HELP please- replace wall hung or go floor mounted?? pictures

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natalie559

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Hi group,

We have an older home built in the 1960s. We have two bathrooms that share an adjoining wall. Both toilets are wall mounted tank on outside of wall. One bathroom has a newer low flush toilet that developed a leak behind the wall. The seal was bad and the slow leak went undetected for a long time. Once we knew from evidence outside the wall that there was a leak many studs and the subfloor were rotten and moldy. The bathroom has been torn apart and now that it's in the rebuild stage I wondered what the advantages were of changing the plumbing to accommodate a floor mount toilet? Is changing the plumbing worth the expense? If staying wall mount is best then what about changing the toilet? The newer low flush wall mount toilet I hate b/c the water level in the bowl stays very low and cannot be adjusted and therefore the toilet bowl often stays dirty from solids and a not very powerful flush. What would you all do???

Thank you!!

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WJcandee

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A floor-mount gives you a lot more options in terms of fixtures, as there are basically just 3 rear-discharge wall-mount toilets available today with the tank outside the wall. There are quite a few in-wall-tank toilets out there these days, which perform well.

And the answer to some extent depends upon how much you want to spend. While you have the wall open, you could consider an in-wall tank toilet. However, if water-spot size is your biggest concern, then it's fair to note that most have relatively-small water spots, although they have a good thorough flush (at least by today's standards). That said, we have that in-wall-tank setup in a couple of places, and it works well. However, for most homes you can usually find just the combination of style and performance that you want among the zillion toilets made for a floor-mount flange on what's called a 12"-rough-in (meaning center of flange is 12" from the finished wall).

A cost-effective option, instead of replumbing, might be to purchase an American Standard Glenwall with pressure-assist. We're not enormous fans of American Standard on this forum, but the Glenwall with the Flushmate pressure assist seems to get good reviews on here, and the pressure-assist gives it a powerful flush. (We always recommend to avoid any toilet with the WDI dual-flush pressure assist, but the Sloan Flushmate seems to get the job done reliably.) The downside of the pressure-assist toilets is that they are noisier than typical gravity toilets like your Crane. (Gravity meaning that the water is held above the toilet and only gravity pulls it from the tank into the bowl. A pressure-assist shoots the water into the bowl, and the bowl design is different, so you can't put a pressure assist on a gravity bowl (massive splashing) or a gravity tank on a pressure bowl (water just sits in the tank when flushed).)

Hope this helps.
 

hj

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Changing the piping would be an expensive option, but I would NEVER use a floor mount toilet if I had the option of using a wall mount. Up until this house, all my previous ones had wall mount toilets. I do not see any reason why you could not reuse those toilets.
 

natalie559

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Thank you for the help!

We met with one plumber today and meet another on Monday to get estimates for converting the plumbing to in floor toilet(s). The one today said least expensive would be to just convert the one bathroom that's torn up- cap the part with the bag over it in the picture and t out from around the bottom of the cast iron pipe and route to floor. Wall behind toilet would need to come out a bit to accommodate the part where the wall toilet would have attached to. No estimate was given yet so I have no idea if we can afford to do anything to change the plumbing.

HJ why do you prefer wall toilets?

wjcandee- the glenwall looks like a good option to the dirty bowl problem of the crane toilet, thanks for the suggestion. If it were your house would you re route the plumbing, keep plumbing but upgrade to the glenwall toilet or keep plumbing and the crane toilet?

In the not torn up master bath we have what looks like an original wall mounted american standard toilet (home was build in 1960) that at this time works fine. If it's working fine would you just let it be or replace with newer toilet before a problem arises?
 

Jadnashua

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A wall-hung toilet means it is easy to clean the floor, and you can change the flooring without having to deal with the toilet floor flange.
 

WJcandee

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I think in our house we would just do a cost/benefit analysis. You have the wall open already and a lot of stuff stripped out, so the additional cost of converting to a floor flange might be worth it if we were thinking of restyling the bathroom and wanted the decorative benefits of a newer, fancier toilet. If we were basically-happy with how everything looked anyway, what I would do would really depend upon how much more they want for a floor flange.

I don't think that there is anything inherently-risky about a wall-mount toilet as far as housing damage goes; it looks like you just got unlucky with that seal. There are benefits to the wall-mount toilet as HJ and Jim mention, and if they appeal to you, then I might just leave things basically as they are and either replace the toilet or remount the Crane.

