How long does the average roll of toilet paper last at your house?

I think 2–3 days.

I buy the cheapest toilet paper available because apparently my family members eat it.

We go through a roll or more a day. This bugs me to no end, and I’ve told them I’m never buying the good stuff again until they learn how to reduce the waste.

Dad had a hook up for basically a lifetime supply of industrial paper products so I grew up wiping with the harshest, cheapest grade paper there is. First thing I put in the grocery cart on the first shopping trip for my own place was a roll of the fluffy good stuff. It may last a week. I am really regular and I almost always need to go after my second morning cup of coffee. That’s usually at work so I still end up using the cheap institutional stuff.

2–21/2 days.

About four to six days. I’m not home for about 11 hours per day, so that helps.

Let me put it this way: Thank goodness for Costco.

The bathroom tissue in our house is multi-functional. My wife uses it instead of facial tissue to blow her nose, so that sort of skews the usage stats. But woe to the husband (me) if any “cheap industrial” tissue should touch her sensitive derrière.

If we had forsight years ago,should have bought stock in Scott. 3 days max and there’s only two of us in the house.

Strange you should ask that question. I put a replacement roll in the bathroom about a week ago, because the old roll was almost empty (one more use, maybe). I have not replaced it. I find that I have been using restrooms at work or in shopping malls. This is definitely not deliberate. Since I am the only one in my household, at this rate it may last forever.

I think I can use 4 or 5 rolls a week lol
I live alone, so I really use it as toilet paper, tissue, etc.
Use it in bathroom, dinning table, to swipe oils, stains, etc.

I go through a lot of TP because I drink massive amounts of water and have to go about every 35–45 minutes all day long. lol
I go throug a good sized roll in about 3 days I think. Now that the weather is cooling I have not been drinking quite as much water so that will lighten the flow…pun intended. haha

I buy pretty cheap toilet paper because we are on a septic tank. I also use Cottenelle, which is a premoistened towelette, which I strongly suggest to those who are messy, or have hemorrhoids.
Okay, too much information.
We use a new roll over 6 days or so.

One a day, which has led to the least appreciated and productive conversations of my life.

fd: “so, you wad up like what, 3 feet at a time?”
fm: “are we really talking about this?” <laughing>
fd: “but maybe if you folded instead…???”
fm: “are you serious??”

It’s good that she loves me.

One lasts a bit.
Unless it’s a bigger house with large trees….hard to get the needed coverage on the branches.
Oh- and….
Only a front hang like a waterfall when changed!

4 days.

We have two loos. I’d say every couple of days. My husband swears the women in the house are eating the stuff. He cannot understand how we go through so much of it.

The roll in my bathroom lasts around 3 weeks.
I’m a folder, not a wadder.
Over not under, your fingernails make contact easily.

This is funny. A roll of TP at my house usually lasts about three weeks, and can last up to a month.

No, it’s not that I don’t use toilet paper, or that I only use it one square at a time. I live alone – with the dorg, and she doesn’t use paper. I spend a lot of time at work, and the bathrooms and toilet paper there work just as well as at home. Aside from that, my schedule is pretty regular…

Looks like it lasts approx two days on the weekends for me.
and..this
I mean come on.. the over and under debate is on topic. When it’s placed in the over position less is usually taken and makes the roll last a tad longer. It also makes the wadding arguably less effective because of the reduced surface area.

A lot depends on the brand.
There are double and triple roll brands out there that are still near normal diameter. I buy them.
At the auction house we went from using 7–8 rolls per auction to 5 simply by changing brands. I’m currently using store brand from a Big Box club that would make Dr, Seuss say, “I AM!”. lol Long rolls, durable and cheap.

I’ve tried so many brands, types and sizes and finally settled on Charmin giant rolls. They last me 3–5 days, depending on how often I use the roll for purposes other than the number one—or more accurately, Number 2—one.

About a week. I buy only the recycled, one-ply stuff that’s packed tightly around the cardboard cylinder.

About a day and a half.

I have been thinking about this since you asked. And have the answer for you: 18 – 20 days.

I’ll spare the details but will tell you how I determined the answer.
First I looked at how many sheets were advertised on a roll.
Then I used the paper normally and counted how many times I went back to the roll to do the job. I multiplied that by the typical number of sheets used each time.
That told me te number of sheets per use. I multiplied that by the number of times I do that per day (once) to get sheets per day. .
I then divided the number of sheets on a roll by the sheets per day to get…. 18–20 days.

Here is the equation with the variable names written descriptively:
Life of roll in days = number of sheets on roll / ( number of sheets per wipe x number of wipes x number of bathroom visits per day)

@LuckyGuy – there are a couple of factors that I think you omitted.

1) your assumptions are based on a single person using a single bathroom. That may be the case in your house; in mine (and others) bathrooms are shared among all inhabitants (and occasionally guests) and therefore results may be skewed because of other people who are not as (shall I say it?) anal as you.

