Toilet Repair Experts: Blog and Articles

Coast Products USA- Record Sales on 9/11/2011 Message from our CEO

2011-09-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

I had to blog this, My Name is Robert Easter the CEO of Coast Products, I know we have a following now and wanted to express my gratitude to those purchasing products online. We believe the best shelf space is now the internet and online sales, for the past 6 months we have been adding online products and bringing back hard to find solutions to help professionals and plumbers with their repair needs. Many of you know the company was going to be sold for parts and was being bid on by foreign investors but some old Coast employees and myself with investors purchased and moved the company to Northwest Florida. Coast Products was born from the ashes of the old Coast Foundry and Mfg.; New management and some old Coast Foundry employees purchased the company in September 2008 out of Bankruptcy.

Owners and Managers were determined to keep 65 + years of Coast Plumbing products and product development in the USA. Continuing to manufacture the best products in the World right here in the USA. Management has been in the process of growing up the business and making older products available to professionals and have chosen online sales as our main venue. Diane Sawyer of ABC news also put Coast Products on the Made in the USA web site as products manufactured and Made in the USA in August 2011.

So you are asking SO WHAT???

Well for 9-11-2011 and the 10^th year anniversary (we all remember where we were when it happened), staff opened the online sales information Monday and looked at 9-11-2011 online sales sales and you want to know what we found???

A record Day of online sales!!!

The best we have had since staring the www.coastproductsonilne.com on May 1^st of 2011, and the best part of it all a plumber from NY pushed us over the high mark in online sales!

GO New York and the rest of the plumbers and customers who use our new site to purchase products, we salute you!

To Celebrate, if you are a customer of Coast Products already, any order placed before the end of September will be eligible for an extra 15% off of purchases of $75.00 or more (COUPON CODE:SEPTEMBER)

For new customers, we are going to give you a 10% discount (COUPON CODE: NEWSEPTEMBER) to use on your first order just for signing up, Spread the word!

Robert Easter

CEO

Coast Products USA

http://www.coastproductsonline.com

Counter Balance Flush Valve and Flapper- A brief History

2011-09-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

WAVES from the COAST

THE COUNTERBALANCE FLUSH VALVE

Over the past several decades, water closet manufactures have found the use of “timing” devices necessary in maximizing the performance of their gravity-fed toilets. The performance of water closets with various combinations of tank heights and bowl styles could be enhanced by slightly increasing the amount of water through the flushing cycle. This is where the use of the “counter balance” flush valve came into play. This particular valve was designed with a rigid flapper frame allowed to pivot on stationary vertical overflow plastic tube. One end of the counter balance flapper was fitted with a soft or flexible seal formed around a weighted cone. The opposite end had a small “bucket” container designed to hold a small amount of water. The water was the counterbalancing weight. A small hole was drilled into the bucket so that the water would drain out of the bucket allowing the flapper to drop at the proper time. The size of the hole was the key to the performance of the toilet and was predetermined in the manufacturer’s lab.

One piece closets have always been an attractive design for the modern bath. However, they are not the easiest fixtures to produce. Manufacturer’s percentage yield in successfully casting these products is, in general, lower than the yield in producing two piece toilets. Another characteristic of the one piece closet is the lower the tank elevation, the greater the need for an increased volume of water for an efficient flush. These two characteristics increase the cost of manufacturing these closets which is passed on to the consumer. Toilet designers looked at the benefits of combining the attractive look of the one piece toilet and the manufacturing efficiencies of the two piece toilet. That is - by designing a low profile tank, setting it on an elongated bowl and making use of the counter balance flush valve to allow all the water possible to exit the tank for the most efficient flush.

As a result of using the counterbalance flush valve, closet manufacturers had:

1) A two piece closet with the “Low Boy” look of a one piece toilet.

2) The more efficient use of a gravity-fed tank at a price point many customers liked.

3) Better yielding 2 piece closets vs. 1 piece closets

A few manufacturers who have used the counterbalance flush valve.

Briggs

Crane USA

Crane Canada

Eljer

Gerber

Kokomo Sanitary Pottery

Universal Rundle

Visit our shop online to see more at: http://www.coastproducsonline.com

-Coast Products USA

Toilet Flapper: Coast Vs. Competitors and why we are the Industry Standard

2011-08-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

WHY YOU DON’T WANT TO BUY JUST ANY FLAPPER!

