars (minimum) be spent in a lot of places, rather than being wasted on unnecessary toilets. And no, the water passages in my 60 year old toilet weren't "constricted". It flushed fine. Likely still does. Of course, your claim that toilets last only a few years only means more money wasted on these gizmos, not less. But hey, you enjoy whatever sense of satisfaction you get out of spending money to solve a "problem" that is largely nonexistent, other than in California.