They key for you will be to have a good plumber do the work, a plumber with some sensitivity to the fact that you REALLY want them to make sure it is sealed up well and that you're willing to pay ten bucks (or whatever) more for the better, longer-lasting seal (to the extent such a thing exists). As far as whether to remount the Crane, that's a gravity toilet that should work okay if not spectacularly, but if you didn't like its performance, then get yourself a pressure-assist toilet like the Glenwall, provided you don't mind the extra noise on flushing. Frankly, upgrading the toilet might be where I put my money.

As to the master bath toilet, if you like it okay, then I might have the plumber pull it, inspect to make sure there doesn't appear to be leaking, and put in a new seal. If you get the Glenwall and like it better than your master bath toilet, you can always have the plumber swap out your master toilet later. You'll have some $$ available to do this if you don't go to town plumbing a floor flange.

You have an open wall that allows you to make some improvements now if you want to, but if you have other priorities or think it's basically okay as it is, then I wouldn't be too quick to make the changes. You have some options, but I think most of them, at the end of the day, involve aesthetic considerations rather than performance ones.

FYI -- one of the few wall-mount toilets out there is the Gerber Maxwell, a wall-mount toilet which is perfectly-fine looking. It does, however, have a MAP rating of only 400. The MAP rating is an independently-tested indicator of how well it flushes (not of other important criteria like bowl rinse, etc., but it does give you an idea what to expect as far as just flushing goes). Anything at or over 500 is fine; that 400 leaves me a little uneasy. The Glenwall, being a pressure-assist, has a MAP rating of 800, so you're getting some additional flushing power from the noisy "Wooosh".
 
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hj

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IF you go to a floor mount toilet, the process of installing the tee for it would make removing the carrier an easy job and would not require thickening the wall to cover it. From your photo, it appears that installing a floor toilet will require some water pipe revisions also. I also am not sure if the floor depth of you "post and beam" construction is enough for a floor toilet unless you lower the ceiling downstairs, which may be why they went to work and expense of the wall hung, (possibly up to $1,000.00 more than a floor mount would have cost), originally.
 
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Smooky

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I think this is a first floor bath room. It looks like that is a crawl space under the bath room to me. Looks like there is plenty of room to do it either way.
 

natalie559

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Thanks for the replies! I appreciate all your help!

Our house is single story and what you see in the picture is the crawl space. The plumber yest told me he couldn't simply remove the carrier as the master bath toilet is using the same pipe directly on the other side of the opened wall, so unless we change that one at the same time the carrier hole would have to be caped and the bolts sheared off. Changing them both may be just way over our budget right now. I do not know why originally a wall hung was installed- was that more typical in older homes built in the 60s?

When a wall hung toilet is installed how do you know that the seal is seated properly, i.e no leaks? Look under the crawl space? As time goes on how do you ensure that there are no leaks, inspect from the crawl space occasionally? Can you tell I'm paranoid about this happening again?! We are currently faced with such a big headache of a project, I don't want to experience this again.

The plumber yest looked into the opened wall while I flushed the master toilet and said everything at this time was fine. My husband is still nervous about the seal since we do not know when it was changed (if ever), but I know sometimes with older things it's best to leave it alone if there is not a problem.

The glenwall pressure assist is currently on sale at home depot for $376, http://www.homedepot.com/p/American...White-2093-100-020/202499481#customer_reviews which seems like a good price. I wonder if the noise would be annoying or if it would shred paper like some reviews mention. . .
 

Jadnashua

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With proper materials and installation, it won't leak. If you notice, for some reason, the bolts are loose, that can allow the seal to leak. Think of the millions of toilets installed in big buildings and public restrooms...most of them are wall-hung. If they were problematic, they wouldn't be.
 

WJcandee

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That's a good price on the Glenwall. If it's properly installed, it should be fine for another 20 years or more.
 

natalie559

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Thanks for your opinions :)

Of course I notice now the glenwall is sold out online at HD, so only other options are $500+ :(

Had another plumber out this am and really liked him! My brothers doing a big landscape job for him right now and the two of them really hit it off and he's a very popular plumber in town who several people I know have used and really liked.

His opinion is that he would absolutely change both toilets to floor toilets and he would do so now when everything is opened up. He sees little advantage to keeping the wall hungs mostly due to such a small and expensive choice of replacement options for those types of toilets. The Crane wall hung is an awful toilet and should be replaced even though it technically works. The 50 yr old american standard wall hung in his opinion it is just a matter of time before I have problems with it and there is a little bit of evident rust under the toilet that had him slightly concerned. Keeping wall hungs and replacing with 2 glenwalls would cost about $1050 or so just for the toilets then add installation charges. He proposes the plumbing change at around $500-$600 for both bathroom and 2 toto drake toilets for an additional $650-$700. This cost benefit to me appears to heavily lean towards going with the 2 new floor toilets.

