Brand and Model recommendations for a wall hung toilet
artisanfarms
| Posted in General Questions on
I’m looking at potentially two wall hung toilets in the ranch home I am rehabbing – one in the basement to avoid the need to jackhammer the floor to install the drain and one in the master bath for aesthetics and ease of cleaning the floor around it.
I’m finding a lot of different models available. From personal experience does anyone have either positive or negative recommendations?
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I’m looking at this model: https://www.us.kohler.com/us/Wall-Hung-Toilets/article/CNT121800001.htm
Timely as I was starting to dig into bathroom bits for my build plans.
A slightly different take than wall-mount:
https://swissmadison.com/collections/all-toilets/products/sublime-back-to-wall-concealed-tank-toilet-bowl
Looks like this as well as wall-mount both require having the tank and all associated bits installed behind in the wall cavity: and note that this is an additional cost (total costs pushing $1k USD). Probably a good recommendation to have some sort of access panel available: I'm trying to design with this in mind for all plumbing connects.
WARNING: whatever you do don't look at the pricetag on the Kohler Intelligent wall hung one. It's a stinker of a price! (and reviews don't seem great)
I would stick to brands that have been making these for a long time. Can't go wrong with Toto or Duravit. Not sure how much I would trust local manufacturers. Also make sure there is local support, even the best toilets will need valves swapped out over time and it is a pain if you can't find it locally.
I went with one of the off brand wall hung toilets for my home, which has worked out well so far but I did have to order a replacement fill valve from the UK.
Akos, you're near me, what brand did you use?
Andy, I used caroma wall hungs in my latest build. They work well and they're good toilets in terms of cleanliness, flushing, splash out, streaks, etc. But please be warned, there are real nuances to installing wall hung toilets mostly in the preplanning.. I put them in myself because I don't know any plumbers that put in wall hungs before, Or would come back every so often to during the different phases of construction. So I went through the hard knocks learning the intricacies myself. And let me tell you, they're nothing like floor mount toilets. Not wrong or bad, just different.
Hope that helps,
Jamie
Jamie,
I don't remember the brand, I got it at an overseas box store. Makes me mad sometimes how much cheaper and how much nicer standard equipment is overseas. Tank+bowl was something like €250.
I have both Gerberit and Toto and here are my observations:
- Either one is relatively easy to install, you just need to decide how high you want your seat height to be before installing;
- Gerberit is compatable with a lot more toilet bowls, Toto is only compatible with its own bowls;
- Gerberit has a much better selection of wall plates;
- The instructions provided with each suck, but that is typical of plumbing products;
- The bowls are easy to install, but make sure you have the gasket. Toto comes with the gasket, but you have to buy the kit with Gerberit;
- If you plan on getting a bidet seat, Toto includes the water line connector in the wall frame. Gerberit did not at the time, but I have not checked recently.
- They really do save a lot of room, they look better and I would use them on the next project.
To keep the water noise down we went with cast iron DWV pluming. After seeing the thin plastic drops TOTO supplied with the kits we ordered the cast iron drops.
Our wall framing is 2x4. To reinforce the 2x4s we screwed 1/4"T x 3"W x 60"L steel flat bar to the 2x4s.
I hadn't heard of Swiss Madison. It seems the company is about five years old, and it acts primarily as an importer of Chinese made fixtures. A few reviewers on Amazon have complained about missing parts, but those comments might have something to do with the pandemic.
We've bought Toto the last couple of times around but have been a little disappointed in their performance.
Steve, I'd only grabbed Swiss Madison from a quick Google after seeing the horrible reviews of Kohler on Kohler's site. I take reviews with a grain of salt, mostly requiring a large sample size before I have a truer sense of real world performance; I understand that people who have issues are more likely to comment/review than those who do not. A bit troubled to hear of any disappointment with Toto as I've thought of them as being the gold-standard: I was going to replace the WCs in my current place with Toto but that got set on-hold when I started thinking about a full, new build.
I was feeling kind of excited about these wall mounts (and the ones that go right up against the wall- sit on the floor but have the tanks in the wall) until I started thinking about maintenance and my environment/context. I'm on a well. WC tanks got a bit crudded up (rust); I have done a lot of work to mitigate all this (long story), but it just sits there in the back of my mind; it's a feeling similar to thinking about on-demand water heaters caking up with calcium (I don't have calcium issues), having such units installed inside walls (which, of course, one shouldn't do, but you get the idea). Also, having water connections in a wall makes me a bit nervous: I realize that hidden connections are common; it's just something that I'd have to get over I suppose.
People commenting on Kohler products complained about insufficient water. Kohler said to raise the water level in the tank: seems pretty obvious to me! I didn't look over the installation documentation, in which case maybe it's noted there, but it seems it should be mandatory to have an access point post-installation: one can often see access panels in commercial installations; if you don't see one from the user-side then there's one on the back side of the wall.
I think that for one of my bathrooms I could provide access to the back side of the wall from a closet.