People are buying USED (EWWW!) antiquated toilets on eBay.
Photo evidence:
I think the gross-out factor is substantial reason in and of itself. That aside, these toilets are also highly inefficient. They use more water than necessary and do not help water shortages… or water bills. 🙂
Exactly how inefficient are they? Let’s take a look:
The average GPF (the way manufacturers abbreviate gallons of water used per flush) for the three toilets sold on eBay is 7 GPF. Compare this to the 1.28 GPF of a newer model.
Let’s take a look at an example. The Dugger family (19 kids + 2 parents = 21 total) buy a 1970’s toilet that uses 7 gallons per flush. If the average person flushes 5 times a day, we can get the yearly total for the Dugger family by:
365(21 x 5) = 38,325
Multiply 38,325 by 7 GPF to get the total gallons of water used by the 1970’s model. This brings us to 268,275 gallons of water used.
Multiply 38,325 by 1.28 GPF to get the total gallons of water used by the 2010’s model. This model would use 49,056 gallons of water per year.
268,275 gal. – 49,056 gal. = 219,219 gal.  saved by switching to a high-efficiency toilet. With the newer model, the Duggers would save over 4 times the amount of toilet water they use per year.
Now you can apply this mathematical reasoning (and hopefully some common sense) as to why it’s insane to fork over hundreds of dollars for a vintage toilet. Sorry sellers, these toilets are “rare” for a good reason.
Resources:
I agree you should consider buying used items for cost-saving purposes, but when it comes to personal hygiene, just the thought of sharing a toilet seat with someone I don’t know even at home really makes me feel sick.
Your post is quite interesting and applicable to our daily life!
I didn’t those old fashioned toilets would cause that much more water usage. But I do know there are lots of places still use those old models that might be better to replace it with the newer models. I also notice there are some places would have two options for flushing. It would help as a way to save water too!
Yes, it really apply to our daily life:) I have a old fashion toilet, a high flow toilet, in my apartment. It flushes very slow and take a while to refill the water box before flush the next time. The toilet in our school buildings are all fast flush as i noticed, which can obviously save a lot water and do a quick job… The big water tower in front of the Stuckeman Family Building is for storing rainwater and mainly use for flushing toilet in that building. Collecting rainwater for toilet flush is also a sustainable approach to save water.