Top positive reviewSee all 300 positive reviewsIf you bought into the "it flushes golf balls" nonsense then you are probably stuck with a toilet with non-standard parts and have trouble finding replacement parts at Home Depot, etc. I hate to give anything associated with a Champion toilet 4 stars, but it is so much better than the flush valve that came with the toilet (it is a white cylindrical thing that makes a loud klunking sound when flushed) that I felt obliged to give it a good rating. Also you might as well get the tank to bowl coupling kit while you are at it American Standard 738756-0070A Tank to Bowl Coupling Kit Top critical reviewSee all 48 critical reviews TopMost recentBetter than the thing that it replacedIf you bought into the "it flushes golf balls" nonsense then you are probably stuck with a toilet with non-standard parts and have trouble finding replacement parts at Home Depot, etc. Also you might as well get the tank to bowl coupling kit while you are at it American Standard 738756-0070A Tank to Bowl Coupling Kit

Champion valve replacementTurned a Champion into a WIMPEasy and worked!Disappointing Replacement for our American StandardHold the Flush Handle Down an Extra Count to Improve the Champion 4 FlushMuch better... they'd get that for this part and for their horrible customer service peopleTerrible Product, impossible to repair or replace without dismantling toiletWorks wonderfully! Big improvement over the older design.←Previous... See all 26 answered questions Customers also viewed these itemsAmerican Standard 7301111-0070A Flush Valve Seal Kit255American Standard 3174.105-0070A Champion Universal Replacement Flush Valve13American Standard 738756-0070A Tank to Bowl Coupling Kit139American Standard 7381.125#400.0070A Universal Fill Valve27Need customer service? Updated British and American toilets work in different ways.  In an American toilet, pressing the lever lifts a plug that lets the water drain out. In a British toilet, pressing the lever pumps water upwards to start a siphon action. 

The pumping is done by pulling a sort of stiff mesh up a tube - it's a mesh so that when you release the lever it will slowly let the water back through.  Here's a page that explains the mechanism: Virtual Lavatory:In an American system, it doesn't matter how slowly you push the lever, because it's just trying  to open a plug. In the British system you need to push the lever fairly quickly, so it pushes the water without leaking, and sometimes you need to do multiple "pumps" to get the  water flowing.A US toilet is much easier to fix, it's a small part and it's easy to replace.  But when it stops working, it leaks water - sometimes huge amounts of water. I've lived in the US for 6 years, and have made this repair 2 or 3 times.A British toilet is much harder to fix - you need to dismantle the toilet and remove the cistern. When it fails, it doesn't leak, if just becomes a bit harder to fix. When it's your toilet you get used to the fact that you need to pump the lever faster and faster - and the increase is gradual so you don't notice. 

It's such a pain to fix that it's easier to just keep pumping. In the 15 or so years that I lived in the UK, and was responsible for fixing the toilet, I did this once.Incidentally, I've had a lot more problems with blocked American toilets than British toilets.  I think this is about the design or size of the pipes below the toilet though.2 Person Freestanding Spa BathIn its most recent list of water-saving recommendations, the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy in Washington purposely left off low-flow toilets."Wood Floor Repair OttawaConsumers hate the low-flow toilets - that has come up . . . on our consumer focus groups in 1997 and again in March 2002, spokeswoman Rozanne Weissman said. Windows 7 Thin Client Iso"Consumers complain that they often have to flush more than once, and that the toilets, consequently, waste more water."

Weissman said she didn't see the advantage of including a technology that people seem to dislike when "there are so many good things, like front-loading washing machines and even top-loading ones with the Energy Star label that save water and energy at the same time."Ken Austin, president of HouseMaster, a national home-inspection company, said: "The biggest complaint we hear is about the lower-flow toilets. Because it uses less than half the water of the older models, people try to flush it twice to get it to work. A three-year study by the American Water Works Association Research Foundation said it found that the "double-flushing" theory didn't hold water."Low-flow, 1.6-gallons-per-flush toilets do not require additional flushes to equal the performance of older, less-water-efficient models," the foundation reported. "Individuals living in households with the 1.6-gallons-per-flush toilets flushed an average of 5.04 times per day. Those living in houses with older 3.5-gallons-per-flush toilets flushed an average of 4.92 times per day."

Other consumer surveys reached mixed conclusions.The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California asked 1,300 of its customers in 1999 if they were happy with the performance of their low-flow toilets.These customers received their 13 models of low-flow toilets from 11 manufacturers through rebate programs in 1998 and 1999.Conclusions: People who liked their toilets really liked them, with a satisfaction rating of 8.37 out of 10. Those who didn't like them still gave them a rating of 5.91 out of 10. Most consumers said they had never had a problem with the toilet jamming or blocking. But 67 percent said they had to double-flush at least once a month.Low-flow plumbing products officially crossed the threshold of the U.S. home in 1992, with the enactment of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act.The act established water-use restrictions for new toilets, showerheads and faucets. The so-called EPAct set a national manufacturing standard of 1.6 gallons per flush for most toilets beginning Jan. 1, 1994.

