Water-Saver Toilet Ready for the Maiden Voyage

Ideally, we shouldn't be using expensive, energy-intensive municipal drinking water to merely dilute and lubricate our pee and poo. That is why I asked Santa for a composting toilet. Alas, Santa's elves apparently didn't know how to make one, or Santa got the follow-up letter from my sensible and hygienic wife. So, building a composting toilet will be a nice weekend project once the holi-daze is over and the wife approves my design. The fact is, while I've been eating almost 100% raw, I've got some top-choice-grade-A poo that would be perfect humanure. (You have to admit you're kind of jealous.)

In the meantime, I had to get rid of my antique water-wasting pooper, compost or no. 

The old toilet used ~5 gallon/flush. OMG!!

Old pooper used ~5 gpf.

The new one claims 1.28 gpf- HOORAY!

New Toilet--1.28 gpf.

But this is kind of talk is a bunch of poop. As my buddy John Robbins would say, "VOLUMES are what's important, not rates!"

What does that mean? It means it doesn't matter if you drive a hyrbid that gets 45 mpg while my conventional Honda Accord gets 34 mpg-- what matters is how many gallons we both use and how many less we'll use next year in order to accomplish the same amount of goals (or more). Continual progress!

In the same way, it doesn't matter how many gallons/flush my new toilets gets-- it matters how many gallons I end up flushing. Since my goal is to stay hydrated enough to pee once every hour (and twice during the night) that could mean the following volume:
OLD TOILET + WASTEFUL HABITS
14 flushes/day x 5 g/f = ~70 gallons/day!!!!!!

Since my pee is crystal clear, I don't mind following the old hippie adage, "If it's brown flush it down and if it's yellow, let it mellow." That means that, out of cleverness or guilt, I might flush just a few times per day:
OLD TOILET + HIPPIE HABITS
3 flushes per day x 5 g/f = ~15 gallons/day

But the new toilet could possibly use MORE VOLUME of water depending on my habits. If I'm a flush-a-holic...
NEW TOILET + WASTEFUL HABITS
14 flushes/day x 1.28 g/f = ~18 gallons/day

But with crystal clear, hydrated urine to be proud of...
NEW TOILET + HIPPIE HABITS
3 flushes/day x 1.28 = ~4 gallons/day

The new toilet cost me $106 plus I had to buy a new toilet supply hose, $7.50, since my old one was leaking.

The hardest part was un-attaching the old toilet and cleaning up the old caulk and wax ring. It shouldn't be called "installing a new toilet"; it should be called "scraping crud off of the floor...and then installing a new toilet."

Maximum handimanliness! Scraping caulk off the floor in preparation for the new throne.