Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Lavatory Experiments: The Latest in Toilet Tech - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

It is perhaps not polite, in certain circles, to talk about toilets. But nevertheless they represent an area of technology that we all encounter daily. While the basics of the commode haven't changed much in recent decades, innovators are constantly chipping away at porcelain tradition, bringing high technology to bear. And in developing countries, toilets are no laughing matter. Basic sanitation continues to be an urgent public health issue in much of the world. So squeamishness be damned! We take a look at some toilet tech from around the globe.







Designers Elliott Whiteley and Gareth Humphreys came up with the Iota folding toilet concept while studying Product Design at The University of Huddersfield in England. The toilets folds itself up to flush and stays folded when not in use, conserving water and space.

It's hard to argue with this idea. The Fresh Air Plus toilet seat, installed atop your regular toilet, uses a built-in fan to whisk away air and odors before they ever leave the bowl proper. The trick? A ventilation tube that shuttles the air out of the toilet, through the wall, and ideally out of the house entirely. Don't tell the neighbors.

Plumbing manufacturer Kohler has similar ideas in mind with its Purefresh toilet seat, which debuted last year. The Purefresh seat also uses a fan system, but replaces the ventilation tube with a battery-powered carbon filter and scent pack system to deodorize air. Among your scent pack options: Garden Waterfall, Soft and Fresh Laundry, and something called Avacado Spa. You also get an LED light for nighttime excursions.




Anyone who has ever cleaned a bathroom knows that toilets really are designed for sitting. Males, quite frankly, mess up the whole system when they stand and aim. The Main Drain attempts to solve the problem by attaching an adjustable urinal to the side of your toilet. The receiving unit is designed to reduce splashing, and the articulated arm swings the entire unit out of the way when it's time to, you know, sit.




For much of the developing world, toilet technology is no joke. In 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored a design contest called The Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, in an effort to improve sanitary conditions for those living without plumbing or electricity. Among the submitted designs, the Blue Diversion toilet can be fitted over existing pit latrines and uses solar-powered pumps and filters to isolate waste while recycling flush water.




Clearly, toilet technology remains an important area of research for very practical public health reasons. On the other hand, this is the 21st century, so we have to worry about weirdness, too. For instance, so-called "enhanced toilets" -- with bidet, fragrance and even music functions -- are very popular in Japan and often wired into smart home networks. As such they're technically vulnerable to, yes, hacking. Security company Trustwave recently issued an advisory on the Bluetooth-enabled Satis brand toilet: "Attackers could cause the unit to unexpectedly open/close the lid, activate bidet or air-dry functions, causing discomfort or distress to user." So, heads up on that.

source: http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/lavatory-experiments-the-latest-in-toilet-tech-150720.htm
by Glenn McDonald

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Your Home: Shop around and save by installing a water-efficient toilet - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

A WaterSense toilet must use no more than 4.8 lites for a single-flush toilet and six litres for the higher volume flush and 4.1 litres for the lower volume flush for a dual-flush toilet.

If you still have an old 13-litre or 18-litre toilet in your home, you could save a lot of water by switching to a more efficient model that uses six litres or less.

The amount of water you save by switching will depend on the flush volume of your existing toilet and how often it is flushed.

For example, a family of four that replaces an 18-L flush with a six-litre model, and typically flushes the toilet 15 times per day, can expect to save about 180 litres per day (or the amount to fill a typical bathtub).

A key difference between old toilets and new ones is that the tank and bowl have been redesigned to provide the same or better flush performance with less water.

If you are shopping for a new toilet, you will find a variety of water-efficient makes and models available.

In addition to all the different toilet designs, there are also five common “flushes” available: gravity, vacuum-assist, pressure-assist, tip-bucket and dual flush.

Conventional toilets usually range in price from less than $100 to more than $1,000, but an average two-piece toilet will cost between $150 and $200, and you can expect to pay between $280 and $500 for a dual flush toilet.

One-piece or designer toilets tend to cost more than standard two-piece close-coupled models depending on the options included such as heated seats.

Keep in mind that paying more for a toilet doesn’t necessarily mean it will perform better than a less expensive model.

In fact, before you go shopping, you might want to review the results the Maximum Performance (MaP) Testing of Toilets study that tested and rated the performance of more than 3,000 toilets.

