problems with a toilet where solids will not flush away

Sorry to hear that, I hope you have another bog in the house. Sounds like a Sale of Goods Act claim against whoever you bought it from - satisfactory quality and fitness for purpose: s.14(2). Out of interest, what is the make and model?

Problem number one. Why do you think toilets in the past used a certain volume of water to flush away the soil? Answer - because thats what was necessary to do the job.

Which leads us to suspect what?

Think about it. A vertical outlet must be better than a horizontal outlet due to gravity.

Unless there is something you are not telling us, the outlet cannot be too narrow or oval and there cannot be an excessive bend because all waste pipes & fittings are made to a certain size and to a British Standard.

I would suspect that the previous toilet had a much higher flush volume and you have fallen foul of the current 'save water, save the planet 'ecobollox.

Isn't there usually an adjustment in the cistern to determine the amount of water used for the flush? I know there was in the one I fitted, but I don't recall the details. I stuck with the low setting, which is fine most of the time, but the odd dreadnought needs a push. Stay off the Mother's Pride

How does it "save water" exactly ...can you not turn this feature off and go back to using it's normal capacity of water and see if that works .

Siphons nowadays have 3 holes at the base & a gizmo with 2 plugs. By altering the number & position of holes 'plugged' it alters the volume of water flushed.

No good will come of it - agin nature.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember maxell53 saying something like:

I suggest you change your diet to include a half-bowl of porridge every day. The gigantic logs you are producing are simply too much for the bend to cope with.

If you want to be eco-freaky saving water with your toilet, you should be collecting rainwater to flush it, not messing about trying to use less drinking water to perform the same amount of flushing action.

JGH -

If that fails to sort the problem an alternative is to try a diet of prune juice, vindaloo, and sprouts.

What's the cistern to bowl fall ? I had this problem when I fitted a dual-flush cistern. In the end I raised the cistern 15cm, and it did the trick ....

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Jethro saying something like:

Good idea. The old high cisterns hardly ever gave blockage trouble and I suspect would work almost as well even with reduced water content.

Are there some toilet systems which work by a negative pressure applied from the sewer-side to counter the reduced volume of water ? I ask because I've noticed on some toilets it seems the water is sucked out and the flush water is refilling the bowl ...

Ah, yes - I had that when changing from high to low level. The flushing looked OK but the pan was blocked 3 - 4 times a week. It seemed that the water came down too uniformly and just pushed everything at the same time, whereas the faster water from the old cistern entrained the solids and took them out linearly.

A girl at work was proposing to order a "shower water saver device" for her parents' shower. I asked if they knew she was about to restrict the flow of their shower, and were happy with the idea. She said "ooh, no, I wouldn't want to reduce the amount of water - it's barely a trickle as it is!"

She understood once she actually had a think about it; the problem is that she apparently didn't think at all to begin with. Saving=green=doubleplusgood.

Pete

Double trap syphonic. A Syphonic Aspirator extracts air from the in between part to start the syphonic action. Still available in India but unfortunately not here because of the extra water used. Quieter tham washdown pans.