gravity fed toilets?

[Fred]

bucket of water.

True if this was the only work that needed doing, but as I will have the floorboards up to replumb the rest, I may as well do it at the same time.

[Tim+]

How often do both cisterns need to fill simultaneously?

Tim

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Fred writes

I tried this a few years ago. Two large water butts coupled together filled with the grey water from the bath and sink. The water was intended for watering the garden.

Yes, it smelled and Things grew and swam around in it.

Not a success. I emptied it all down the drain and went back to collecting rainwater.

[John Rumm]

and for that matter, do you care if on those odd occasions they take a little longer to fill?

[John Rumm]

and flush. Replumbing sounds like an awful lot of work to avoid carrying the occasional bucket of water.

Keeping a bucket beside the loo for refilling sounds like an awful bodge to avoid a one off job of replumbing ;-)

(not that I would change mains fed cisterns to gravity out of choice)

[polygonum]

When I was in a broadly similar position, I opted to have one gravity and one mains.

So we have a tank reserve against failure of supply. And can fill from mains even if there were an issue with the tank.

The downstairs WC fills incredibly quickly and that is a plus factor. But even the bathroom one is adequate.

All done in 15 mm plastic pipe.

In another universe, it might have crossed my mind to feed with both - and some sort of selector vale. But on the basis that dead legs in pipes are not a good idea, it possibly should be a selector that automatically switches over from time to time. Which is getting ridiculous.

Can't for the life of me remember what I did about flow restrictors on the mains fed one.

[Fred]

Yes, very true, thanks.

[Nightjar]

It is probably a good idea not to use water from the kitchen sink or dishwasher. The average household will get more than enough water to flush the loo from bath, shower and hand basin waste water. In any case, it isn't going to be used for human consumption, so you can always throw the occasional block of swimming pool chemical into it.

Colin Bignell

[meow2222]

I can't help thinking pretty much all toilet pans are gravity fed :)

NT

[Michael Chare]

I have never had my water supply cut off for more than a few hours.

Flow rates down a pipe reduce as the pipe length increases.

I don't find that fill time is an issue for my tank fed bathroom loos, but most of the pipe to the bath rooms is 22mm. (cold supply for bath.)

I am not sure that I would bother changing a loo to being tank fed, but I did fit a tank fed cold supply for my washing machine. Mainly to reduce the pressure.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I thought they all were? Gravity fed? Be a strange old world if they weren't.

[Gazz]

the 'proper' german ones arent, they are mains fed, a weird shaped 'nose' valve at the top of the large bore pipe, press that in and very high pressure water goes down the pipe and flushes the pan... sweeping the poo shelf clean.

i remember when the water had been cut off due to a burst pipe in the street, the workmen came round every house and tried to explain to be carefull when flushing the loo due to air locks, but we didnt grasp what they were saying,

i was the first to operate the flush lever, a hiss then a very loud bang and the large bore pipe was blown out of the pan connector... i didnt see that happening as i was halfway down the stairs by then.

[<me9]

Some of the time. A tank in a cold roof can be colder than the incoming mains, depending on usage rates and insulation. Ours was one (exceptional) year for a short while.

[<me9]

But how long is the pipe and what is the head? I found a long run of 15mm plastic pipe (smaller bore than copper) too restricting even for the downstairs bog (which is now mains fed).

[Graham.]

1/2" Torbeck

Me sir. I had a "pacific" siphon for about 10 years before I realised it was dual flush, but it was arse about face compared to most valves ie a long press gave the short flush.

[John Rumm]

A hole in the roof should so it ;-)

[John Rumm]

Copper development association?

(mainly for gas flow calcs IIRC)

[Dave Liquorice]

Yes, comes from the mains to 150 gallons of tank storeage then to the taps. Been here >12 years no problems. Water supply in the mid 70's was pumped up from farm further up the valley, it wasn't reliable and those owners ran a tea room/B&B, guests do like water. B-) Not sure when mains water arrived might have been mid 80's.

One of the first things I did was to clean all the brick dust dead insects (and mouse) out of the tanks and give 'em a dilute bleach wipe over before refilling.

It's not actually a spiral at least mine aren't it's just a rod with flat discs. The spacing varies between the LP and HP types.

Annoys me as well, but just looking at a dry loo doesn't tell you anything about where the water level will be or how even or consistent the wash down is. Personally I think all loo's should be plumbed in so you can test the flush or at the very least the shops have the facilty to demonstrate the flush of customer choosen models out the back.

[Fred]

That's interesting. Did you have to do annual/regular disinfections or was this a one-off?

Mine are probably the same; I haven't looked that closely.

What a good idea.

[meow2222]

I think you may have misunderstood the humour

eek!

NT