Hackensack, N.J.-Area Conservation-Oriented Firm Tries to Build Perfect Toilet.

Byline: Hugh R. Morley

Aug. 10--William Cutler is a connoisseur of toilets. In a corner of a Cedar Knolls warehouse, beneath a 20-foot-high rack of shelves stacked higgledy-piggledy with old toilets, employees for Cutler's company, Niagara Conservation, are looking for the perfect flush. They dismantle toilets, study their nuances, evaluate their effectiveness, and plan ways to improve them.

Cutler believes they have found it.

The traditional toilet -- the one that has dominated the market for decades, possibly since it was refined by an Englishman, Sir. Thomas Crapper, in the 1860s -- uses a rubber valve or flapper to regulate the amount of water rushing into the bowl.

But for four years, Niagara Conservation has sold toilets made with its own design. They have no flapper. Instead, the water cascade is measured by a plastic bucket that tips when the user turns the handle -- a technique that company officials say gives a stronger, more reliable flush that will in the long run save users water and money.

To Cutler, who talks with the certainty of a man whose genius is soon to be discovered, the new toilet design is no mere convenience; it is the answer to everything from rising water costs to New Jersey's drought.

"The flapperless toilet is a revolution in toilets," Cutler says. "Now is the time to go flapperless!" Although that claim may contain a hint of hyperbole, Cutler's design is in line with the dual mission espoused by his Cedar Knolls-based company since it was started 25 years ago: to conserve energy or water while luring customers with the promise they will save money.