Poll: Toilets

[Elle]

Suppose you own a business where there are eight toilets located in eight separate bathrooms. You have a few old, broken down toilets, so you replace half the toilets with new, water efficient, powerful flush toilets. The old toilets occasionally require a little handle-shaking or adjustment, and they aren't quite as powerful or efficient, but they work fine.

All is well until one day, one of the new toilets breaks! Not the mechanism: the entire ceramic box containing the mechanism sprouts a giant crack out of nowhere, causing all water to leak out of the upper chamber and rendering the toilet unusable.

Now you must have a plumber and a new toilet, but since most of that toilet is salvageable, you'll just buy a new ceramic part.

While the plumber is here, you could have him put in four more new toilets. Your old toilets work, but are smaller and less powerful and efficient. Eventually they may break, who knows.

If you get new toilets, you could either get the same kind that just spontaneously cracked, or some new kind. One way, you'd have all the same kind of toilet, for ease of repairs and parts ordering. The other, you'd have to deal with having four each of two different kinds, but you could try some new kind that hasn't cracked on you yet.

What do you choose?

[Tahlvin]

I need more information: how much disposable cash/funds are available? If there's enough funds available to replace the old toilets, or even to completely replace them plus the entire toilet with the broken ceramic part, that's probably what I would do. But if funds are limited, I would probably only fix the broken ceramic piece without doing anything else.

[Ronster]

Replace them as they fail. If it works, don't fix it.

[Mike]

I'm with Ron on this one, but it depends on many factors.

Figure in the cash available for this sort of upgrade. Factor in the amount of water being wasted. Do some comparison shopping. How much of a cost savings is there in doing multiple toilets at once as opposed to moving forward on a break/fix basis and replacing them one at a time as needed? Was the failed toilet due to a flaw in the product or from misuse? Who generally uses these restrooms? Is it just employees? Prospective customers who need to be impressed?

[Elle]

Other factors: it's cheaper to replace all four old toilets at once, in the sense that it costs more to hire a plumber to do the work than it costs to buy one of the toilets. The plumber probably costs the same as two toilets. If the old toilets are going to be replaced eventually, then it is a bit cheaper to do ALL of it at once when the broken toilet is fixed - basically the difference between one and two plumber visits, though the hours will be about the same no matter when the work is actually done. The cash available for the project is the same no matter when it is done; there is plenty of money for improvements of this type.

The new toilet that broke was not broken due to misuse but because of some basic defect in the toilet. The company sent a replacement part (i.e. the whole ceramic toilet top, since it is a two-piece toilet), but does not pay to have a plumber install the replacement part.

[Mike]

With a two piece toilet, I'm surprised there isn't someone on maintenance staff that can just do that. Because I've installed toilets before and replaced parts on them and such, and if I can do it, then it's not difficult.

But be that as it may, if money is available, and you know it has to be done eventually anyway, and it will save money in installation cost to do it all at once, and the sooner you do it means the sooner you start saving on water*, then yeah, why not get four new toilets right now? Matching or not makes no nevermind to me, but you might as well get it done.


*Yeah, the cost savings from saved water will never be huge, but the optics of going green set a good example and look good for everyone.

[Ronster]

Mike, your asterisk line beat me out of a good reply about the $$ savings not being anywhere in the same neighborhood as other costs.

[Mike]

Right, it's like the savings in gas money on a hybrid car. Depending on where gas prices are, it can take three to six years to make up the cost difference between a hybrid and a comparable non-hybrid vehicle, so you're really doing it for the environment, not for the money. Especially since so many people regularly trade in their vehicles every three or four years, which still makes absolutely no sense to me, especially if you're concerned about the environment and/or money. But appearances matter, I suppose.

[Elle]

Or you could buy an E85 vehicle and seldom use E85 gas.

[Ronster]

Efficiency is an excellent point with facilities though. Most toilets will outlast any car's life and the maintenance is all but non-existent so you will get the full impact of efficiency and hopefully no plumber visits.

From that cost alone you can probably justify it, especially if it is in the budget for capital improvements.


================================
On an unrelated note the library in Villa Rica installed water free urinals (sorry for being uncouth) back in 2007. Not sure how they are odor-wise, but that seems like an awesome plan.

[Tahlvin]

[Mike]

[Elle]

[Tahlvin]

[Elle]

Come on, do you really want your kids driving? I can solve that.