I had installed a similar valve by a different company in our home toilet a couple of years ago. It was somewhat difficult to adjust to get a proper flush. I didn’t feel I could recommend it to my customers.
When I saw the Fluidmaster Duo Flush I contacted the company and they sent me the Duo Flush System to try out. The system has the Duo Flush valve and a ballcock with some water saving features of its own.
The installation was fairly simple for someone used to installing toilet parts. As I always say, having the right tools always makes a job easier. Taking out the old parts and installing the new took about 30 minutes. The adjustment to get the proper flush on both liquids and solids was easy.
I am very happy with how the system works. It’s especially nice for old style toilets that use much more water per flush than the new ones.
Well, sad news to report. The product didn't pass long term testing. The handle became hard to use. The company sent out a replacement and after a month or so, the new one started sticking open - wasting more water than it would save. So, I can't recommend this product. Hopefully these problems can be worked out in the future.
Philip
TheHandymenOnline.com
This is really interesting - I've known that my old toilet uses a lot of water, but now I have a good solution to consider since I don't want to replace the old toilet that fits with the rest of my bathroom. I trust Fluidmaster for their great products through the years, so I'll give this a try as well - Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI bought two of these on sale a couple years ago. Just recently in the last month I finally found time to install one of them in the main bathroom. It seemed to work OK for a few weeks, maybe less, then the valve began sticking open on either flush mode allowing the water to drain completely out of the tank and continue attempting to refill through the fill valve. You'd have to jiggle the flush lever to get it to reseat and refill. The worst part of this process is the fact I have a tempering valve on the toilet inlet for summer tank condensation reduction. Normally this would draw a small amount of hot water into the tank. When this stupid valve would malfunction and wasn't noticed for an hour or longer, the 52 gallon electric water heater would drain to cold. For the price of electricity for running the water pump, plus having to reheat all that cold water back to normal hot, It's cost me a small fortune over what the valve might have saved if it wasn't such a poorly designed piece of crap. In addition to the valve not shutting off properly, the nut that holds the handle assembly tight to the tank will continuously loosen, requiring retightening so as to not require excessive travel of the lever to flush the toilet. So now I've wasted water, wasted electricity, and now I will have wasted time with the initial installation, and have more wasted time with removing this junk valve and replacing it with the parts removed from the original installation. Thankfully, I didn't toss those parts after installing this POS.
ReplyDelete