EXPLODING TOILETS NO LAUGHING MATTER

Public toilets using a Series 503 Flushmate III Pressure Assist system are liable to explode

BarkGrowlBite | June 27, 2014

If you’re pooping on a public toilet and the tank explodes, you are going to be picking porcelain shards out of your ass and backside. The guilty Flushmate system can also be found in some home toilets.

‘IT SOUNDED LIKE A HUGE BOMB WENT OFF’: TOILET EXPLODES AT COURTHOUSE MOMENTS AFTER WOMAN USED IT
The toilet that shattered at Stillwater County Courthouse in Montana this week used a Flushmate system which had been recalled two years ago as stored pressure causes the tank to explode

Mai Online
June 26, 2014

A woman narrowly escaped injury after a courthouse toilet exploded moments after she used it.

Norma Brewer was leaving a bathroom stall at Montana's Stillwater County Courthouse on Tuesday when the toilet's porcelain tank shattered. She said she's lucky to be alive.

'I had just closed the door behind me when it went off,' the Stillwater County deputy treasurer told Billings Gazette.

'That saved me. But it sounded like a huge bomb went off in this courthouse.'

The explosion scattered shards of porcelain through the stall and restroom.

Brewer said the toilet used a Series 503 Flushmate III Pressure Assist system, for which the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a voluntary recall in 2012.

According to the press release, 'the system can burst at or near the vessel weld seam releasing stored pressure.

'This pressure can lift the tank lid and shatter the tank, posing impact or laceration hazards to consumers and property damage.'

Flushmate said it had received 304 reports of the system - a plastic two-piece device installed in toilet tanks - bursting and causing damage.

Brewer said the county will replace five toilets in the courthouse following the explosion.

She told Mail Online a nearby assisted living facility also used the toilet system and urged households and businesses to check their toilet model.