21st-Century Toilets

摘要

While the convenience and hygiene of indoor plumbing are obvious, the improvements in toilets in recent years may not be. In part, this is because people view the bathroom, and the toilet in particular, as taboo subjects for social conversation. The other reason is that most people can't test, I mean actually test, toilets before purchasing one. It's nearly impossible to get a good sense of how well they work by admiring toilets on a showroom floor, no matter how many golf balls, sponges, or other items are loaded into them. In this respect, commodes are a unique consumer product: There are few sources of good comparative information for something that needs to work flawlessly multiple times every day and that consumers expect to last forever. I recently had the chance to survey the wares of all the major toilet manufacturers at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas. And although researching toilets may be a dark job, at K/BIS it's sure not lonely. These days, crowds of serious folk, including former rocket scientists, contemplate, design, test, and manufacture water closets. They are eager to discuss their data and discoveries. Beyond the inner circle of designers, end users also were less squeamish than I expected and were willing to share their experiences. I found that today's toilets are better designed, better built, and better for the environment than those made just five years ago. Here, then, a perennially neglected fixture gets its due.