Friendly flushing: Water-efficient toilets help make sustainable homes

Northwestern.edu ^ | DEC 06, 2012 | MELODY CHANDLERAND, WILL GRUNEWALD

[Adams]

Toto. Great band. Great dog. Amazing toilet.

[EternalVigilance]

Now we will require every resident to treat his own sewage in his back yard (or front yard if he doesn't have a back yard)

Funny you should say that. Our town is in the process of installing septic tanks in every yard right now. All hooked into the system to take away liquid waste, yes, but nonetheless we will henceforth be treating our sewage in our back or front yards. All prompted by EPA regulations, and funded primarily with fedgov grants and loans, of course.

What's ironic is that when they were digging the hole to put in the new tank, they had to first dig up the perfectly good septic tank that was still in the ground, disconnected a couple of decades ago by government edict.

[cableguymn]

Ever watch married with children?

Remember when Al got the new toilet and when he flushed it the fountain stopped?

Now that’s what I am talking about!

[EQAndyBuzz]

Instead of Chinese solar panels we should be building desalinization plants. This will fix the problem of the coming floods due to global warming.

We could run these plants from the energy that would be produced by burning garbage at very high temperatures. Plus because it would be burned at a high temperature, it wouldn’t affect the environment.

However, in saying that, should global warming strike, we could lower the temps a bit, let the emissions go into the atmosphere creating smog which would lower the temperature.

Wow. I just fixed the worlds energy and water problems and in the process gave us back our 7 gallon behemoth toilets. Butt seriously, I miss the days when I would wake up, go to the bathroom and the first thing I would hear is, “Take your best shot.”

[Flick Lives]

"We have the biggest supply on the continent, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be there forever – and especially with global climate change and all this evaporation and little precipitation that could build the water back up. So we need to conserve.” Studies show that Great Lakes water levels are dropping toward record lows.

Yes, because as everyone knows, once water is flushed down a toilet, it's gone! *sheesh*

[Navy Patriot]

...by government edict.

We will move bravely forward to a stone age civilization.

[Thrownatbirth]

she collected waste from participants for a three- month period

Nan Klehm would be a hit on one of those Euro fetish websites.

[KoRn]

"Pretty soon to have the quality of life most middle, even lower middle class Americans had in the 80’s you’ll need to make over 600K a year."

Yeah..... Back when $50k per year USED to be GOOD money..... Now days that salary will have you living paycheck to paycheck with near zero savings, as much as it costs just to live, unless you have a spouse earning similar money(or sadly shacking up with a gal with 8 kids and getting government handouts). Sucks to be 'middle classed' in the year of 2012. All the while .gov(at ALL LEVELS) and its tyrannical policies/regulations make upward mobility increasingly difficult.

I've done ok working in IT for most of the past 10 years, and my wife working in healthcare. Lately, more than once, I've contemplated moving to the dark side and writing spyware/adware or something. I suppose that would beat running a Still, or growing a pot-field on the side.... lol

[LongWayHome]

I picked up 2 big old 1970s 5 gallon flushers at the local old parts place & put some new guts in them & they flush anything. They are in excellent shape. I will never replace them.

[BuffaloJack]

My one toilet is over 60 years old, uses 3 gallons per flush and the only thing I’ve ever had to do is replace the rubber seals every 10 or 15 years or so when they harden up. I like it and it will handle anything that gets into the bowl from Mr. Stinky to the occasional diaper. I also have one of those water efficient ones in my other bathroom and I fail to see the economy of flushing 3 or 4 times to clear the bowl.

[cableguymn]

We have one that has a rather long pipe run with just enough drop to pass code.. in 1958...

The 1.6 GPF plugged all the time. If not the toilet it’s self it would clog in the pipe.

I acquired a new 5 gpf toilet (it pays to know people in the business. it was collecting dust in the back of the shop)

But now when you flush that thing, water pressure in the house (I have a private well) drops, lights dim as the pump tries to keep up and doors to the bathroom rattle. It’s been there a little over a month. Haven’t needed the plunger or the snake since.

[headstamp 2]

“After a visit to the dry toilet, users cover their wastes with a new layer of carbon- rich material. Once the bucket is full, the contents can be dumped out and composted. “

Yeah, just throw it out a window like in the middle ages.

[cableguymn]

ever see a 5 gallon pail? you have seen a dry toilet.

[JRandomFreeper]

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

The Romans had the clean water and sanitation thing right. Europe has played with the idea but... I'm not sure they really understand it.

/johnny

[cableguymn]

My inlaws live in the mountains.. They have no utilities. They have a fresh water spring.

I won’t name the location or even the state because they still go out to a out house and s%^t in a hole.

probably illegal now.

[43north]

I love these kinds of threads. They illustrate the absolute insanity of the libtard goobermint butt smoochers.

I have two 1.6 gallon toilets and one 3 gallon. You guessed it - after my morning “Hallelujah!” in one of the tiny water toilets it requires two flushes to send it on the way to the septic. The 3 gallon toilet requires one flush every time. Do the math.

I have a 525 ft. deep well that never runs dry. Why should I care about water conservation?

[llevrok]

But it takes water to get the big logs to go down

I held out getting a low flow toilet when we re-modeled one of our two bath rooms. I worried about frquent log jams (as usually happens with low flow crappers) But the spousal unit taked me into it for design reasons.

A compromised was reached. My plumber installed one that some how "collects" pressure from the incoming water line. When you flush, it sounds like firing a torepedo from a Los Angeles class nuclear attack sub.

I some times have visions of the workers at the local water treatment plant yelling "INCOMING!!!" when I launch my morning projectile.

[Husker24]

You just flush 6 times, you’ll end up useing more water than a normal toilet.

[Husker24]

You just flush 6 times, you’ll end up useing more water than a normal toilet.

[Chickensoup]

I dont think privies are illegal. Had one over forty years ago at my first house. I liked it. The problem with privies is that most people forgot that privies-users had in house comodes and slopjugs in the old days. So no one ran out where it was night or when they were sick. Instead they used the comode and cleaned them out and walked it to the privie in the am.

A clean airy privy that is well limed and moved annually is a goood think. I think peple used to plant daylilies over the old privy site which gave them the vulgar name of Sh**house Roses in some parts of the country.

I am a wealth of useless information.