Only issue is that we would rather not replace the tile floor in the master bath and we have no extra tile (install was done before we bought house and they left us no tile). He said a skilled tile person might be able to remove a single tile without cracking it and then piece it back around his work. . .any experience with this? Worse case situation I could have a mismatched tile. . .wouldn't the toilet base cover most of it anyways?
 

natalie559

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Oh and what should I do with the old wall hungs? I know they have value to the right person. . .but who that person is and where they live who knows. . .

He suggested the eco drake cst744EL, I see it is highly reviewed here. Main thing I want to make sure of is that this toilet does have a clean bowl flush, we had a lot of problems with the wall hung crane leaving skid marks and having a constantly dirty toilet bowl. Would the 1.6 g vs the eco 1.28 g have an advantage in this area or do you even find my concern to be an issue with either of these toto toilets?
 
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Jadnashua

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Modern low-flow toilets do not rinse as well as older ones (depending on their age and design, could use as much as 8-9 gallons). But, the Totos with the 'II' designation have their newest flush design they call Cyclone. Instead of having small holes spread around underneath the rim, there really isn't a rim, and there are two jets that come out sideways and the wash swirls around the rim on the way down. Then, they throw in SanaGlos (optional on some models), which is a super slick glazing, which helps the wash in removing stains. That is not to say they cannot happen - that depends a lot on your diet.

If a tile is properly installed, it is almost impossible to remove it intact.
 

WJcandee

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There's less rinsing with the 1.6gpf and below toilets than before, but we haven't had a problem with our original Drakes.

Your guy recommended Totos, and seems to have a handle on what you need, so that's all good. And you like him, which is also good. I'm not entirely-sure that the economics wouldn't be a little different if you got yourself a good deal on those Glenwalls (and found someone to put them in a little cheaper than he's proposing). In other words, I think he is making the decision easier for you by highballing the installation and prices on the Glenwalls.

That said, he is 100 percent correct (and mirrors what I told you) when he says that having a floor flange gives you a lot more options in toilets. It is -- no kidding -- the difference between precisely 3 wall-mount-with-tank options versus thousands of others in the market that will go on a floor flange.

The model of original Drake he is proposing is ADA-height, which most people nowadays like (the "L" in the model number is for ADA height). The problem with the original Drakes (and older Toto models) is that when you start adding features, you start adding price. That Drake is about $50 more than the non-ADA (give or take) CST744E. If you want that extra height, you might consider the Drake II, because it adds a lot of features standard for around $50-60 more than the ADA-height toilet he is proposing. CST454CEFG. So, in addition to the Universal Height, the Drake II also comes with the CEFIONTECT finish standard (it's a nanotechnology coating in the bowl that helps reduce skid marks). As long as you don't hit it with Comet or some abrasive cleaners, it will last a long time. It also comes with the double-cyclone flush, which swirls the water and helps give better bowl rinse. That toilet also has a decent water spot.

It's a different look than the original Drake, and if you like how it looks, it's another very good choice. (It is a very, very popular toilet, often the number 1 seller, not just of Toto but of all brands, on a major web site.) We have two of the original Drakes and love them. At least for us, no skid mark issues. We also have one Double-Cyclone toilet, a little more expensive one that functions the same as the Drake II, and we really like it as well.

So...there are some Toto options.
 

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Thanks!

The plumber didn't actually give me a price on the glenwalls, I was just basing that off online price info I found. I feel more comfortable going to floor toilets now that I see it can be affordable for us to do so. I also found the exact same tile that's in our master bath at a tile showroom last night so that problem is solved :) as far as putting the plumbing in that floor.

I think I've narrowed down my choices to the eco drake cst744el $335 or the drake II cst454cefg $399. We do want the ada comfort height. I asked them about the 1.6 g original drake and they were unsure of if they could get it in and said that even though the 1.28 eco drake used less water they felt it had a better flush/ bowl rinse. What surprises me a little is that the drake II has a smaller water spot than the eco drake, 7 1/8 x 9 1/8 vs 10 3/8 x 8 1/4.

