Nothing can wreck your festive Thanksgiving plans like a clogged toilet.
Oh, sure, it’s annoying when Uncle Frank goes off on a political diatribe. And you may need to seat your squabbling nieces at opposite ends of the table. And, of course, there’s always that one dish that takes too long—or burns too easily—and upsets the careful timing of your otherwise impeccable feast.
But a clogged toilet is worse than all of the above combined—and there’s a good chance it’ll happen. After all, someone’s bound to overtax your toilet’s flushing capacity after The Big Meal.
Then, when you should be relaxing with pie and cider, you’re fetching the plunger and a mop instead. Everyone’s grossed out by the puddle and the smell. And now they have to use the upstairs bathrooms—that you didn’t even clean because you didn’t expect anyone to go up there—where one can only hope they’re more thoughtful with their flushes.
That’s why every home hosting Thanksgiving should have pressure-assisted toilets.
Why a Pressure-assisted Toilet is Better
Your household toilets are most likely conventional gravity toilets—they use gravity to flush their contents. When you trigger a flush, the water in the tank essentially just falls into the bowl, with the force of the falling water creating a siphon effect that pulls the bowl’s contents down the drainpipe.
Except when there’s too much stuff for the siphon to pull. That’s when you get a clog.
A pressure-assisted toilet is different. It contains a sealed tank that traps air and uses the water supply line pressure to compress the trapped air. Then, when you flush, this compressed air expands forcing the water into the bowl. Instead of the “pulling” or siphon action of an ordinary toilet, the pressure-assist unit “pushes” waste out.
This powerful flush generates more force to push waste than siphon action uses to pull waste, so your pressure-assisted toilet is less likely to clog than a gravity toilet.
The Physics of Flushing
After your guests enjoy your turkey, stuffing, potatoes, carrots, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie, and Aunt Shirley’s famous chocolate pecan squares, they’re likely to—there’s no way to phrase this delicately—subject your toilets to more-than-average use.
Gravity toilets can’t always handle all that waste, but pressure-assisted toilets can. It all comes down to force, measured by peak flow rate and drainline carry.
Pressure-assisted systems can reach up to 70-gallon-per-minute peak flow rate during the flush cycle. This flushing force improves drainline carry, which is the distance a flush propels waste matter through a drainpipe under test conditions. The best gravity toilets meet the American National Standards Institute recommendation of 40 feet, but pressure-assisted toilets deliver up to 60 feet of carry—a 50 percent advantage.
That extra force is how pressure-assisted toilets maximize water delivery force to clean the bowl with a single flush. It’s also why a pressure-assisted toilet is far less likely to clog. Things that clog gravity toilets simply get forced down the drainpipe by a power flush toilet.
Even on Thanksgiving.
Perfect for Higher-traffic Public Venues
While pressure-assisted toilets are awesome for homes at Thanksgiving (and all year round), they really shine in higher-traffic public situations:
- Hotel rooms
- Apartment complexes
- Restaurants, bars, and nightclubs
- Sports and entertainment venues
- Schools
- Offices
In fact, pressure-assisted toilets make sense anywhere you don’t want to deal with clogged toilets. They also require less maintenance and—because they achieve longer drainline carry with less water and reduce multiple flushes—even save water.
You should also know that Flushmate is the preferred choice of installers and users when it comes to pressure-assisted toilets. The Flushmate system is manufactured in New Hudson Michigan and supplies some of the biggest names in the toilet industry, such as Sloan®, Kohler®, Gerber®, Mansfield®, and others, with Flushmate technologies.
So don’t let a clogged toilet spoil your Thanksgiving festivities. Install pressure-assisted toilets, and bring on the turducken!
Are pressure-assisted toilets right for your next apartment complex, hotel, restaurant, or home? Talk to the experts at Flushmate!