Just imagine this! You wake up on a Saturday morning to the sound of something that ain’t your alarm clock. You hear an unusual noise coming from your master bath. Upon further inspection, you discover your toilet is turning on and off every couple of minutes. Now what would cause that? You didn’t notice the toilet doing that before you went to bed last night. You realize that by letting this go on without fixing the problem, a lot of water and therefore money is “going down the drain”. There are a couple of things you can do immediately that will help eliminate potential problems that could plague the proper function of your water closet. NOTE: The following instructions are not for Pressure Assisted Toilets.

Check “Under the Hood”

Yes, lift the lid off of the “Throne” and make the following observations!

1. Look inside the tank and try to determine why the toilet is turning on and why it then turns off continuously. When you look at the valve on the left back corner of the tank (known as a “Ballcock” or “Fill Valve”) you will see that it is turning on for a short time and then shutting off for a period of time. This phenomenon is called “cycling” and caused by the tank losing water. Now let’s assume you have a Trip Lever (Flush Lever) mounted on the front or either side of your toilet tank. Look at the “Trip lever” rod and its connection to the flapper valve in the center of the tank (Flush Valve). This connection can be made of stainless steel chain, a vinyl strap, or in rare cases, a string connector. Is the chain or strap not permitting the flapper to seat properly onto the Flush Valve seat? Is the links of the chain so tight or twisted so that the flapper is pulled to the side or off center? All linkages should be loose enough to allow the flapper to drop freely onto the flush valve base.

2. If everything checks out in #1 above then the next thing to check that’s quick, free, and easy is a flapper leak test. Have your kids just finished coloring eggs for Easter? Those little colored pills dissolved in vinegar and water make for good flapper testing. Put a cup of that solution in the tank and then “hide & watch”. Or is you wife into cake decorating? If so, there a good chance she has some food coloring bottles in the cupboard. Try putting several drops of blue or red into the tank. Again “hide & watch”. If that flapper ain’t working properly, you’re going to have a toilet bowl full of colored water very soon.

There goes your 9:00 Tee Time. Your day off just became your “OFF DAY”

So what is the next step? How do you resolve this dilemma without spending a lot of time and money? Well, let’s try shutting off the water supply to the fill valve and see what we can learn about that flapper.

Maybe a little “Flapper History” is in order.

Over the past few decades the sanitary ware industry became active in national water saving efforts and the 5 gallon and 3.5 gallon toilets were phased out and 1.6 gallon (6 liter) water closets became the new industry standard. Water quality, product warranties, improvements in plastics and elastomers all had become important parts of the 1.6 gallon transition. Coast was on the forefront in assisting domestic & foreign water closet manufacturers with material improvements and early closure flappers. These improvements included the material composition of the flush valve flapper.

MATERIAL TESTS ELIMINATED MANY ELASTOMERS FROM CONSIDERATION AS FLAPPER MATERIAL

Potential flapper materials were subjected to various bowl cleaners in our lab as well as tests done at certain water company labs in an effort to eliminate water loss caused by “leaking” flush valve flappers.

HOWEVER..

The UHMW (Coast Blue) Flapper was the successful result of tests of various elastomer materials. After completion of “leak tests” by Coast’s lab, two city water labs confirmed the integrity of the “Ultra Blue flapper”. The flapper was then listed with The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) as an integral part of the “Certain Flush” valve.

Drought conditions affect, water districts need to conserve water, and some agencies set forth water closet rebate programs to help reduce consumption. The Coast blue flapper was used in those rebate programs.

The UHMW material greatly improved the reliability of the Coast brand over vinyl materials that were used in prior years. Acceptance by the sanitary ware industry, and plumbers in general resulted in many companies converting all specifications to the:

Coast “Ultra Blue Flapper”.

Visit Our Shop Today: Toilet Repair Parts by Coast

Coast Products USA- Made in America

2011-08-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

Coast Products USA- Proudly Made in America-

For US Companies, the decision to manufacture overseas has long seemed a no-brainer. Labor costs in China and other developing nations have been so cheap that as recently as two or three years ago, anyone who refused to offshore was viewed as a dinosaur, certain to go extinct as bolder companies built the future in Asia. But stamping out products in Guangdong Province is no longer the bargain it once was, and US manufacturing is no longer as expensive. As the equation has begun to balance out, companies—particularly the small to medium-size businesses that make up the innovative guts of America’s industry—are taking a long, hard look at the downsides of extending their supply chains to the other side of the planet.

