The Japanese Toilet If you are wondering who has the most advanced toilets in the world, well, it's certainly not us. The Japanese beat us by a country mile and a half. By comparison, American toilet technology is still troglodytic.

Japan has had Western-style flush toilets only since the end of World War II. But what they have done with the technology is a wonderto behold.

The current state of the art is the Washlet, a creation of Toto, Ltd., Japan's largest toilet manufacturer. These toilets are designed to open automatically when they sense the approach of a user, play soothing sounds to disguise the fact that the toilet is in use, wash the user with warm water when he or she is finished, dry the user with warmed air, flush automatically, and close the lid after each use. No male/female lid wars in Japanese households. These toilets clean themselves and have coatings that resist germs. Many have heated seats. As of 2004 fully half of the toilets in Japan were Washlet-type toilets.

The idea behind these innovations is to remove the user as far away as possible from any potential contact with human excrement. Japan has always had a strong cultural aversion to "night soil". The caste historically responsible for removal and treatment of human waste, the Barakumin, are still widely shunned in Japan even though the caste system was legally abolished in 1871.

In Japan toilets are culturally considered "unclean" places. The American practice of locating the toilet with the bath mystifies and often repulses Japanese who cannot understand how we can combine clean and unclean activities in the same room. In Japan, the bath and toilet are in separate rooms — preferably on opposite sides of the house — with the toilet located as far from other household activity as possible. If space permits, a separate wing or even a separate building is preferred.

The Washlet toilet is merely the latest embodiment of the desire to eliminate waste without having to touch, see or smell it, even indirectly, by, for example, using toilet paper which may expose the user's hands to potential contamination.

Japan is constantly edging closer to the completely touchless and odorless toilet. Toto already sells a deodorizing toilet that "chemically neutralizes odor." Another Japanese company, Inax, sells bathroom tiles billed as "odor absorbing."

"Smart toilets" are now being marketed that are home health monitoring centers. Devices in the toilet measure weight, body fat, blood pressure, heat rate, sugar and albumin in urine, and send a report by the Internet to a home computer. Want to find out if junior is smoking cigarettes, or if grandpa has been at the candy again, buy one of these.

Selecting Bathroom Fixtures:
Choosing The Perfect Toilet

The can, the throne, the head, the john, the privy, the WC, the crapper, the lav, the loo, the commode, the oval office — whatever your favorite euphemism, what you mean is plain and simply, the toilet.

Modern toilets consist of a bowl fitted with a hinged seat and are connected to a waste pipe where waste is flushed using water pressure. The design has been around for a long time, and has worked well for well over a century.

The first (English) patent for the modern flushing siphon toilet was issued to Alexander Cummings in 1775. But, it wasn't until the later part of the 19th century, when fixture manufacturers invented glazed porcelain toilets, and urban water supplies became available and reliable, that the modern siphon toilet came into its own. The flushing toilet was the invention that moved the bathroom indoors, and to many architectural historians, the simgle most important household innovation of all time.

Toilet Configurations

There are two basic types of toilets: one-piece and two-piece.

Two-piece toilets have a separate tank and bowl bolted together. The original siphon flush toilet had a separate tank and bowl. The tank hung high on the wall to provide enough flushing force. With better mechanisms, the tank was able to sit right on the bowl, and this is still the most widely used toilet type and a good choice for most applications.

One-piece toilets were introduced during the 1930s. These low-profile models can be installed beneath wall cabinets or a storage shelf, places where the taller two-piece models will not fit. Since it is an integrated unit, there is no space between the tank and bowl of a one-piece unit where a leak can occur (very rarely) or unsanitary liquids can collect, so this type of toilet is easier to keep clean.

Mounting

Most residential toilets sit on the floor. Most commercial toilets hang on the wall. Why wall mount? It makes cleaning "behind" the toilet easier because there actually is no "behind to clean".

Wall-mount toilets for home use are available, and recommended where possible because they do in fact make cleaning easier and are, therefore, much more sanitary. They are more expensive to buy and more expensive to install. Expect to pay at least double for a wall-mount toilet, and at least double for the instllation. This may sound like a lot, but in the context of a bathroom remodel is about an additional 6%. In exchange you get years of convenience. Once you've installed a wall-mount toilet you will wonder how you ever got along without one.

