Three New Toilets

After living in a house with just one bathroom for eight years, we now have a home with three toilets. [Actually, in the States they’re called “restrooms”, as the locals don’t even know what a “washroom” or “bathroom” is. And in Arkansas, they’re called “necessary rooms”.] One had a small crack in its rim and was leaking a bit onto the floor, and one had a trickle running from tank to bowl. We found a water-saving dual-flush toilet at Home Depot ($99), and I spent one Saturday morning replacing the leaking one. It worked so well that we bought two more, one to replace the trickling one, and one to replace the one with no problems except that it used three times as much water as these new ones. It seemed a stewardly thing to do: flushing only 4 Litres for a #1, and 6 L for #2. So this past Saturday morning was the third of a series of toilet replacements. Yippee!

Apparently dual-flush toilets are hard to find in North America, though they’re popular in Europe. One big problem with ours is shown in the photo: it’s not particularly clear how to flush it. There is a little symbol on the handle which is actually ambiguous, so we had to put up a note to remind ourselves and to inform our guests. But in Europe they have creative solutions for such things; relatives in the Netherlands have one which is flushed by either pressing a large oval button or by pressing a smaller circular portion of this button: no language is needed to communicate the idea.