Vintage Toilet Parts Are the Basis of Thriving Online Businesses
THERE you are, performing one of the most mundane of household chores: lifting the toilet tank lid to see why the toilet won’t flush. You casually lean it against the wall, and suddenly — disaster — it slides down and your lid is in several unsalvageable pieces.
As you stare at the unsightly innards of the toilet, it becomes clear there are few options: For a replacement lid for a newish toilet, you can check online. But if your toilet is more than about five to 10 years old, you can either pay to have an entirely new one installed or begin the great toilet tank lid hunt.
And it’s not just lids. If you happen to have a toilet and matching fixtures in, say, the color Orchid of Vencencia (1929-1941) or Clair de Lune Blue (1929-1957 except for the war years), you’ll have to search farther than the nearest Home Depot or Lowe’s to find the right-colored seat when the old one gives out.
But there is a whole subculture out there to service such needs. PlumbingSupply.com, based in Chico, Calif., is the largest supplier of new and old plumbing supplies in the country; its inventory includes about 8,500 used tank lids.
It started as a brick-and-mortar store in Chico in 1979, catering to local plumbers and the community, then went solely online in 2005, said its president, Aden Cullens. And business has grown as the economy picks up and people are working on their homes again, he said.
The company receives about 100 emails and fills 100 to 200 orders daily, 10 to 20 for toilet seats alone.
“And whenever we can’t find the original product, we try to find a modern brand that’s equivalent,” he said.
Most tank lids run in the $60-to-$80 range, though at the high end, a kidney-bean-shaped French vanilla lid from 1931 costs $697.30. The seats can go as high as $180 (colored, 1960s), but they average $20 to $60, Mr. Cullens said. The tank lids are mostly used, but the seats are newly manufactured to match old colors.
Perhaps because those who run such services are dealing with a particularly intimate, yet necessary, part of life, some suppliers offer not just products but also jokes, advice and insights on their websites.
Gary Tjader, of Los Altos, Calif., founder of ThisOldToilet.com, for example, has a page devoted to toilet trivia tips and myths. Here he debunks the myth that Sir Thomas Crapper invented the toilet.
Mr. Tjader has been in the business of plumbing supplies all his life. About 15 years ago, he was helping out with plumbing advice on several websites, and “a recurring question was, Where do I get a tank lid? I knew where stacks of these were. I responded to one, asking the brand of the toilet, and he came by and bought it for $100. And it just rolled on from there.”
He sells only the porcelain parts of the toilets, not the innards. He figures he now has about 2,000 tank lids in stock, and is regularly resupplied by plumbers, salvage places and once in a while, a lucky find by the side of the road.
“I was driving to the hardware store and someone put out a pedestal tank and tank lid,” he said, noting that it was a particularly desirable model from the 1990s. He also runs a side business, toiletsalvage.com (closed until September), where local people pay him $17 per toilet (additional toilets get a discount) to recycle toilets instead of having them dumped in landfills.
“I harvest the parts and then take the rest to recycling,” he said.
If he doesn’t have a part, he knows where to look, but even with all his sources, he’s not always successful. Bill Janssen, of Fairfax County, Va., turned to Mr. Tjader in his search for 1950s Ming Green toilet to replace one that developed a leak.
His plumber warned that the toilet might break if he removed it. But Mr. Janssen needs to fix the problem and has been scouring the Internet for an appropriate model. “There was one on eBay, but it was already sold by the time I looked,” he said. Mr. Tjader estimated that the fixture he needed would cost almost $800.
The cost — plus shipping and installation — is sobering. But Mr. Janssen has lived in his 1950s house for about 30 years and “we’ve sort of grown to like” the green, he said. “And besides, the sink is Ming Green, the tub is Ming Green.”
Fortunately, his other bathroom has white fixtures.
Another option is TheAnswerLine.com, which sells parts and also has an extensive database for consumers and plumbers to search for particular items for showers, tub and sinks as well as toilets. The site is free for limited use, but membership costs $15 for three days up to $100 a month.
“A lot of people are trying to maintain continuity with design,” said the site’s founder, J. P. Shields, who grew up in a family that was involved in the plumbing business. “If you have a pink bathroom and put in a white toilet, when you go to sell the house, you’ll need to redo.”
Aesthetics aside, many people will argue that instead of looking to replace that old toilet with the same model that may use seven gallons of water (those made in the 1920s-1950s) five gallons (1960s-1970s) or 3.5 gallons (1982-1994), one should install a low-flow toilet. The federal Energy Policy of 1992 required that by 1994, all new toilets for consumers could use only 1.6 gallons. California, Georgia, Texas and New York City mandate 1.28 gallons.
Saving water is good. But the cost of swapping out an old toilet and perhaps other fixtures that match — or the floor if it doesn’t fit the footprint of the new model — might be more than some people want to invest.
It’s possible, Mr. Cullens suggested, to install some kind of dual-flush valve that, as he delicately put it, “uses a small amount of liquid to clean away a little and a large amount of liquid to clean away a lot more.”
But James Walsh, vice president of residential chinaware and commercial products at American Standard, didn’t advise putting such flush valves in old toilets.
“You can’t just cut water usage down,” he said. “It has to be engineered. I think you’re asking for a lot of trouble. You really need to get a new toilet.”
Mr. Walsh, also known as Professor Toilet at professortoilet.com, acknowledged that the low-flush toilet had an image problem, but said it stemmed from outdated information.
When the Energy Policy Act was passed, toilet manufacturers weren’t prepared, and the low-flow toilets that were manufactured didn’t work that well, he said. But by the early 2000s, technology had progressed, he said, and now low-flow toilets no longer deserved a bad name.
Replacing an old toilet with a new one can run as low as $150 and as high as $4,200 for the “spa” toilet that includes a seat that heats up, raises and lowers and that offers lots of bodily cleaning features.
But options exist for those simply wanting to keep their old model going — and looking as good as possible. And there’s no need to be embarrassed. Just check Mr. Tjader’s website to see the explanations customers have given for needing a new tank lid.
His favorite: “This is the last time I let my sister paint my bathroom while drinking.”
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/your-money/what-to-do-when-a-beloved-porcelain-throne-needs-parts.html?ref=your-money&_r=0
by Alina Tugend
http://www.thisoldtoilet.com
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