Why Non-Flushing Urinals Fail (And How to Prevent Those Failures)

After one gets over the surprise that not all urinals need to be flushed with water, nonflushing urinals seem like a no-brainer. What’s not to like about a system that eliminates a large use of potable water in buildings? Well, it turns out that there are indeed some issues, and early adopters of nonflushing urinals are reporting mixed results. Most of the disappointments appear to be due to faulty installation or inappropriate maintenance—but the industry is still learning what it takes to ensure success with these urinals.

Seattle Area Nonflushing Urinal Survey Results

A March 2003 survey conducted by Roger van Gelder, a water conservation specialist with Seattle Public Utilities, revealed that most facilities were pleased with their urinals, but some were not. At the time, urinals from the Waterless Company and Falcon Waterfree dominated the Seattle market, with a small number from Duravit as well. The survey found no significant difference in overall satisfaction with models from the three manufacturers. Van Gelder spoke with representatives at 22 facilities with a total of 172 nonflushing urinals installed. The results of his survey are reported in the accompanying table.

“My enthusiasm for waterless urinals has waned over time,” says van Gelder, adding: “Some people like them, some don’t. You can’t say, ‘Use this and you won’t have any problems.’ When they do fail, they tend to fail suddenly. They clog, and suddenly you have a big pool of smelly urine in the bowl,” he told EBN.

Jerry Messina, a maintenance plumber at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, is also disillusioned. “We are gradually taking them out,” he reports. “In the public areas, we have no problem with them; in the group areas (dorms), they are nothing but trouble,” he continues. The complaints have to do with odors and with a calcium build-up in the cast-iron piping behind the urinals.

These complaints are not the norm, however. John Vestor, of California’s Department of General Services also queried a number of institutional users (primarily school districts) and has a different reaction: “No one who has installed them in any significant way has anything negative to say,” says Vestor. In fact, several school districts in California are replacing conventional urinals with nonflushing urinals as fast as they can, because when vandals can’t break the flushometer and cause overflow, it eliminates the entertainment value of the vandalism, according to Vestor.

Installation and maintenance

All of the problems that users have with nonflushing urinals can be traced to one of two factors, according to John Watson of Sloan Valve. First, “If you have a no-slope installation or negative-slope installation, this thing will fail,” he predicts. The gooey biofilm build-up that clogs the pipes is a symptom of that problem. Our own experience at BuildingGreen is not uncommon: We installed a Kalahari™ provided to us by the Waterless Company in November 1998 and used it without any trouble until June 2004, when we noticed a leak from the connection between the urinal and the drain line. When we pulled the urinal off the wall, we discovered that the line was clogged with a gooey substance. We also realized that the drain line was not pitched away from the urinal as it should have been.

The second factor is inappropriate maintenance. “These urinals, since they don’t have water, typically require a bit more maintenance,” says Watson, and this explains most of the remaining complaints from users.

One of the more persistent complaints is that the cartridges don’t last their promised 7,000 uses—some users say that 2,500 is more typical. Users of Falcon Waterfree and Sloan urinals are particularly sensitive to this problem, since they pay between $30 and $40 per cartridge. Watson believes that short cartridge life in the Falcon and Sloan urinals, if not due to a lack of pitch in the drain, is an indication of one of two problems. Either water is being poured through the cartridge and draining the sealant, or an alkaline cleaner is being used. “Alkalines will break down the sealant and cause it to dissipate more quickly,” he reports. Watson suggests that “you want to use a slightly acidic type of cleaner.”

If too much water is being used in cleaning, especially if it’s hard water, calcium deposits may form. “Crystalline build-up happens when you add water to urine,” reports Jack Koenig, sales manager at the Waterless Company. Evidence provided by Falcon confirms that urine alone will not cause mineral deposits, but when it is mixed with hard water, urine causes calcium and magnesium carbonates to precipitate out of the water. This fact explains why odors and crystalline build-up go hand-in-hand. At the Merchant Marine Academy, for example, the midshipmen are responsible for maintaining their own restrooms. The maintenance staff has provided them with instruction plaques, but “they always do their cleaning during the evening when we aren’t here,” says Messina, so the maintenance staff can’t monitor their work.

