Priscilla Moore
RE/MAX Allegiance
5641 Burke Centre Parkway, Burke, VA22015
Priscilla MooreO: 703-250-6673C: 703-298-2641

Today's News and Features

Toilet Talk 101: Sorting Out the Facts on HETs and MaP Rankings

Thursday, July 23, 2015

By John Voket

Every once in a while, I need to talk about toilets - because these fixtures do malfunction, and are also occasionally replaced because of age or the desire to change a bathroom design or add water-saving functionality.

According to The Family Handyman Magazine, your toilet accounts for a third of your household water use. So high-efficiency toilets (HET) that use 1.28 gallons or less can save 4,000 gallons of water per person annually, and some water utilities offer rebates if you install one.

The site's plumbers report more staining and clogging problems with some high-efficiency models, so check independent test results before you buy. The Maximum Performance (MaP) testing project provides performance information on over 2,000 different tank-type toilet fixture models - more than half being tank-type WaterSense-certified high-efficiency toilets (HETs).

Go to map-testing.com for the very latest MaP listings of tank-type and flushometer fixtures, as well as access to a full-featured 'search tool'.

Familyhandyman.com also offers a virtual handbook on how to buy the best toilet for your home, including expert advice on features like flushing mechanisms, sizes, shapes, noise, comfort, cleanability and water saving efficiency.

Speaking of water saving, Expert Plumbing Service has been serving Illinois'  Will, Cook and Dupage counties for three decades. The 'Experts' say demand for water-saving toilets began in the early 1994, when new laws limited new toilets to 1.6 gallons per flush (GPFs).

Since then, HET (High Efficiency Toilets) Toilets that meet the EPA’s WaterSense requirements using just 1.28 gallons or less per flush have become very popular as new fixtures and replacements.

Among the mid-line units Expert Plumbing Service recommends is the Kohler Cimarron Comfort Height 1.28 Elongated Toilet in a choice of two- or one-piece models ($295 – $678). The redesigned fixture with its ADA-compliant “Comfort-Height” seat and new "Class Five" 1.28 GPF "power flush" feature is easy to install and quickly becoming a favorite among their customers.

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