Hmmm I bought a new toilet with the usual handle on the right to flush ... but my wife wanted a push button one which she neglected to tell me till I bought this one from B&Q.
I've lost the receipt aswell now doh!
Soooo to keep her indoors quiet can I have a dual flush lol toilet with the push buttons, and the side flush ?
For about £21 you can buy a kit to convert your handle flush cistern to push button. The brand is Wirquin and the kit is called "Flushing kit Dual FRONT".
It offers a dual flush and a fast, quiet inlet valve.
I recently fitted one. The flush is very powerful and this means the short flush is enough to clear almost anything. The long flush is only rarely needed so this saves a lot of water - ideal if you are on a water meter.
There is also a single flush version but that would waste an awful lot of water.
The inlet valve fills the cistern very quickly indeed and is much faster (and quieter) than the average ball valve. It is suitable for low and high pressure systems. The flush valve has an internal overflow so, if water regulations allow, there is no need for an external spout.
The push button can be fixed flush or surface mounted depending on the diameter of the fixing hole in the front of your cistern. Our cistern, which dates from the mid-1990s, has a small fixing hole so the push button had to be surface mounted. No worries, though, because it looks neat either way.
£21 from B&Q.
I love you Bruce, you have gotten me out of bother :)
By dual flush, are you saying you want (a) both the push buttons on top as well as the side lever? (why?)
Or do you want (b) a cistern which gives the option of two flush volumes (large and small), but operated by a side lever?
I think the answer's no on both counts, but clarification might help someone else answer you.
David
Steady, now! ;-)
It worked for me. SWMBO loves me to bits - for now.
Trouble is, she volunteered me to fit one for one of her friends. :-(
Thats it ... erm because I bought a standard one that already has a lever and my wife wanted one with push button, so I thought heck best of both worlds lol.. Ok and I lost the receipt to return it and just get the push button one. I was hoping to perhaps get a lid with the buttons on and just switch it and the bits inside and stick a rubber bung in the lever hole ..
If you have not fitted it, it is still in the same condition as you bought it in, and you paid on a card, then this should be ample proof of purchase, especially if you are going to buy a different one from the same place...
Toby...
Buttons and levers operate totally different types of flush mechanisms - so having both is not going to be possible
The original cisterns fitted to all three toilets in my house when it was built 25 years ago, were dual flush types, but operated by a standard right mounted handle. You merely pressed and let go for the short flush, or pressed and held for longer than perhaps 2 seconds, for the long flush. So the answer to (b) was certainly a "yes" back then. I would have thought that such handle flushing mechs would still be available now ??
Ah yes. Here you go and cheaper than the B&Q option mentioned by Bruce
Arfa
No, I distinctly remember the one in our last house working as you described. There was a small hole in the top of the big bulgy bit of the body, if you let go of the handle the hole let air in and broke the syphon action when the water level fell to the level of the hole but if you kept the handle pressed the plunger blocked the hole and the water in the cistern flushed out until it was empty. The one in the link you gave either uses a different method or they've got the description back to front.
I seem to remember them being banned for some odd reason though.
I have two as you describe. On installing them a blue plug can be removed - this allows the siphon to be broken due to air being admitted if the plunger is not blocking it. Holding the handle down causes part of the mechanism to block this air admittance hole.
I wish you could recall why they might have been banned.
I have two as you describe. On installing them a blue plug can be removed - this allows the siphon to be broken due to air being admitted if the plunger is not blocking it. Holding the handle down causes part of the mechanism to block this air admittance hole.
I wish you could recall why they might have been banned.
[snip]
I could well be wrong but I think there was a theory that they actually wasted water rather than saving it. From what I remember it was along the lines that many people didn't realise that you needed to hold the handle down for a full flush so when they gave the handle a quick press and release it didn't clear the solids so they just kept on flushing many times to get things cleared.
flushing valve.
The flushing valve alone cost about £11.
I can relate to that - I wish there was a proper label - I don't feel inclined to make my own - it would make me feel like one of those people that puts labels on switches saying "Please switch me off"
I reckon that I was right the first time, and as you say, they might have got it arse bakkards on the website.
Which brings me to this ban thing. I can see how what you're saying could be so, but if they have been banned, how come that up-to-date and active website, are still selling them? Unless of course, they have got their description the right way round, making the default condition of press and release - if that's what people do without thinking about it - the long flush. Which rather defeats the object of the whole thing ... d:-\}
Arfa
Yes it does suggest my memory of them being banned could be wrong. OTOH they were pushed as a great way to save water when first introduced but then went very much out of favour - I couldn't manage to find any when I wanted a dual flush mechanism about 4 years ago and ended up with a button operated Variflush drop valve instead.
If the originals were banned then this could be the case but, as you say, it does defeat the object but would be no worse than a conventional flush and avoids the problem of less cluefull users using lots of short flushes to clear solids.
After writing that I Googled for dual flush banned and come up with a couple of links which throw a bit of light on this:
"In the 1960's allowable cistern volumes were reduced to 9.5 litres with the option of dual flush. This remained law until 1993 when 7.5 litres was introduced as the maximum flush volume and dual flush was banned because of concerns about double-flushing as the correct operation was not obvious."
"From 1st January 2001 the Water Regulations (1999), which replaced the previous Water Byelaws, now specify a maximum flush of 6 litres. Dual flush is now allowed, provided a number of criteria are met."
"A study of the dual flush toilet system by Southern Water has found that replacing single with dual flush cisterns can generate average water savings of 27% in UK households. As a result, the Environment Agency is calling for a relaxation in the laws prohibiting retrofitting of dual devices on existing toilets."
"from 1993 dual flush cisterns were prohibited until the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999 came into force. Dual flushing in new installations is now permitted, although the replacement of existing cisterns is still prohibited."
"The original ban in 1993 and the continued ban on replacing cisterns are largely based on the concerns about double flushing. If inappropriate or inadequate devices are installed, and a light flushing is insufficient to clean the pan, users may be obliged to flush a second, or even third time, negating the benefits of the dual system."
So it looks like it was dual flush in general that was banned for a while rather than the actual way of achieving it. I expect that only syphon based systems were available when the ban was introduced in 1993 but by the time it was relaxed in 2001 valve based systems were "the in thing" and hardly any manufacturers would have bothered to produce syphon dual flushes.
Very interesting. Looks like all of us are right then ! :-)
Arfa
Yes and it looks like current dual flush syphons now use the "hold down for short flush" approach. Or at least the Opella ones do according to their website , the pdf file describing the dual mechanism is quite definite about it.
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