[LeviDIY]

I'm curious as to people's thoughts/experiences with Flapperless toilets... I'm specifically referring to Glacier Bay (HD brand) all in one flapperless system, but I've heard it called Niagra's as well.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...oductId=100014764&N=10000003+90043+503484+835

I'm a couple days from putting in the new toilet (as part of a larger bathroom remodel) and have the toilet in the box in my dining room as we speak. I was at HD yesterday picking up some supplies for another project, and noticed there was a "class" going on about toilet installation.. I dropped by and it was only me, so had the guy's attention... he raised some concerns about the Glacier Bay model I had (on the small end and flapperless in general) which, of course, has me now thinking I should return before I even begin to install...

Thoughts? Experiences? Good? Bad?

 

[nap]

not really familiar with a flapperless toilet but I do not see any advantage to it. The water flow into the bowl is determined by the size of the passage between the tank and the bowl. It matters not if you dump the water from a separate tank such as with a flapperless or use a conventional flapper, the water can only flow as fast as that passage will allow. I would think buying a toilet with a large passageway would be more important than the inclusion of the flapperless apparatus.

 

[plumber Jim]

Glacier bay is junk.. I have seen one of them.. I would be a quality name brand toilet.

 

[DUDE!]

http://forum.doityourself.com/toile...less-toilet-anyone-have-experience-these.html
well, I googled, had not heard of this type toilet, were good replies about the toilet style, I seen a price on web being $100, while not chicken feed, not the end of the world if you try and decide you don't like it, sorry I couldn't be more helpful to you.

 

[joasis]

Looks like it will work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P-goclhA2A

As a builder, I prefer a conventional system, but for $100, how can it go wrong?

 

[JDC]

If I were going to use store brand fixtures such as HD's Glacier Bay, I'd instead go to Ferguson Supply and use their Proflow fixtures. I've seen nothing but headaches with Glacier Bay fixtures.

Flapperless toilets....hmmm...interesting though I too see little advantage to them. I guess not having to change a flapper could be considered an advantage. Might save ya bout 15 seconds in the day.

Enjoying the surf and sand....this is JDC over and out

 

[LeviDIY]

Thanks for the links and thoughts... joasis.. you are right, its isn't chicken feed, but I'm gonna go ahead and install, and for under $100, if I HATE it, it won't kill me, so not gonna stress about it, but curious to hear more experiences/thoughts (and isn't it amazing what you can find on YouTube?).

Plus, this is in a guest/2nd bathroom, so I'm not as worried about "capacity" - which was a part of the concerns in that thread over at doityourself.com (thanks DUDE!, very good find).

I'm curious if anyone on here has used them, serviced them? Are they a "new" product, hence not as much experience... I'm wondering if the pros are staying away, does that mean something?

 

[JDC]

To be very honest, I've never seen a toilet like that before. I just watched the youtube video and it is an interesting concept. I would guess that the powers that be are worried about wasting water through leaky flappers and came up with the "bucket tank". Like I said, interesting concept. I'm sitting on the balcony of my condo in Florida right now so it was a bit difficult to see everything in the tank, but...I wonder if there are more expensive and involved parts to replace when the time comes. I guess time will tell.

It takes some of us (myself included) awhile to come around to accepting that new ideas are as good if not better than the old way of doing things. Just take a look at PEX, sharkbite fittings, pro press fittings and the like. Go back a few more years and you'll find that some of the old school plumbers took awhile to accept PVC as a good type of pipe. Of course all this doubt is with good reason....consider Blue Max, Qest and the like.

Keep us posted on how the toilet functions. I'm going to delve a little more into it after I get home from vacation.

Yes folks, old JDC is enjoying the surf and sand...just cruising the 'net while waiting for Mrs JDC to get her butt out of bed. Lazy lazy lazy I tell ya! :whistling2:

 

[Yoyizit]

Pretend you need a Glacier Bay part and try to get it. I doubt they have a bricks-and-mortar address anywhere. It's just strange.

 

[LeviDIY]

Installed!

Hey all, thanks for the advice and thoughts on the Flaperless system... this was part of a complete bathroom reno I'm in the home stretch of (will do a project gallery soon), so took a bit till I got to the toilet install.

Put it in last night (after some concerns over the condition of the existing flange: http://www.diychatroom.com/f7/toilet-flange-questions-45644/)

Here it is, installed, water hooked up and filled:

This is a Glacier Bay simple, cheapo all in one model from Home Depot.. under $100, and as mentioned by someone else in the thread, worth it to try, and if I hate it, not too much $$ flushed down the pipe (sorry... I had to :no.

Initial thoughts after 5-6 test flushes and 1 real one eek:
- Quiet! I think the plastic bucket actually eliminates a lot of "ambient" sounds of water filling the porcelain tank.
- Already I can see the lack of "moving parts" that I hope means less maintenance moving forward.
- Concerned with flushing power/force... this may be attributable to several variables, one of which is the flapperless system, but also pipe size, GPF, etc.
- The model I bought is obviously low end.. inlcuded seat is not very sturdy, but easily replaced. The water shut off float also seems to be quite flimsy.. will have to keep an eye on that, as if that isn't any good, kinda defeats the purpose of a more water efficient system!