Another option is to choose any toilet model that has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) WaterSense program.

To qualify as a WaterSense toilet, it must use no more than 4.8 litres for a single-flush toilet and six litres for the higher volume flush and 4.1 litres for the lower volume flush for a dual-flush toilet.

A WaterSense labelled toilet must also be able to flush at least 350 grams of waste in a single flush which is generally more than sufficient for the vast majority of households.

Other things to look for when buying a new toilet are an adequate warranty and the availability of a certified replacement flapper that is designed specifically for your toilet type. (Note that not all toilets use flappers.)

Toilet flappers are vital to the performance of your toilet and should be replaced about every five years because they tend to deteriorate over time and cause leaking.

Leaking flappers can waste thousands of litres of water each year, so it’s a good idea to check for leaks at the same time you check your smoke detectors.

Just add some food colouring in the tank and wait 15 minutes. If the colour has moved into the bowl without you flushing it, you have a leak. It’s wise to shop around before choosing a new toilet. But, no matter what toilet you choose, be sure to choose one with a WaterSense Logo or equivalent.

source: http://www.lfpress.com/2015/10/08/your-home-shop-around-and-save-by-installing-a-water-efficient-toilet

by Christina Haddad

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - The Best Five Toilets in the United States - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

When you go to the restroom to take care of business, you might not be thinking about the room itself, unless it’s bad. Well lucky for you, there are people who care about restrooms. Like many rooms, the comfort of a restroom is in the details, this years top water closets offer toilets for toddlers, and color coded water.

BLOG: ‘Toylet’ Turns Bathroom into an Arcade

1. Field Museum Chicago

This year’s top restroom is located in the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago museum’s restroom ceiling has a night sky decor that is said to be, “soothing” and as an added bonus it absorbs sound. The restrooms have 3,500 visitors per day and are cleaned every hour. They offer nursing rooms with their own sink and sofa and family restrooms with toddler-sized toilets .Picture at top

2. Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel

The second best place to answer the call of nature in 2011, is in Arlington, Virginia at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel. This toilet is very different from the one in the Windy City. Created by an architect and interior designer the restroom plays with light and special effects to secure second place. The restroom features, “walls ablaze with sunset tones of orange and gold and the mirrors above feature lit bird silhouettes,” says BestRestroom.com. The cleverest feature are the faucets. They’re no-touch automatic, and light the water red or blue to indicate hot or cold water.

BLOG: Who Invented the Toilet?

3. Scottsdale Center for Performing Art

Third is a restroom in Scottsdale, Arizona and the Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts. “The loo is sleek and modern with terrazzo flooring, glass-tiled walls and spacious, stainless steel stalls,” says BestRestroom. As with the Virginian lavatory, this one has an intricate lighting system continuously shifting the colors of the space from, “cool blues and greens to warm golds and reds.”

WATCH VIDEO: What happens to the stuff you flush? Visit a new, high-tech wastewater treatment plant to get the answer.

In fourth and fifth places are Don’s Johns luxury washroom trailer and a pot in Huntsville, Utah at the Snowbasin Ski Resort. The luxury trailer is a fully mobile commode, commissioned for the 2009 inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama. It contains hardwood floors, recessed lighting and an HDTV! It’s quite the porta-potty. Though, not one to be outdone by other powder rooms, Snowbasin’s water closet’s feature, “Italian Carrera marble, Barovier, Tosso & Moscatelli chandeliers crafted from bronze and crystal, floor-to-ceiling commodes, beautifully inlaid African Anegre wood and hand-painted walls,” according to BestRestroom.com.

Cintas, sponsors America’s Best Restroom, holds this contest annually. Each year, restrooms are nominated and voted upon online. Any public restroom is eligible. Once nominees are reviewed, a committee announces the ten finalists and online voting begins. The winners are announced in September at which time they are presented with, “the coveted America’s Best Restroom plaque of recognition,” according to Cintas. Photos & Content: AFP, Cintas’ BestRestroom.com

source: http://news.discovery.com/human/top-toilets-united-states-111021.htm

by Trace Dominguez

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Is this the world's most advanced toilet? - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

U.S. researchers have developed a toilet that could help transform the sanitation and waste industry. 

Designed by a team at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Sol-Char toilet uses concentrated solar energy to transform human waste into useful and sellable end products such as solid fuel, fertilizer and heat.