(By 1992, 17 states already had such low-flow-toilet requirements.)While acknowledging "anecdotal reports of poor performance of 1.6-gallons-per-flush toilets," the Environmental Protection Agency says customer surveys show that satisfaction is high. "The plumbing industry has steadily made improvements in toilet technology, and market forces should continue to improve overall performance with time," the EPA said.There have been efforts to bring 3.5-gpf toilets over the border from Canada, where they are still manufactured.Other frustrated homeowners have been searching salvage yards, but Matt Schultz, a Lansdowne preservationist who once managed a nonprofit salvage operation in Philadelphia, said that route was not easy."Most salvage operators pick up high-end old toilets, such as those from mansions that might have been made in Europe in the early part of the last century," he said. "The problem with buying those is parts. Some of those parts haven't been made in 60 years, and what do you do if something goes wrong?"

In 1999, the National Association of Home Builders Research Center in Upper Marlboro, Md., tested low-flow toilets that builders had removed from their houses in response to buyer complaints about clogging, according to Bob Hill, a research center spokesman.Various technologies are used to make a low-flow toilet more functional, Hill said. Some have large drain passages, and redesigned bowls and tanks for easier wash-down. Others supplement the gravity system with water-supply-line pressure, compressed air, or a vacuum pump.The testing was limited to one- or two-piece gravity-flow toilets that could be compared to 3.5-gallons-per-flush toilets, Hill said. "Some toilets functioned well, others did poorly," he said. "If the toilets that came from buyers' houses scored low, they'd be replaced."Center researchers developed a "clog index." Where each toilet placed on a scale of 1 to 150 was based on how easily the toilet got rid of sponges and wads of paper that were used in the rigorous testing.

The testing is continuing, Hill said."I understand that manufacturers are concerned about performance of their products," he said. "There is a lot of research into finding a way to get more oomph into the flush."If they work properly, low-flow toilets should use a maximum of 1.6 gallons of water per flush, compared with five to seven gallons of water used by a standard toilet.The research center estimates that low-flow toilets alone could save up to 22,000 gallons of water per year for a family of four.Part of the problem with low-flow toilets is that EPAct "wasn't accompanied by any measure of performance for the products that were to be developed, or any provisions to ensure that the new products would perform at least as effectively as their predecessors," research center chairman Michael Chapman said."When they started out, the low-end brands performed much better than the big-name brands," said Marcel Paillard, a plumbing contractor from Hatfield, Montgomery County.That's because the big names "didn't make the bowl and flush valve properly to accommodate the lower water use," said Paillard, who has been a plumber since 1947.

To get any toilet to flush properly, the water has to reach the water line in the tank, and even though the brand-name models had enough water, the poorly designed bowl and flush valve got in the way.While not acknowledging problems, manufacturers are doing considerable testing and retooling to make the toilets work better. Kohler, for example, has come up with what it calls the Ingenium flushing system, which is a gravity-fed, siphon jet system that depends on the downward force of the water from the tank channeled through strategically placed rim holes.Paillard owns three mid-price (under $100) Kohler Well-Worth models, and said this brand and American Standard's venerable and recently retooled Cadet model (also under $100) work as they were intended to.The relatively inexpensive Mansfield Alto was designed properly from Day One, Paillard said, but still the "trick is to make sure the water level is at the line."Also high on the list is the Flushmate, a 1.6-gallons-per-flush toilet that uses pressure rather than gravity."

This model has a bellows in the tank, and instead of having the handle on the side, there is a tennis-ball-size gizmo on the lid that you depress to flush it," Paillard said.The only problem is that, when curious consumers take the lid off, they disconnect the flushing device, he said.Among the highest-scoring low-flow toilets were those manufactured by Toto, a Japanese company with U.S. operations based in Georgia. Toto engineer Fernando Fernandez said the key to its toilets' operation was "increased siphon power."To achieve this, design features include a 3-inch-diameter flush valve instead of the industry's 2-inch standard. By increasing the diameter, the rate of water flow from tank to bowl is increased. The height of the water in the tank is also increased to achieve higher head pressure, Fernandez said.In the bowl's design, the trapway is 2 1/8 inches, allowing easy passage of a 2-inch ball, he said. A water pool at the bottom of the trapway - the so-called "wetted perimeter" - improves flow.