Here at Coast it has never been a question of quantity, our focus has always been quality. If you're willing to sacrifice the quality, cheapen the materials used, and support another growing global economy other than the U.S. then the door is open. However, the quality of our products here at Coast has long been the backbone of our company for over 60 years, and will continue to be the driving force behind the decisions we make going forward. We are proud to say that 98% of our raw materials are domestic, and 100% of our products are assembled right here in the USA, and we find that our customers, namely the plumbers, DIY'ers, and middle class households of the country appreciate the fact that we are sticking to our guns when it comes to this issue. We all hear it everyday from our politicians; "We've got to bring Manufacturing back to the USA, create jobs, and grow this economy from within". We're on U.S. soil to stay, and will continue to manufacture the highest quality products in the industry without rival. Bottom Line: We're going to continue to Innovate, We're going to continue to create jobs, and We're going to support the economic growth of this Country.

Does Made in America still matter to you?

Call us today if you're tired of settling for poorly manufactured, low quality knock offs from overseas!

Coast Products USA

(850_235-2090

http://www.coastproductsusa.com

http://www.coastproductsonline.com

Toilet Flappers, and Water Conservation

2011-08-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

Excerpt From

TOILET FLAPPERS: The Weak Link of Water Conservation By John Koeller, P.E.

Water Conservation and Efficient Toilets

Over the past 10 years, the replacement of water-wasting residential toilets with efficient (1.6 gallons-per-flush -- gpf) toilet fixtures has been a key strategy of a number of U.S. and Canadian water utilities for achieving their water conservation goals. The economics of these replacement programs are usually based upon a 20-year (or more) functional life for a water-efficient toilet fixture. Therefore, for the projected water savings to be achieved, these toilet fixtures must perform as designed for that entire period. This, in turn, demands that flush valve flapper seals and their readily available replacements continue to function at 1.6-gpf throughout the 20-year lifetime of the fixture.

Problem No. 1 - Flapper Durability in Bowl Cleaners

Toilet fixtures and flapper failure....

A typical tank-type porcelain toilet is counted on by the water conservation community to possess a useful life of at least 20 years. However the flush valve closure mechanism (usually a flapper) within the tank of these new toilets may fail within five years, due either to normal “wear and tear” or to other factors introduced by the consumer. Failure leads to water leaks that could, unless corrected, substantially erode the water savings anticipated over the 20-year life.

Problem No. 2 - After-Market Replacement Flappers

Flapper replacement by the consumer....

Most consumers, upon discovering a leak in their toilet (whether resulting from normal “wear and tear” or from the use of an in-tank bowl cleaner), will attempt to locate a replacement flapper that stops the leak. When consumers look for such a replacement, they will generally visit the most convenient retail hardware store or home center for that product. In most cases, they will not contact the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to obtain the exact replacement part that is designed for their toilet fixture7.

When visiting the retail store, customers will find it extremely difficult to: (1) locate a flapper that is physically compatible with the flush valve (it fits the valve and does not leak, even though it may be the incorrect flapper for that toilet); and (2) determine that the replacement flapper maintains the 1.6-gpf characteristic of the original flapper in the ULF toilet. Whereas a consumer may easily locate a flapper that is physically compatible, they may not be able to discern whether the flapper meets the second requirement (a 1.6 gallon flush). Furthermore, once having satisfied the first requirement, many consumers may not be aware of the 1.6 gallon criteria or may even prefer a flapper that exceeds 1.6-gpf. Therefore, fixtures that are designed to function at 1.6-gpf are being fitted with after-market replacement flappers that cause the fixture to flush at volumes in excess of that figure, up to 4.4 gpf.

At Coast Products we provide our customers with not only a solution, we ensure that the aftermarket flapper purchased will maintain the correct flush volume, conserving water and saving the customer the headache of uncertainty.

If your uncertain about the correct flapper for your toilet, Call us today!

Coast Products

850-235-2090

www.coastproductsonline.com

www.coastproductsusa.com

Welcome to Coast Product USA's Blog

2011-03-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

This blog will be updated by different members of the Coast team, and offer a wealth of knowledge on topics such as plumbing products and tips, water conservation, manufacturing, the latest in research and development, product specs., and a plethora of other interesting topics. We hope you find this information informative, and encourage your questions and feedback. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @CoastProductsUS, and find us on FaceBook at Coast Product USA. The main goal of this Blog is to give you an inside look at the world of Coast Products USA, where we are headed, and what we're up to.

We look forward to sharing with you!