I was quite happy when I bought and first used my Gerber Ultra Flush with a Sloan Flushmate air tank. As a friend of mine said, “It has all the fun of airplane toilets with all the comforts of staying home.” It worked and worked well. There was little doubt that whatever may have been in the toilet before the flush would certainly be elsewhere after the flush. The toilet was expensive as far as toilets go, but I felt, at the time, it was worth the money. This was about 14 years ago, and low-flow toilets that actually flushed well on a single flush were not easy to find.
A year later I bought a second for the bathroom on the second floor next to the bedrooms and realized how loud they are. I hadn’t really noticed in the first floor bathroom, but yes–loud. The kind of loud you don’t want to hear when you’re half asleep.
14 years later the Sloan air tank on the Gerber Ultra Flush toilet has developed a leak, a small hole on the top of the plastic tank. How, I don’t know. Why, after all this time, I don’t know. It appears, based on my conversation with customer service at Sloan, that leaks are not uncommon. The tank is made of what looks like high density pvc plastic. It doesn’t look like it should develop leaks.
Needless to say the warranty on the Sloan tank has expired. I need a new tank. They cost as much as some of the new toilets, toilets that Consumer Reports give high marks to. So I am buying a new toilet. I generally hate to waste things, and I don’t like the idea of buying a new toilet when I could repair my current toilet. I like even less the idea of replacing a part that will cost around $100 that has a life of 14 years (Sloan recommend retail price for the tank is $96. My two local plumbing supply houses wanted $130 and $155. I can get it online for $90 plus shipping.) Toilets should last longer, much longer, than 14 years. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to see the full life-cycle of a Gerber Ultra Flush toilet with a Sloan tank, I no longer am starry eyed whenever I flush the toilet. But, then, air travel is not the fun it once was either. I cannot recommend anyone buying a Gerber Ultra Flush toilet with a Sloan tank unless they are ready to purchase a toilet with a low life expectancy. “Flush hard, die young” is not the motto I want for my toilet.
I’ve already replaced the toilet on my second floor with a gravity flush, one piece Toto toilet. I wanted to remain half-asleep when flushing my toilet in the middle of the night. It is relatively quiet, and does the job in one flush. It works. It should. It cost almost $600. It was a hard purchase when I could have bought a Home Depot toilet for $150, but there are some things I just don’t want to be bothered worrying about; toilets are one of them.
I read in a recent Consumer Reports that there are quite a few new gravity flush toilets that are dependable, quiet, and inexpensive. I’m ready to give one a try. I’ll let you know how it works out in about 14 years.
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Update
It was keeping me up at night. Wanting to fix the pressure tank–it was like an itch I needed to scratch. I decided I needed try to repair the tank prior to installing the new toilet. Replacing the leaking tank was not cost effective, but patching the leak?
After draining the tank, I took a soldering iron to the plastic around the hole in hopes of melting the plastic closed. Don’t try this.
My second attempt worked. The leak was located on the top of the tank between two support ribs about 1/2″ apart. I covered the (now larger) hole with fiberglass cloth then filled the cavity between the ribs with epoxy. I capped this with a piece of wood I shaped to match the curve of the tank, and I clamped the wood, epoxy and fiberglass down with a custom clamp welded from flat bar and screwed to the conveniently placed screw holes on the tank. Had the leak been anywhere else on the tank, this would not have worked. However, a week and many flushes later, I happily returned uninstalled toilet I had so recently purchased.
I can report the same problem in a 10-year old Flushmate. A pinhole on the seam where the two halves of the tank join. It causes water to leak onto the floor.
Like you, I am annoyed to need a $100 replacement part after 10 years. I will try my luck with epoxy. If that doesn’t work, I will buy a new toilet that will be anything but Flushmate. Thanks for posting your experience.
Good luck with it.