Constant supply for toilet

[whateg01]

Even without anybody else in the house, if I flush the toilet then want to take a shower, I have to wait for the toilet to stop running before I have full pressure. Had anybody used one of those tanks for RO systems to provide water for the toilet? A check valve with a lower flow rate would keep the tank full unless it's used heavily. Is it a solution looking for a problem? My gf would say so. And it adds complexity to an otherwise simple system. But I would be happier.

 

[nadogail]

Sounds like your house is being fed by a long skinny pipe from the main. Are you on a city water system or a well?

 

[rayra]

would you really be happier, if this is the kind of thing your fret about?
90secs is too long to wait? brush your fangs. Or even easier, wait to flush until AFTER your shower.

 

[Shiftless]

Sounds like your house is being fed by a long skinny pipe from the main. Are you on a city water system or a well?

Nadogail has a good guess. Do you have iron pipes? Galvanized pipes that used to be adequate can gradually get obstructed by rusty crud that makes them skinny inside. I have seen galvy pipes that used to be half inch inside diameter that were so crusty inside that a wooden pencil wouldn’t fit through.

 

[mike93lx]

So what happens when the new tank needs to fill? How would it be different?

 

[tez929rr]

Here is something I’ve been wondering about for a while. We have an apartment in a steel building. It’s fed off of the same well system and pressure pump as the house. If you flush a toilet in the house you need to wait while the toilet refills to get adequate shower pressure. In the apartment, which is another 300 feet or so of pipe run away, you can flush the toilet and it has no noticeable effect on the shower pressure. We put in inexpensive toilets ($99) from Home Depot and they refill in about 20 seconds ( and flush great). I’m happy about how it worked out but damned if I can figure out how.

 

[rooster59]

You could close the toilet water supply valve a bit, toilet fills slower but robs less from the shower.

 

[Sumboodie]

Piss in the shower like a normal person

In my place I learned not to start the washer while going to shower.
I thought modern shower valves were scald proof, but this one sure isn't. Either get molten lava going out or ice cubes.

 

[tester19]

Until I stated getting very expensive houses I also always ran into this and while not a real problem it is certainly annoying.

Now this won't help you but at my current expensive custom home I found out they ran 3/4" piping to the master bathroom. Then your supply is huge and flushing the toilet makes no impact on the temperature or the water flow in the shower. Plus until you have had the pleasure of using a wonderful high pressure AND high volume shower you just don't know what your missing! I have 3 separate shower heads.

A true small luxury in life! Which I was not aware of until I experienced it!

Your suffering because they used 1/2" supply piping. But as with everything running 3/4" pipe is a lot more expensive and then you will need the 3/4" fixtures in the shower which again have added costs!

Plus remember your main supply needs to be bigger too but most water mains I have seen are in the 1-1/2" diameter range already.
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[Sumboodie]

Until I stated getting very expensive houses I also always ran into this and while not a real problem it is certainly annoying.

Now this won't help you but at my current expensive custom home I found out they ran 3/4" piping to the master bathroom. Then your supply is huge and flushing the toilet makes no impact on the temperature or the water flow in the shower. Plus until you have had the pleasure of using a wonderful high pressure AND high volume shower you just don't know what your missing! I have 3 separate shower heads.

A true small luxury in life! Which I was not aware of until I experienced it!

Your suffering because they used 1/2" supply piping. But as with everything running 3/4" pipe is a lot more expensive and then you will need the 3/4" fixtures in the shower which again have added costs!

Plus remember your main supply needs to be bigger too but most water mains I have seen are in the 1-1/2" diameter range already.
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My piping was 1" then reduced to 3/4" at each branch. The Terlet flushing would still bog the shower flow a bit.

Current place has 1/2" and it's bad.

Though already takes forever to get hot water, probably use more water for that than the actual shower.

'd imagine it'd be horrible with larger pipes.

 

[couch67]

You could close the toilet water supply valve a bit, toilet fills slower but robs less from the shower.

I think this would work, and to help it even more you could also install a water flow restrictor in the shower head. This will limit the overall water demand from the small supply pipe when the shower is on and the toilet is flushed, which in turn will reduce the pressure drop.

Of course you would have to be ok with less water flow in the shower in this case, but I think there are washer kits with varying restrictions available so you can experiment.

 

[nadogail]

There are temperature compensating shower valves to maintain the temperature of the water spray. They are not cheap but they are a tremendous improvement over the cheap ones. I am converting the shower valves in my rentals as the older ones fail.

 

[K'ledgeBldr]

“Constant supply for toilet” (?)​

Eat more beans! Or, drink more beer!!!

 

[JRC3]

First

World

Problems.

 

[Meursault74]

Piss in the shower like a normal person

In my place I learned not to start the washer while going to shower.
I thought modern shower valves were scald proof, but this one sure isn't. Either get molten lava going out or ice cubes.

 

[TexMedium]

Every house i've ever lived in had this problem. This is 100 year old row houses to 1960's era tract built stuff. I replaced all of the plumbing in my own home with PEX. In a home built sort of way, that is, i've got 3/4" copper from the main to the meter. That was about all i saved. From the meter i ran more 3/4" copper to a home-made manifold made with copper reducing tees and 1/2" brass ball valves (ALL NOS, on hand, the budget was tight). From the manifolds EVERY fixture got it's own 1/2" PEX run. The pressure "drops" in the shower went away! And, i mean, the wife and boys flushed ALL THREE toilets simultaneously while a test subject (me!) took a shower. There was no scalding effect, or noticeable loss of flow, i did not even know the "experiment" was happening.

 

[rlitman]

...Your suffering because they used 1/2" supply piping. But as with everything running 3/4" pipe is a lot more expensive and then you will need the 3/4" fixtures in the shower which again have added costs!...

Yes, but the down-side to using 3/4" everywhere is the wait for hot water to reach the shower, so that doesn't fix the OP's issue, since he'll still be waiting just as long. Anyway, all you need is 3/4 on the cold, because the toilet isn't using hot water. But then if someone uses the sink, it will still affect the shower pressure. The PEX manifold with hole runs solves all this.