More restroom nightmares

[blas]

And most certainly not the last time.

[PepperElf]

omg, i can't believe we're having this discussion

I know what you mean... not about having the discussion but about having a BM that just won't go down.

I remember having to wait FOREVER for one guy to get out of the head so I could take a piss. Apparently he had one and instead of using TP to push it down he figured he'd flush for 10 minutes. And it still didn't work. meh.

[telecom_goddess]

omg, i can't believe we're having this discussion

LOL only here

[sirwired]

While we are so far off topic...

Maybe I've been doing it wrong all these years, but am I supposed to wipe down the bowl if I leave any "traces" at places that leave a toilet brush next to the toilet? (Saw those brushes almost everywhere in Europe.) I shall make an offering to the janitorial gods if I've been neglecting my duties...

[Mikkel]

Maybe I've been doing it wrong all these years, but am I supposed to wipe down the bowl if I leave any "traces" at places that leave a toilet brush next to the toilet? (Saw those brushes almost everywhere in Europe.) I shall make an offering to the janitorial gods if I've been neglecting my duties...

They are put there for you to use .
Don't worry, many people don't use them. I'm sure most of those toilets have been cleaned.

What offering are you contemplating ?

[Shalom]

I am embarrassed to admit that today I left skidmarks in a public toilet. There weren't any brushes or any other cleaning supplies around, I flushed the damn thing twice, and it still didn't clean itself properly. Not a hell of a lot I can do about it.

And regarding "floaters"... ugh. Freaking hate them. Borderline lactose intolerance will often produce turds that float so high that a quarter of it sticks out of the water like an iceberg shitberg. The toilet in my house does not deal with these correctly, because it's designed stupidly.

How so? Well, when I was growing up in Brooklyn, with a 1" water main to the house and nice high pressure even on the second floor, we had ancient flushometer toilets that used something like 4.5 gallons per flush. The U-bend faced the front of the commode, which meant that the "jet", which is the hole that points straight into the drain and is responsible for shoving large pieces down, was fed directly from the downpipe. This worked really well, and if you rarely did need to flush twice, the recharge time was nil.

The toilet in my current house, by contrast, while it's not a low-flush type, has the U-bend at the back, so the front of the commode base can be made flat. Maybe it looks better, but it means that the jet has to be fed from water that comes around to the front through the rim, which means that even when new, the pressure at the jet is much, much lower than in the old-style toilet. Add to that many years worth of calcium deposits building up in the rim, and there's hardly anything coming out of there at all. Result is, the entire water supply to the toilet is what comes down from around the rim, there's no flushing pressure as such, and the excreta just swirls round and round and never actually goes down. Sometimes I flush the damned thing three times, and it still doesn't go down, plus I have to wait for the freaking tank to refill itself each time. On occasion, the only way I've gotten some of those floaters down was to fill the garbage can from the bathtub spout, and dump about 2 gallons of water straight into the drain just as the flush is ending. (Well you could mash them up with the brush; I've only ever been that pissed off once. Yuggh.)

The other day I was at Orange Apron, and I bought some kind of chemical that allegedly removes lime deposits; I'm gonna pour the bottle into the empty tank and flush it through. Maybe that'll clear out the built up gunk; if not, I can either snake it out, or pony up and replace the damned toilet once and for all. I wonder if I can still get the old-style ones?

[sirwired]

The other day I was at Orange Apron, and I bought some kind of chemical that allegedly removes lime deposits; I'm gonna pour the bottle into the empty tank and flush it through. Maybe that'll clear out the built up gunk; if not, I can either snake it out, or pony up and replace the damned toilet once and for all. I wonder if I can still get the old-style ones?

The chemical won't work unless you can plug every hole that the downpipe drains into; it needs some real contact time to have any effect. It was so bad on one of our toilets that the damned thing flushed twice. I'm not sure snaking will help either, as the snake has nothing to grab onto.

Just replace the thing. I have a Cadet3 and it works great and is not that expensive. I have also heard that the Toto Drake is a good unit, but you'll have to buy one from a plumbing supply house, as they aren't sold at retail. You can no longer buy the old-style toilets new.

[Seshat]

Skidmarks on the porcelain are a common problem at my place; partly because we have a special disability-assistance toilet seat. Basically, we sit higher than the toilet designer planned. (And I have handles to help me stand up again.)

(Need I mention that yes, we do clean up?)