Yellowing of Falcon Waterfree’s acrylic fixtures or the fiberglass-composite urinals from the Waterless Company is most likely due to the use of abrasive cleaners, which destroy the finish on the urinals and roughen their surface. “If you use an abrasive cleaner, you’re behind that protective coat, and you’ll get the yellowing,” says Koenig. The Waterless Company now has a vitreous china model for $100 less than its fiberglass models. And Sloan has chosen not to carry Falcon’s acrylic models. “Over time it will discolor,” predicts Watson, speaking about plastic fixtures in general.

Remaining stumbling blocks

Inappropriate installation and maintenance accounts for nearly all the problems, but a few issues remain. An early generation of Falcon urinals may not have had an optimal shape. Jim Allen of Sloan Valve reports that Falcon has new iterations in the housing outlet, allowing for better pitch and quicker acceleration of the liquid out of the fixture. At the University of Washington, which has nearly 200 nonflushing urinals from three different manufacturers, Falcon recently replaced 100 of its early model urinals with newer ones—though they won’t say exactly what complaint led to the upgrade.

Some users also complain about the difficulty of predicting when they need to replace the cartridges. In the California schools, that doesn’t seem to be a problem. “Once you start getting the urine smell, you know it’s time to switch them out. We do them one at a time,” reports Thomas Molter of the Corona-Norco Unified School District. Other facility managers are more demanding, however, and want to replace the cartridges before the urine smell is evident. In order to stay ahead of any failures, they typically replace the cartridges before they’re used up. That is especially tricky in restrooms with a bank of urinals because they are never used evenly (the ones on the end get most of the activity, according to van Gelder), but they all tend to get replaced as a group.

Falcon Waterfree Technologies’ new R&D center focuses
on the performance of nonflushing urinals. Flow and cycle testers simulate product use, allowing researchers to evaluate product performance and test new ideas in an accelerated manner. Hopefully this testing will ensure a higher level of user satisfaction as refinements are identified.

To resolve this problem, Falcon has been working on a system built into the cartridge that can be used to test remaining cartridge life. That device is not quite ready for release, however: “We haven’t got all the bugs out at this point,” says Jay Troger, president of Falcon. “It has not been our experience that most of our existing accounts have a lot of trouble knowing when to change,” he adds.

Other concerns

In California, the plumbers union is appealing the Division of the State Architect’s decision to approve nonflushing urinals for schools and state buildings (see EBN Vol. 13, No. 2). Among the concerns they have raised are the potential release of toxic sewer gases into a restroom while a cartridge is being replaced, and the use of a registered pesticide, chloroxynol, in Falcon’s AllSeal™ fluid. Falcon has defended its use of chloroxynol, arguing that it is safe in the low concentrations in which it is used. Nevertheless, the company is phasing chloroxynol out of its formulations, according to comments made during a hearing about the plumbers union’s appeal.

Others have questioned whether the sealant fluid might become a problem for sewage treatment plants if nonflushing urinals go mainstream. Analyses by several technical experts into this question indicate that even if all urinals used the sealant fluid, its concentration in the overall sewage flow would be negligible.

Recommendations

Nonflushing urinals are a great way to save water, but they may not be ideal for every situation. If you can’t ensure a reliable pitch in the drain line and a maintenance staff that is willing to learn new procedures, then you should stick with conventional urinals. Van Gelder notes that wash-down urinals are now available that use only one-half gallon (2 liters) per flush, and some can be adjusted down to a third of a gallon (1.3 l). “If they can make a 1.6 gallon toilet, why do you need a gallon to flush a urinal?” he asks.

If problems do occur, check for problems in the drain line. “You may not have started with an adequate pitch. “Buildings settle. Pipes settle,” notes Watson. And check for the use of any water or alkaline cleaners. These urinals are, after all, pretty simple, so it should be possible to find the cause of any problems.

– NM

For more information:

Duravit USA, Inc,
www.duravit.com

Falcon Waterfree Technologies, LLC
www.falconwaterfree.com

Sloan Valve Company
www.sloanvalve.com

Uridan-USA, Division of GDK International, Inc.
www.uridan-usa.com

Waterless Co. LLC
www.waterless.com

November 1, 2004

DISCUSSIONS

Reader-contributed comments related to Why Non-Flushing Urinals Fail (And How to Prevent Those Failures) - EBN: 13:11. Comments are listed with newest at the top.

One-pint urinals changing the game? Posted by Nadav Malin on Oct 20, 2011, 05:04 PM
With the pint-flush urinals that are now available from most major fixture manufacturers, it's hard to argue that it's worth the effort to train maintenance staff on how to maintain non-flushing urinals.

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