What are they? The average homeowner probably does not realize what a dual flush toilet entails. Visions of flushing once replace any other thought, and cover up the true meaning of dual flush. “Dual flush” is indicative of high-efficiency, water-saving toilets. It does not mean “two flushes,” it refers to two buttons. The first button is for liquid waste. This button uses half of the water that a normal flush would simply because liquid waste, urine, is partly water and does not take much work to drain. Using only half of the water will cut down on your water bill and help to conserve more of our precious natural resources. This is important, and the water reduction is as much as 67% per flush. The dual flush toilet uses 0.8 gallons per …show more content…
How do they accomplish this? Does less water mean less clean and more noise as well? To answer these questions, examine the mechanisms that make the dual flush toilet special and different from traditional toilets. 1. The trap is wider than traditional toilets. The average toilet trap is a scant 1 ¼ inches across, the root cause of many clogs and boon to the plumbing industry. The average trap in a dual flush toilet is 4 inches across. Even though less water is used, the wide trap helps to ensure that all of the material being flushed goes down smoothly and without clogging up the trap. 2. The traditional toilet has a flapper valve that causes problems frequently. The dual flush toilet has a slide-out mechanism that causes fewer problems, is more efficient, and is easier to repair and install should anything go wrong. 3. The average traditional toilet uses a noisy siphon method to wash the bowl. The dual flush toilet uses a full bowl wash method, which is both cleaner and more efficient. Since the whole bowl is rinsed after each use (even though less water is used than the siphon method), fewer chemicals are needed in order to maintain a clean