Flush your problems away, literally

Thomas Crapper, who did not invent
the flush toilet.

The biggest fallacy in toilet technology has been the erroneousness concept that "one flush fits all."  It doesn't.  Never has.  You know it.  I know it.  The venerable Thomas Crapper knew it.  Venerable, really, see the logo below.

Actually I'm not certain that he knew the fallacy.  I'm conjecturing it based on his false claim to have invented "Crapper's Valveless Water Waste Preventer (Patent #4,990)."  The patent wasn't his.

Speaking of erroneous information surrounding the venerable Mr. Crapper, it turns out that he didn't really invent the flush toilet.  He just "popularized," it.  Don't even try to picture that.

More improbably, he also, it turns out, isn't the origin of the word "crap."  Wikipedia notes that it's in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1846, more than a decade before he founded his company and several decades before he became famous.

Was he familiar with the OED entry?  Did it steer him toward his career?  Did it inspire his famous 165 mile walk to London to apprentice with a master plumber?

Ever notice how fascinating Wikipedia becomes when you're facing a household project?

The project I'm onto, and the inspiration for this crap, is fixing a toilet that in turn, doesn't flush, overflushes and overflows, doesn't fill, fills constantly or otherwise disturbs the harmony of our home.

It's even cost us a demerit from the municipal water utility.  Seriously.  We got a notice that our "pattern of water usage" indicates a leaking faucet or possibly defective toilet valve.  That's absolutely true. I didn't know they were watching.  Or that they had the technology to detect that.

If the Dept. of Homeland Security ever teams up with our city utilities division, terrorists will throw in the towel.

It's not that I've ignored the problem.  I never did, and I moved from not ignoring it to becoming obsessed with it after one toilet-related incident forced me to patch the ceiling in the room below.

The trouble is, nothing seemed to work.  I'd fixed the mechanism many times and even replaced the entire innards.

Now I've moved to an advanced technological solution that promises to solve multiple problems all at once.

It's called the HydroRight dual-flush system.

I'm going to jump right to the "dual-flush" part because it's so exciting. The term (dual-flush) is a little vague, so I'll explain it.

It doesn't flush twice, if that's how you interpreted it.  It makes your first flush more accurate.  Yes, it moves us beyond the "one-flush-fits-all" era.

The dual-flush system has two flushes: flush number one and flush number two which, conveniently align with another number one and number two, which gets to the point of the system.

Sometimes when you use the toilet you don't really need a full flush.  Other times you do (need a full flush).  I can never remember which is No. 1 and which is No. 2, but you get the point.

The dual-flush flush button, which replaces your current lever, lets you pick your flush.  The bulbous button on top releases the mini, water-saving, flush.  The rest unleashes the full torrent.

The key to its operation is the tube.  It has two ports for releasing water from the tank into the bowl.  The upper port releases just a little bit of water.  The lower one releases it all.

The dual buttons control which port gets used and they do it all mechanically, with cables that run inside a sheath from the button to the flusher, like the cable that tightens the brakes on a bicycle.

Yes, it can be a bit confusing to visitors who may not be up on the latest toilet technology.  We don't put on airs (e.g. "Oh, are you still using a single-flush system?), we just let them figure it out for themselves.