What type of toilet fixture is required in an Astoria commercial food service restroom?

The problem

The owner of a food service business in a converted commercial ground-floor space in Astoria, a neighborhood with a dense concentration of restaurants and food businesses, was renovating the employee restroom ahead of a DOH inspection. The existing restroom had a residential-style tank toilet that had been cited in a prior inspection as non-compliant for commercial food service use. The owner needed the fixture replaced with a compliant commercial unit before the re-inspection, and the existing floor flange and drain connection needed to be assessed for compatibility with the new fixture's mounting pattern. The floor drain in the restroom was also partially blocked. The previous tenant had been pouring grease waste there and it had built up at the trap. We cleared it while we had the area open.

What we did

We removed the residential toilet and inspected the existing floor flange, which was in acceptable condition but required a new wax-free seal and spacer to bring the rough-in height to the correct dimension for the commercial fixture, we set the stainless steel floor-mount commercial toilet on the prepared flange, torqued the mounting hardware to spec, and connected the commercial flush valve to the 1-inch cold supply line. The flush valve was adjusted for the correct flush volume per cycle to meet both water efficiency requirements and effective waste removal, we tested through multiple flush cycles, confirmed no movement at the base, and provided the owner with the fixture's specification sheet for the DOH inspection file. Flush valve set to 1.28 gallons per flush. The WaterSense standard for commercial fixtures and what DOH inspectors expect to see documented. Left the specification sheet and flush volume setting in the owner's inspection binder.