The plumber said he has the eco drakes at his home and also at the plumbing office and everyone likes them, has no problems with them, said it's the #1 toilet they install. I could always go with the eco drake for the master that would be installed this week and if then we felt like we wanted something more go with the drake II that will be installed in the guest bath once we put it back together. . . I also saw that consumer reports rated toilets and one of the things they evaluated was bowl rinse, was going to look that article up tonight and see what it said. . .decisions decisions
 

WJcandee

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Okay. Here's the deal. First, those prices are a smidge higher than Terry's prices, so he should be giving you a good deal on installation, which will take him less than 30 mins per toilet.

Second, of course the "S" is still available, provided you're not in someplace that requires "Watersense-certified" toilets, like California. The "S" and the "E" Drake share the same bowl (an "E" bowl), and the same china on the tank. The only difference is that the flush valve and fill valve are set differently on the S than the E so the S uses more water. That's it. Your plumber is correct that most people can't tell the difference between the two side-by-side when flushing. So, you can reliably save that quart-ish of water ever time you flush. It can't have a "better" flush because it has exactly the same bowl and tank, just adjusted differently water-wise. However, since both versions now use a new-ish "E" bowl (the older "S" bowl having been discontinued), maybe he's saying that the newer bowl works better, which it probably does.

The Drake II water spot is going to be a little less-wide, but it's also deep. I wouldnt sweat it. At the end of the day, all the flushes work well. Here's one love song to the Drake II, which shows how those double-cyclone jets work:

Consumer Reports, as much as I find them useful on many things, seems reguarly to blow it with toilets. One year, their eco-mindedness caused them to recommend a toilet with the WDI Dual-Flush as the best best bestest. And guess what? That unit turned out to be the absolute bane of people's existence, breaking over and over and over. One guy on here was the maintenance guy in a 700-room hotel, each of which had that unit. He would have personally-throttled the WDI people, because the hell in which he was living was worse than prison. But he couldn't, because they are in China.

Then, CU trashed the Drake saying that it didn't evacuate liquids fully. Total nonsense, as Toto and Terry proved over and over. Turns out it appears they didn't install it correctly -- dummies. Ultimately, they reported that that problem had been "fixed". Uh-huh.

Then, CU named the American Standard Champion as its champion. Except the flush valve in that toilet was so bad and so prone to leaks that American Standard instituted a silent recall on the flush valve (where they would send you a new one free if you asked) and then, I believe, a recall where they notified everyone about it. Then, they redesigned the seal on the flush valve. Which didn't fix the problem. Then they completely-redesigned the flush valve, eliminating the "tower" and replacing it with a "funnel". So if you owned one, you had to disassemble it and put in the new flush valve and then reassemble it. I can just imagine my elderly parents hefting china pieces to do something like that. Oh, and when the seal goes, it is not the easiest thing to replace so that it works. On the Totos we are discussing, each just has a tried-and-true (although bigger than the old normal) flapper on the flush valve. You yourself can replace it in less than a minute without disassembing anything, and you can find the parts in any hardware store for like $10.

So my faith in CU as regards toilets is nil.

Let us know if you have any more questions.
 
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natalie559

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I see your point with consumer reports. . .I think given that so many love their eco drakes that that is what I will go with for the master bath install sch for this week. . .I'll put it to the husband test and if it passes we will install same toilet in hall bath, if we feel it leaves more to be desired we can upgrade to the drake II. Saving $60 over the life of the toilet isn't a huge deal, but if I can save money and still get an almost equally functioning toilet I'd rather save the money, esp since this overall is such a big project for us with hall bath being basically gutted due to the leak.

Appreciate your help!
 

WJcandee

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I see your point with consumer reports. . .I think given that so many love their eco drakes that that is what I will go with for the master bath install sch for this week. . .I'll put it to the husband test and if it passes we will install same toilet in hall bath, if we feel it leaves more to be desired we can upgrade to the drake II. Saving $60 over the life of the toilet isn't a huge deal, but if I can save money and still get an almost equally functioning toilet I'd rather save the money, esp since this overall is such a big project for us with hall bath being basically gutted due to the leak.

Appreciate your help!

For what it's worth, look at the reviews of the Drake II on that big merchandise site that we don't mention on here. People love it.

And to make things harder, for what it's worth, the Eco Drake now has an optional tank that looks different -- same toilet, same guts, just a different-looking tank if you want it. That would make your toilet a CST744ELN. Give it a look and see if you like it better. I kinda like the looks of our Drakes, but thought it wouldn't be fair not to mention it.

cst744en.jpg
 
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