2) More importantly, an additional and essential part of the study needs to take into account the differences in female use versus mail use of toilet paper. I would theorize that women use somewhere between 1.25 and 1.5 times as much toilet paper per session as men. I have no solid research to back that up, of course.

3) Finally, another variable (if this is going to be a universally applicable equation) the softness / absorbency of the toilet paper. If n = standard toilet paper, and Charmin’s softness is n*2, then does it follow that there is an inverse relationship between softness and quantity? Is toilet paper use a zero-sum function?

@elbanditoroso I was answering the question as written: my house, my toilet paper.

The equation holds for any paper, softness, rolls size or use. The numbers entered into the equation might vary but the result will still be true. Nowhere was the rolls defined, e.g. “Skott Woodchip Wonder” or “Charming Silk, now with Japanese Furoshiki texture”

If someone uses fewer sheets for one particular method of elimination the average number of sheets per use may be estimated using the above equation. The frequency of bathroom visits is then entered in the denominator.

I can write the installation date inside the next roll I put in on and see how close my empirical method is to actual data.
Just for fun I will change the roll today and date it.

@LuckyGuy – all in the interests of science, of course. Thanks

@elbanditoroso Done! I wrote the date in four places inside the tube with a Sharpie: both ends and on opposite sides. The data will be visible no matter how I remove the tube.

Note: I already used the previous roll this morning so I will adjust the result to factor in the PP (post poop) initial condition.

Diet during the test period would be helpful to monitor. Some foods process into good solid waste and others into a greasy distasteful waste that requires multiple passes to adequately clean the ejection port.

I was thinking of this question today (probably as I used some toilet paper). I was thinking that if I had a house with 10 bathrooms, the roll in each would last longer than it does in a house with one bathroom.

My house has 5 bathrooms. I use my master bathroom 80% of the time.

Hey, @elbanditoroso if you’re doing anything with used toilet paper in the mail, then you’re doing one or both things wrong. And for all I know, they might both be federal crimes, but at least one is. So quit doing that.

In any case, @LuckyGuy‘s equation fails to consider diet. I also will spare any and all details. It also fails to consider “alternative uses” for the toilet paper, including nose-blowing, makeup removal or application (regardless of gender, these days), minor bathroom cleanups (including wiping condensation off the mirror after a shower) and other incidental uses for the paper.

I just ran the experiment with a different approach. I used a Mettler Balance with a resolution of 0.01 grams (about ½0 of one sheet of single ply toilet paper.) I tared it with an empty tube of the same brand and weighed a new roll . After use, I weighed the roll and noted the difference I divided tat number into the number found and got 22 days! Using my estimated counting method I got 25 days! Not bad. The actual date reading will be the true test.

Another interesting fact. The weight readings indicate there are 1.2% fewer sheets on the roll than advertised! (One quarter of one poop’s worth! ~I am going to complain to Consumer’s Reports. ) I used a sample of 10 sheets for the per sheet mass so I have enough resolution to detect well within 0.1 sheet.

Note: All readings were taken wit a RH of 47% I will take a shower now, leaving the door closed and fan on to see how much water vapor the roll absorbs and if I need to correct.

@LuckyGuy – I truly applaud your scientific approach to this question. There’s a research paper here, just crying to get out.

OK. I just did the post shower, limit testing measurement. The roll absorbed the same mo9isute mass as the equivalent of ~½ a sheet. I can ignore it. Nevertheless I will always take the readings at least one hour after a shower.

I am intentionally leaving out the exact numbers so people can’t work back and say “Oh he uses X pieces per wipe and wipes Y times. Nor am I stating how many sheets are on the roll. “Oh he uses the good/cheap stuff.” I will respond to FOI requests if there is a legitimate scientific need.

So far the most striking finding is the roll does not have the advertised number of sheets! It is short by 1.2% by weight. More data is needed.

I just weighed 3 rolls and am disappointed by the poor quality control. The three I tested were all overweight by 0.6%, 1.3% and 1.9% . That more than makes up for the 1.2% short roll I randomly selected for my test.
My faith in the manufacturer has been restored. I’ll call off the Class Action suit . :-)

I understand that they could make every rolls the same mass but it would cost more. Frankly it is not worth the effort.

@LuckyGuy – I was waiting for the newspapers to break the news on the latest scandal – “Rollgate” ....

However, the variance between rolls is somewhat worrisome. Theoretically a person could end up with a 6-roll (or 12-roll, or whatever) pack where ALL the rolls are 1% light. Scandalous!!

If we took enough data and had a large enough sample lot, we could run a statistical analysis, assuming a normal Gaussian roll weight distribution, to predict how many customers would end up on the sort side of the toilet paper dispenser.
From my limited sample, on average you come out ahead 0.5%. That is 5 extra sheets on a 1000 sheet roll. Not bad.

December 6! 28 days! But I was out of town for a total of 6 days.
So… 22 days!

My first estimate was not too far off. .