Gary Blucher installed three low-flow toilets in his home - and often has to double-flush.

Just over two years ago, Gary Blucher built a house just north of Toronto. The Ontario building code said he had to use low flow toilets — ones that use no more than 6 litres of water per flush.

"They plug," he complains. "They plug toilet paper, bowel movements, they just plug. And they don’t flush completely, even when you urinate."

Blucher says he sometimes has to flush two or three times, just to clear the toilet.

"It's defeating the purpose of a low-flush toilet," he says with a shrug. "I’m not saving a thing."

In Ontario, low-flow has been part of the building code for the past six years. It's part of the province's efforts to save money by reducing the need for new water filtration plants.

The provincial government says the plan was to cut toilet waste by 25 per cent, but it hasn't quite worked according to plan.

Blucher always obeys the rules —he's a police officer — but he says this is one rule he's tempted to break: "We don’t like [the toilets], and the only alternative now is to take them out and replace them with new ones."

It's not like Blucher didn't do his homework. His toilet tanks say "CSA Approved" right on the tank. That means they've been tested and approved by the Canadian Standards Association.

"There’s got be something wrong with the standard," says Blucher. "If they say it’s supposed to flush normal human waste and it doesn’t, then obviously there’s something wrong with that standard."

Several plumbers we spoke with echoed Blucher's concerns.

Many low-flow toilets that carry the CSA stamp of approval fell short of expectations

"The calls I’ve received are from owners who are real upset because they’re having to flush these toilets two or three times in order for it to flush properly," one plumber told Marketplace.

Ontario may be the only province pushing the six-litre standard right now, but other provinces are watching closely. The city of Vancouver has jumped on the low-flow bandwagon as well.

Plumbing contractor Jim Meyer says the new toilets have kept him busy: "We’ve had an increase in business in unplugging people’s toilets, so at that end of the spectrum, we have more business."

Others say they're often called back to a home and asked to replace the low-flow toilet with an older water guzzler.

Is the plan saving Ontario water?

"Our expectation is that any toilet that’s going to go on is going to meet the standard. The manufacturer has a responsibility to meet the standards that are set by the CSA," says Brian Kozman, the man in charge of building code policy in Ontario.

When asked whether the low-flow toilet program is meeting its goal, Kozman says setting up a monitoring program would be too expensive.

Roman Kaszczij's Toronto toilet replacement program has approved only 24 out of hundreds of low-flow toilets on the market.

Roman Kaszczij runs the city of Toronto's toilet replacement program. He says there are hundreds of CSA-approved six litre toilets on the Canadian market. He hasn't tested all of them — but only 24 meet his standards.

"We did a test a couple of years ago. We just pulled toilets off the shelf and tested them. Over 50 per cent of them did not flush with six litres," Kaszczij said.

Kaszczij needs to know which toilets do work. Toronto offers a $60 - $75 rebate for anyone who will replace a water waster with a low-flow toilet. But there is a catch: you have to buy one of the 24 toilets on Kaszczij's list.

"We track it, we monitor the savings, we look at how much people are using today, and we compare, and the savings are great," Kaszczij said.

Based on a 1999 study, Kaszczij projects that the city is saving more than 12 million litres of water a day. But the number of toilets involved in Toronto's replacement program is just a drop in the bucket, compared to all the toilets going into all the new buildings across Ontario.

"We don’t monitor, we don’t have the resources to do that. We don’t enforce the building code at the local level, that’s up to municipalities to do," Brian Kozman said.

Kozman says the province has been working with the Canadian Standards Association and with manufacturers to ensure that products that make it to market do what they're supposed to do.

But, he concedes, it's a slow process.

Problems 'known for years'

Doug Geralde is a spokesman for the CSA. He admits he's known for years there are problems with some CSA-approved six-litre toilets. But he says the CSA does not write the standard: a committee of experts —including toilet manufacturers— writes the rules.

"The CSA mark only means it complies with the requirements and that’s what we certify to," says Geralde. He says if the standards fall short, the committee of experts will get feedback.

In late January 2003, the committee recommended that the Canadian standard should be replaced with an American one. Of the three toilets the committee tested, all passed the Canadian standard. Only one passed the American test.

If the CSA does change the standard, people like Gary Blucher won't benefit. The CSA says you can only go by the rules at the time of sale. If Blucher wants new toilets, it'll be up to him to buy them.

"They are going in the garbage," says Blucher. "They’re of no value. I wouldn’t even give them to anybody. They just don’t do the job."

Blucher says he'll find himself a new six-litre toilet that flushes like a toilet should.

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