Why St Paul Pipeworks Prefers Gerber Toilets Over the Rest

The most important thing that St Paul Pipeworks plumbers look for when selecting a toilet is how well it flushes. Homeowners will first consider the shape and design of the toilet and whether or not it aesthetically fits the design of the bathroom. But, plumbers start by assessing the technical performance of the toilet.

They then look at how dependable the toilet is. For example, every toilet will eventually need to have parts replaced in the tank, so plumbers like to make sure the toilets have parts that are easily replaceable and readily available and that the parts are not so unique that they are difficult to order and overly expensive.

Over the past thirty years, the government has mandated that people purchase toilets that use less water per flush. To do that they had to require manufacturers to redesign the toilets.

A standard toilet bowl has a serpentine trap-way that is rounded and very complicated. All of the waste has to make it through the entire trapway, so originally toilets were designed to flush a lot of water to force all of the waste through the trap.

Then, about twenty-five years ago, standard toilets went from 5-gallon flush toilets to a required 3.5-gallon flush. At that time, each manufacturer had to solve the problem of flushing with less water in their own way, using engineers and designers to figure out how to redesign the toilet so that it still cleared the waste using less water for each flush.

When toilets first went from 5-gallon flush to 3.5-gallon flush, many of the products failed. It took almost a year past the government deadline for manufacturers to finally get toilets to work correctly.

One manufacturer figured out a temporary solution by increasing the water level in the tank a half-inch so the toilet would flush slightly more than 3.5 gallons. During testing in a laboratory, the toilet might work, but the technical aspects did not always transfer to the factory floor where they are manufacturing hundreds of them, and they all work. The standards sometimes can get lost in translation.

Then, around fifteen years ago, the government requirement went from 3.5-gallon flush toilets to 1.6-gallon flush toilets. Since the various manufacturers design their toilets differently, St Paul Pipeworks plumbers feel it is their duty to figure out which manufacturer and model toilet they have confidence in to fully flush properly.

There is an organization that manufacturers subscribe to called MaP that does testing on how well toilets flush. They publish their results as new models are created. St Paul Pipeworks plumbers referred to the MaP testing results and found that Gerber toilets were ranked high in MaP testing.

The Company bought a few of the Gerber toilets and the plumbers installed them in their own homes and used them for two months. All the plumbers agreed that this brand and model worked well and agreed that they were particularly good flushing toilets. To this day, almost all St Paul Pipeworks employees have Gerber toilets in their homes.

They have a large two-inch fully glazed trap-way which is unique. It is glazed inside of the trap-way so that excess waste does not get caught. Some manufacturers will not glaze certain internal parts of the toilet that are not seen because it is more costly due to the many curves throughout the entire passageway.

Often, the toilets are put into molds in halves in a green state, meaning that the porcelain is not fully cured, they then put the two halves together and smooth out the seam. That now hidden trap-way is more difficult to apply the glazing, but that is what makes it smooth.

Gerber toilets are unique because they glaze the larger trap-way for a dependable flush and because they have a reasonable price point and a pleasing design.

Click this link for more information on MaP Testing’s recommendations on Best Toilets: https://www.map-testing.com/ 

If you are interested in having a new toilet installed in your home or are just looking for a quality plumber in the St. Paul and Minneapolis metro area, give St Paul Pipeworks a call today.

Yours Truly,

Matthew Dettwiler

Social Media Manager

FAQs