Are Low Flow Toilets Worth It? Myths and Facts

Saving water is a trend of recent decades. If you were born in 1990 or later, you might rarely see those obsolete water-consuming monsters that were called toilets before the low flow era. Consuming up to 6 gallons per flush, they were nothing like water-saving. Now, if you look at the top 10 toilets on Sanitary Review, you will find that all of them are low-flow.

Despite low flow toilets being mainstream now, there are still many rumors circulating, concerning their efficiency, prices, and even origins. Let’s see if they are true and whether having a LF toilet may cause any trouble.

Clogging

This legend has outlived its reasons to exist. Today’s standards of low flow have been established in 1994, when the Energy Policy Act went into action. All the new toilets installed after that had to use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush. All of them.

Indeed, the first generation of these toilets had problems with clogging. It took years of exploration and engineering to develop new flush mechanisms that make this little volume of water do its big job. Today’s low flow toilets have all it takes to flush efficiently, and drain pipes can handle the waste properly. There are very few methods to avoid low flow mainstream: find an old used toilet (why?), search for a smuggled model (again, why?), or make one with your own hands (okay, handmade art is a decent but strange reason). So there’s no need to hold on to old models.

Prices

As for now, a low flow toilet can be bought for different sums of money. The cheapest ones are the simplest, in the most popular colors, with basic flush mechanisms, and so on. More advanced models feature skirted design that makes cleaning them way easier, custom color and flush position, and stuff. So, even if you want to buy a toilet to install today, even the cheapest model you officially buy will be low-flow.

China: a Material, or a Country?

Everything is made in China – at least, so they say. No wonder there is a common stereotype that toilets are also delivered through the Pacific. Why not, if Apple or Nike can? Cannot Chinese factories make production that complies to the American law?

In fact, though, manufacturers like Kohler or Toto keep their American plants. If they move their production anywhere, logically it’s mostly Mexico. The reasons for that are obvious: while an average toilet is about half the price of a recent iPhone and may be equal to two Air Max pairs, it’s way heavier which causes logistical troubles. No wonder most toilets sold in the US are made in the US or near. Chinese toilets are found on the American market, anyway – for example, Woodbridge; their popularity, though, is rather low.

As for china as material, it’s neither better nor worse than other materials used for thrones. It would be correct to say that it’s Vitreous China, or porcelain. It’s rivaled by ceramics only, but porcelain remains the best material, especially if it has a special finish to keep the dirt away.

Low Flow Mark Means Nothing

Maybe so it is today, As we know, all the new toilets should comply with water saving conditions as stated by the EPA. So a Low Flow mark on a toilet does not make any difference from other toilets you see at the same store. There are differences beyond that, though, concerning water consumption as well. But there’s no such mark as Lower Flower or Lowest Flowest so far, so let’s deal with Low Flow.

Let It Flow

What’s your experience with low flow toilets? Or rather this question in 2021 should sound like “have you tried other toilets at all?” Despite LF being a standard now, models differ. So drop a comment to share your opinion about models you tried. You can also share this article to save it, in case you need to bust some myths and send them down the drain.