The toilet operates off grid without piped water or sewage. The team received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge."

"This is really trying to address the issue of management of faecal sludge," Karl Linden, Sol-Char Sanitation's principal investigator told CNBC in a phone interview.

Sol-Char Sanitation

"The idea would be if we could treat the waste on site, in real time and make it safe to handle, then that would be a great step for the protection of public health in many of these areas," he added.

Linden, who is also a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that in many communities around the world, the practice of maintaining and emptying toilet latrines and pits was unsanitary and unsafe.

The World Banks says on average, poor sanitation costs countries 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP); in India, for example, it costs $54 billion a year. Furthermore, 2.4 billion people across the planet, "do not have access to basic sanitation," according to the World Health Organisation.

The prototype toilet designed by Linden and his team is suitable for a family of four. Parabolic dishes are used to harness the sunlight on what Sol-Char describe as a "small focal point."

Fiber optic cables transmit this light to a "reaction chamber" where faecal matter is turned into usable by-products. Urine, once treated, can also be used as a fertilizer.

"From four to six people it's actually not that much that comes out – it might be one hundred grams, a few hundred grams, that come out of that, but as you collect it over time you can create value," Linden said.

"You could either use that in agriculture and it's good for improving the water holding capacity of soils; it's good for nutrient availability… and creates good soil structure," he added.

Solar power is an increasingly important part of the global energy mix and last year the International Energy Agency said the sun could be the world's largest source of electricity by 2050.

"Solar is an ideal energy source… there's really a renaissance in solar energy today," Linden said. "The way we can collect it is very efficient and it's a free energy source," he added.

Linden did admit however that using solar power presented own challenges. "It's certainly not going to be a solution for areas that have high cloud cover and a long, long rainy season," he said.

"We've done some analysis looking at patterns of light coverage in different parts of the world and we've come up with a map of where our toilet could work well… North Africa, the Middle East, parts of India, some parts in the Arctic, say, where there's a lot of sunlight."

Linden said that it would cost a family of four around $12,000 to buy a first-generation toilet, and said that Sol-Char Sanitation's main goal was driving that cost down. It is hoped that a range of factors – from scaling up production to using different manufacturing methods and more affordable materials – will help to do just that.

source: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/21/is-this-the-worlds-most-advanced-toilet.html

by Anmar Frangoul

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Father and son build vehicles for Hampdenfest's Toilet Races - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

Matthew Baker, 10, is too young to compete in the upcoming Toilet Races during Hampdenfest on Sept. 19. According to the rules, which his father wrote, contestants must be 18 or older.

When asked if he agrees with that rule, Matthew said, "Not really, but I get it."

There's no law against the Hampden boy building the race cars, however. That's what Matthew was doing Sept. 10 under the watchful eye of his father, artist Steve Baker, founder and organizer of the sixth annual Toilet Races and owner of Wholly Terra, an art studio on Chestnut Avenue.

Working out of a nearby garage, Matthew donned a protective helmet and gloves and began to weld parts together for an ambitious racing vehicle with twin toilet tanks, which his father jokingly referred to as a V–twin engine. It's one of several soapbox derby-style cars that the Bakers have been building.

"For the past few weeks, this has been our project," Steve Baker said.

Matthew Baker, 10, rides a toilet racer that he built with the help of his father, Steve Baker, organizer of the Hampdenfest Toilet Races. A burlesque troupe will race it Sept. 19 during the festival.

 (Photo by Steve Baker)

The Toilet Races, a series of heats leading up to the championship race, start at Chestnut and West 36th Street, known as The Avenue. It's all downhill from there, as contestants get a starting push from their supporters and roll down Chestnut Avenue as fast as they can for several blocks to the finish line.

Several thousand spectators are expected to line both sides of Chestnut for the races, from 3-5 p.m., based on crowd estimates in years past.

Hampdenfest and its main event, the Toilet Races, are looking to rebound from last year, when the small neighborhood festival nearly was canceled because it conflicted with Baltimore's nationally publicized Sailabration. The date of Hampdenfest had to be changed at the proverbial last minute, because city officials said they lacked the manpower and resources to provide security and other support services for Hampdenfest and Sailabration.

the Toilet Races, and he had to turn those duties over because he had a scheduling conflict of his own.