In the latest variation on the venerable toilet, the tank and flushing mechanism are hidden in the wall, accessible through a removable panel that also holds the flushing control — usually a button. Only the toilet bowl and seat are visible. Few manufacturers offer them, but the list is growing. They are even more expensive to buy and more expensive to install than wall-mount toilets. Nor are they suitable for every bath or every bathroom remodel. But, if you are going to open up the wall anyway, they are worth considering. In-wall toilets take up very little room, so for very small bathrooms, they are one additional solution to the space problem.

Toilet Offset
For floor mounted toilets, the offset is important. The offset or setback is the distance between the wall behind the toilet and the center of the toilet flange. The flange is the pipe segment the toilet sits on. The standard offset is 12". Unless you specify otherwise, this is the offset you will get. However, offsets from 8" to 16" are available — at a price. Why use a nonstandard offset? Well, if you use an 8" offset you can save 4 precious inches in front of the toilet, which may make it possible to fit a toilet in a small bath where it otherwise would not fit. Many one-piece elongated toilets require a 14" or 16" offset.

If you already have the plumbing in place, buy a toilet with the offset the plumbing is designed for. Moving the plumbing can get expensive. Otherwise, select the standard 12" offset if it will work. If you need a nonstandard offset, you will probably have to go to a plumbing supply warehouse to get it.

Accessibility
One of the best innovation in toilets in recent years is the high-rise seat. It makes it easier for people with movement issues to use. When combined with well-placed grab bars and transfer benches, these raised toilets improve the quality of life for the elderly and movement impaired. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires accessible toilets to have a seat height of between 16 1/2" and 18", compared to the normal 14" to 16" for standard rise toilets.

Since you are not getting any younger, plan ahead and make your next toilet an accessible unit.

Also pay attention to other accessibility issues. Toilets need to be placed so there is enough room to use the toilet without interference from other fixtures or other people using the bathroom. The The Rules of Good Bathroom Design offer very clear guidelines on where and how to install a toilet, and the amount of front and side clearance required.

What to Look For
Length An elongated bowl front makes a better urinal and is more sanitary. It will give you about 2 inches of extra length and support. The trade-off is that it takes more precious floor space in a small bathroom. Round bowls have a shorter front-to-back dimension, making it a better choice for small or narrow spaces. Seats are generally not included when you buy a new toilet, so be sure the seat you buy matches the shape you need.

Height Both round and elongated styles are now being made with a 17-inch-high seat — 2 to 3 inches higher than standard. This height is more comfortable for many people because they don't need to bend their knees as much to make use of the toilet, and should be a strong consideration if any user has or anticipates physical problem with knees, hips or back.

Flushing mechanism Until January 1, 1994, residential toilets could use up to 5 gallons of water per flush. After that date, in response to water shortages and municipal sewer system problems, the government regulations limited new toilets to no more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush. This initially caused problems because earlier low-flow toilets did not work well. These have largely been solved by the introduction of better-engineered mechanisms. The newest round of water-saving legislation, already mandated in many states, will allow no more than 1 to 1.4 gallons per flush.

Flushing Mechanics
There are three general types of flushing mechanisms: Gravity-fed siphon, pressure-assisted and electrical.

Siphon Vacuum: Most low-flow toilets use gravity-fed mechanisms. This is the traditional way toilets have worked since the siphon mechanism was invented. Press down the lever, and water is released from the tank into the bowl. The weight and force of the water moving over the trapway creates a vacuum that causes a siphon action that "flushes" the toilet. Early low-flow siphon toilets had flushing problems, often requiring two or more flushes to do the job. New designs have largely eliminated this problem. The newest wrinkle in low-flow siphon technology is the dual flush system, a very low flow flush for liquids, and a higher flow for solids.

Pressure Assisted: In pressure-assisted systems, water enters the tank under normal household pressure, compressing an air bladder inside the tank. When the flush lever is pushed, the pressurized water surges through a jet and expels waste with more than gravity force. The flushing action is noisier, but refilling is quieter, and there's no condensation or "sweating" on the outer tank.

Invented largely to overcome problems with early low-flow siphon toilets that have now been largely solved, pressure assisted models may now be redundant. They have their own problems. They do not work well with low water pressure and the life span of the bladder is typically only 5 years. If they fail you are out of luck until the problem is fixed. by contrast, a siphon vacuum toilet is very unlikely to stop functioning altogether.

Electrical: An electrical system uses a small electric pump to push water and waste through the toilet. These toilets were invented for boats, and are less frequently used in houses. But they are available. They require a connection to household current and will not work if a power loss occurs, which could be, to say the least, awkward. Some newer models have a siphon backup.

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