 

[pgalwith]

Flapperless toilet

I have one installed in a home on a well with iron in the water. House was left for several months, so iron scale built up in the pipes. So with conventional toilet I get a stain from the water. With the new flapperless, the water does not stain the ceramic, as it is in the plastic tank as shown in previous post. It is quieter and flushes great. With my circumstances I am thinking of getting another to eliminate the iron stains that are hard to get rid of.

 

[Jim F]

That is an interesting design. I haven't seen tank guts like that before. In general you get what you pay for and 100 is pretty cheap for a toilet. I have a 70 dollar all-in-one in my upstairs bathroom and honestly my only complaint is the cheesy toilet seat that came with it which will not stay tightened. Ironically though, 3-4 years later it is still in use including the cheesy seat.

 

[Alan]

I put one of those in for a customer once. I wasn't impressed. :no:

Not to mention glacier bay is pretty much bargain barrel stuff. As much as I hate Ferguson, I have to agree with the reccomendation to buy a pro-flo if price is an issue.

 

[pgalwith]

Flapperless toilet

Well, I know it is a cheap toilet. But for my iron coated pipes it seems to be working better than the regular flush with the stain it produces.
I don't enjoy trying to get the stain out. ;o)

 

[willywillya]

Put it in. . .

Levi,

My son and daughter-in-law have a great below market rental and hate to bother the landlord, so they do minor repairs themselves. Everytime I used the thirty year old toilet I would offer to put in a new one if they wanted to pay for materials. My son decided to surprise his wonderful wife (who hated the decrepit thing more than I did) for her birthday.

Now I am a contractor and tend to avoid the cheap stuff for the headaches it causes me; returns etc. But some customers have surprised me with some of the GB products and I have found them serviceable. I went after a low end Kohler but when I checked out the flapperless GB toilet I was captivated: it was so simple it was eloquent. I can't tell you how many flappers I have replaced. . .the extra force of the cascading water, not to mention no tank condensation. The salesman told me that complaints and returns were few.

Standard installation, though I did send my son off for a twelve inch supply line. Covered the old footprint.

My grandaughters put it right to the test; reams of toilet paper, the whole bit. Worked like a charm. Everybody is happy three weeks later. I will say though that it streaks, but it seems that they all do.

I would say, 'put it in', without worries.

Willy

P.S. Hey another thing which I really liked: Rather than the round, spongy traditional donut shaped seal which most traditional toilets place between the tank and the bowl (and often allows the tank to rock), this toilet has a nice soft urethane gasket which seals between two flat surfaces---solid, no rocking. AND the mounting holes are slotted so that you can adjust the tank up to the back wall of the bathroom. Nice bit of engineering by someone.

 

[Homerepairguy]

Levi,
Since you already bought it and installed it, hope it works out well for you.

My initial impression is that the flush handle must have a lot of stress on it with 1.6 gallons of water to dump. Plus in the two youtube videos I watched, the water bin swings back to normal position with a vengeance which seems to put further stresses on the handle assembly. Hope your handle and pivot assembly holds up for a long time. My biggest concern would be that my local hardware store will not carry replacement parts and if HomeDepot is out of stock, then it might be a long wait.

Best of luck,
HRG

 

[LeviDIY]

Hey guys - an old thread.. but the update is, its been installed for about 2 years now.. its not in our prmiary bathroom, but still gets a lot of use... not 1 problem with the flushing system or handle.

@homerepairguy - the handle concerns you mention make sense, but I haven't had any problems thus far.

The oly "problem" is that the included seat with the toilet is really crap, but that's as simple as buying a better quality one

 

[md2lgyk]

Different, higher-end model, but we bought Glacier Bay toilets for the log home we've been building ourselves. HD rates toilets by "flush power" or some term like that and we bought them because they had the highest rating rather than because they were flapperless. They also have almost a 3-inch adjustment for the tank position (important because one of my roughins was a bit off LOL). It's been over a year and we have had no problems with either toilet. As noted earlier, the seats that come with them are plastic junk.

 

[richardeisenman]

I installed a few of these. The simple design is very appealing for one pretty fed up with ornery floats and flappers. But one weird problem on one toilet. It flushed erratically. Turned out that a round plastic cap had fallen into the tank and was stuck and bouncing around behind the approx 1" dia. jet/orifice that squirts into the bottom of the bowl. The bowl design has a kind of jet to push the crap with a minimal amount of water (in contrast to the old style which just relies on a whole lot of water going into the bowl). It was easy enough to remove the errant plastic with some pliers, and now its fine . So I'm happy about these otherwise but nervous about part availability (although the valve is made by fluidmaster, the tippy trough and handle, who knows ?? ). I communicated with Niagra http://www.niagaraconservation.com/water_conservation/products/toilets/detail?object=5278 and they indicated that parts are available direct from them. Hope they stay in business !!

 

[md2lgyk]

Pretend you need a Glacier Bay part and try to get it. I doubt they have a bricks-and-mortar address anywhere. It's just strange.

Uh, Glacier Bay is a Home Depot brand. All the HDs around here carry repair parts.