This year, Baker is back in business as organizer and race car builder, but unlike his son he has no desire to personally ride one of their contraptions in the Toilet Races.

"Some other fool can ride it down the street," he said, recalling that there have been two crashes in the contest over the years — one of them involving him as the driver in the 2012 Toilet Races. He said he was "cruising pretty fast," gaining ground on the racer ahead of him, when he had to slam on his brakes, causing the vehicle and its built-in toilet tank to flip over on top of him.

Event info: Hampdenfest in downtown Hampden, 36th Street

The tank didn't just break — "it exploded," he said. "It totally blew apart. I was bruised for a week. I still have nightmares."

Bawdy contestants

But Baker has plenty else to keep him busy. He has already delivered one of his son's homemade racers to a troupe of burlesque queens. Several members of the troupe, Bawdy Shop Burlesque, decorated the racer with glitter in leader Ruby Rockafella's backyard in Hamilton last weekend, and they plan to enter it as a team in the Toilet Races.

"It's a single-seater. It looks like a sporty tricycle with a toilet on it," said Rockafella, who would give only her stage name.

The burlesque festival, called "The Avenue Meets the Strip," will run from 8-11 p.m., with an adults-only burlesque show in Gallery 788, located at 3602 Hickory Ave., followed by a glitter parade on West 36th Street and free kazoos for the crowd.In conjunction with Hampdenfest, Bawdy Shop Burlesque, which debuted last year with a show at the Ottobar in Remington, plans to stage its own post-race festival of burlesque and variety arts, featuring everything from belly dancing to carnival-style "side show" acts, including performers lying on a bed of nails.

"We love and celebrate everything about Baltimore," said Rockafella, whose troupe was invited to enter last year's Toilet Races, but was booked for a Bawdy Shop Burlesque show. "Hampden happens to be a place we go a lot. We all get our hair done in Hampden."

Rockafella said Bawdy Shop Burlesque is well-suited for Hampdenfest and the Toilet Races.

"We are in love with toilet humor," she said. "We are completely ridiculous people. It's a perfect fit. What is more bawdy that riding down the street on a toilet?"

Steve Baker, left, organizer of the Hampdenfest Toilet Races, and his son, Matthew, 10, sit in a vehicle they are building for this year's races, at their garage in Hampden Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015. Steve does not race because he is the organizer and Matthew is too young to race, so the vehicle will be raced by a person who has not yet been chosen.

 (Steve Ruark / Baltimore Sun Media Group)

Many of the contestants will be entering their own homemade racers, including Chris Doiron, of Hampden, new owner of Luigi's restaurant on The Avenue. He has competed in the Toilet Races every year, with a variety of creative entries, including an outhouse with a shingled roof, a claw foot bathtub with a toilet sidecar, and the Leaky Tiki, a Tiki bar urinal raised to the right height, "if you needed to go," he said.

"None of his racers go farther than the first round," Baker said. "It's all style."

Doiron won't deny that.

"I build things that are impossibly slow," he said.

Doiron wouldn't describe this year's entry.

"It's top secret," he said, "because I haven't made it yet."

But he dropped two hints.

"I guarantee it'll be slow as molasses," he said. "It'll definitely have a cooler attached to it."

Pride and glory

As for Matthew, "I make them for fun and speed.""He's just doing it for fun," said Matthew Baker, a fifth grader at the Jemicy School, who has become a veteran observer of the Toilet Races. "Some people really amp it up and get soapbox derby wheels. They're aiming to win. It's really fun to see what different people make."

Although he enjoys welding and "the mechanics" of building racers, Matthew isn't sure what he wants to be when he grows up. He's also really into rock climbing and said, "I'd like to be a climbing coach."

But he admires well-built toilet racers and enjoys being part of the action.

"I get a lot of compliments," he said. "When I watch (the races), I sometimes see my friends in the crowd. They think it's actually pretty cool."

His father said building toilet races isn't as oddball as some might think for a family-affair project.

"It lends itself to a very good thought process" for children, Baker said. "Matthew is one of the few kids in his class who knows how to build things. You appreciate good craft because you've done it."

By Larry PerlBaltimore Messenger
http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Worlds Craziest Toilet Bowls - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

Worlds Craziest Toilet Bowls - What is your favorite

source: http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/worlds-craziest-toilet-bowls/22/

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