What's a dual flush toilet got to do with cycling?

This is supposed to be a blog about cycling. So, what's a post about dual flush toilets doing here? And, what is a dual flush toilet anyways?

Well, what I have to briefly mention here is so ingenious and so relevant to all drought conscious Californians, not only the cycling kind, I just had to write a short post about it.

So, in spite of the fact that it may well be the lamest segue possible. . .

Whats the first thing you do after getting home from a ride? I hit the bathroom.  On the topic of bathrooms, are you familiar with about the simplest, most cost effective, reliable and easy to install dual flush retrofit kit in the world?

What's a dual flush toilet?

A dual flush toilet offers two flush levels; one for #1's (liquid waste) and one for #2's (solid waste) (as an aside, I've always been partial to the 2/3 numbering system where two rhymes with poo and three rhymes with pee). A toilet can use substantially less water for a flush needed only for liquid waste, like maybe less than half as much! Furthermore, since we tend to go #1's more frequently than #2's, the potential water savings is magnified.

Dual flush toilets have been in use in Europe for many years but they haven't caught on much in the United States. However, with droughts impacting the mid-west in recent years and California this year, dual flush toilets are becoming more common.

But, you don't need to replace an entire toilet to get a dual flush toilet. You can convert an existing single flush toilet to dual flush. There are many retrofit kits available. I've tried a few like the Fluidmaster Duoflush and the Tap-n-Flush.

The Fluidmaster Duoflush costs $20-$30. It requires you to disassemble your tank and replace its guts. If you don't have experience with this, it can take upwards of an hour and you might not get everything sealed back up tight the first time. Worse, mine failed after about a year of use. The mechanism involves several moving pieces that slide past one another. The build up of hard water deposits on the mechanism's surfaces eventually ruined proper function. Even worse, the failure mode was to wind up leaving the (effective) flapper valve open so water would just run and run. Just a few days of that can undo all the whole year's worth of water savings!

The Tap-n-Flush is a novel idea and is certainly much easier to install than anything else I've seen. I was able to install it in about 10 minutes. It cost $18 on Amazon and the inventor of the Tap-n-Flush really provides excellent customer support! But, after having some challenges with it and after reading an ingenious comment on Amazon, I decided to return the Tap-n-Flush and go with a much simpler approach; a weighted flapper.

A weighted flapper

The way a toilet normally works is that depressing the flush lever pulls the flapper valve at the base of the tank open. The flapper is buoyed and remains open as water drains from the tank. When the water level falls low enough, the flapper looses its buoyancy and falls shut.

To create dual flush behavior, the flapper must be able to fall closed before water level in the tank drops low enough for it to loose buoyancy. The solution is to weight the flapper by adding, for example, a few washers to the flapper chain.

Purchase several (say 6-10) large, stainless steel fender washers at your local hardware store, similar this one. Disconnect the flapper chain from the flush lever arm and slide some washers onto the chain and down so that they rest on top of the flapper valve where the chain connects to it. You want to use stainless steel washers so they won't corrode or rust. You want to use enough washers such that the weight of the washers will prevent the flapper from doing its thing of just staying open on its own. Make sure you re-attach the chain to the lever arm such that it has the minimum slack.

Once you add enough washers, the flapper stays open only while the flush lever is depressed. The moment you release the flush lever, the flapper valve will close regardless of the water level in the tank. For a short flush (for liquid waste), you hold the lever down 2-3 seconds. For a normal flush (for solid waste), you hold the lever down for 5-7 seconds (or more). It works perfectly!

Instructions for use on top of tank

I can't take credit for any of this. I simply read the ingenious, one-line description of another Amazon user whose name I can't recall now or I would definitely have included it here.

The Tap-n-Flush is basically this same idea only on steroids. It adds a weight to the flapper but relies upon an electrical timing mechanism instead of your hand to hold the weight up. You adjust the amount of time the Tap-n-Flush holds the weight up for both short and normal flushes. But, just adding weight to the flapper is the real key to controlling water consumption.

A simple weighted flapper is the KISS (keep it simple stupid) solution. That's it. All it takes is to add several washers to the flapper valve chain. Its the simplest, most reliable, cost effective and easy to install dual flush retrofit kit in the world.

The video below demonstrates it in action.