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Old 09-27-10, 10:04 AM   #18
benpope
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Location: Little Rock, AR
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I made the plunge a couple of weeks ago and everything went swimmingly. I have an old 3.5 gallon toilet from the 1960s and am in no mood to replace it, so the dual flush system made sense.

My toilet already had the modern style float and fill valve, but the flap and handle were worn out. Like Higgy, I had some trouble getting the handle off, but with a little torque it snapped into two pieces as it was so heavily corroded. The rest of the install went very easily. I ended up having the 3 1/4 inch opening, so no problems there.

Getting the flush setting right took me about a day of trial and error. The instruction manual was of little help in dealing with such a water hog, but I ended up setting the small flush near the bottom. I estimate my water savings at around 1/3 for the small flush vs the big flush. On both settings when I flush there ends up being very little water left in the bowl, so everything is working as it should.

The device and my fiddling with the fill valve fixed the flush problem that has been vexing me for the past couple of years. The tank was under-filling, causing there to not be enough water pressure to create the auto-siphon effect that makes everything go down the drain. Now on the big flush setting, I am using more water than I was before per flush, but I only have to flush once to get everything to go down. My overall toilet water use is going to go down.

Municipal water is cheap and plentiful where I live, so I don't expect to see much savings. I have been looking for other ways to reduce the amount of water I use with my toilet and have seen several recommendations to put something in the tank to displace water. This keeps the water pressure of the flush the same, but reduces the amount of water. I can't decide if this will be effective. As I understand it, the siphon effect depends on the water pressure in the bowl, so reducing the amount of water below a certain threshold isn't going to make it flush. I guess there is only one way to find out...
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