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The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

nytimes.com

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Re: The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

#241

Post by kelnos »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #19
alwa wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There definitely exist full-featured models that replace only the seat of the toilet—a 5-minute, highly reversible effort well within the capabilities of even the most nervous renter. The water hose stacks inline with your existing supply at the point where it enters the toilet basin—a simple unscrew-and-rescrew operation on the order of attaching a garden hose. If the seat and water are heated (vigorously recommend!…

Power outlets are not allowed near water basins here and so are not installed into the wall near the toilet. Most often there’s only one outlet near the sink with a circuit breaker on an opposite wall. Heated is not necessary in California and more complexity means more likely to break, so YMMV.

A little confused; unless your sentence about California is unrelated to your first paragraph, that doesn't make sense. I live in California and I have outlets near my bathroom sinks, but there are no circuit breakers in the room. (The outlets are GFCI.)

I've definitely seen homes here with outlets near the toilet as well, with no extra safety devices beyond GFCI.

(And a quick search suggests that building code requires an outlet within 3 feet of every wash basin.)

If you are not talking about California, then... bummer; that level of restriction seems entirely unnecessary for safety.

Re: The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

#242

Post by maxglute »

unhappy_meaning wrote: post #24

In almost all of SE Asia, especially Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, all of the toilets come with a hand-held sprayer. They also had this in the Doha airport and I'm not sure how common this style is outside of SE Asia but I'm guessing it's common. Japanese style bidets are very common in Korean households as well and I'm sure its easily a billion dollar business. It is nice but the functionality is quite difficult for…

I am always surprised those sprayers don't splatter shit everywhere, maybe there's some self selection bias going on in that only pros hose in public facilities. Or they're just well maintained. I was expecting to see more wet pants, but then again everything in MENA dries right away. Same with toto style bidets though, but I've mostly seen them in fancy establishments and assume someone is doing the frequent upkeep.

Re: The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

#243

Post by kelnos »

mulmen wrote: post #60
sublinear wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet most apartments don't have an outlet near the toilet.

I have lived in close to a dozen places built over the entire second half of the 20th century and into the 2010s and never had a bathroom with more than 6 feet between the toilet and an outlet.

In my downstairs bathroom, I do indeed have a power outlet within 6 feet of the toilet, but until I added a second, closer outlet, plugging in my bidet required running an extension cord along the back of the counter, behind the sink, to reach the original outlet. Not the most attractive setup, and probably not the safest either.

In my old apartment, the master bedroom had the toilet in a separate room from the sink, with no power outlet at all.

Re: The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

#244

Post by seanmcdirmid »

KPGv2 wrote: post #212
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have decent central heating? Japanese households didn’t (and still don’t, it’s not required by law even in Tokyo), so heated toilet seats and heated water is considered essential. There is a reason kotatsus never caught in the states I guess. You won’t encounter nozzles in southern China either because the winters are too cold and they have even less heating than northern China (which is why everyone is wearin…

> we also don’t have central heat (just a heat pump I'm so terminologically confused at this point by comments like this. In Texas, many people's central heat is a heat pump. My current house's heater is the first I've lived at in over forty years that wasn't a heat pump (this one is gas). High end homes, cheap rentals, everything in between, heat pump central heating.

Ductless heat pump (aka mini split) you need indoor units to serve each room that the heat pump handles. We have one in our master bedroom and in our open living room kitchen, but not on the bottom floor (kid bedroom/office, and our master bath really isn’t heated well by our master bedroom indoor unit, so it has a separate wall heater that doesn’t have a thermostat so we never use it. So our bathroom is a bit cold in the winter, although it’s Seattle so never really that cold, although my wife avoids the toilet for the one in the living room since it bothers her more.

So…is a ductless mini split heat pump supplemented by a bunch of resistive walk heaters, one gas fireplace, and no central thermostat really considered central heating?

In China, this becomes even more pronounced, northern cities provide central heating from heating plants…so central means “central” in a much stronger sense. Apartments are poorly insulated from each other so it makes little sense to heat each unit separately. In southern China (and lots of older Japanese housing), you don’t even have good insulation so all your heating is localized (eg via a kotatsu and heated toilet seat, or heated train seats which are really nice). That is a lot less centralized than a minisplit (which are catching on in southern China these days as well).

Re: The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

#245

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mulmen wrote: post #139
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My master bathroom in a 2016 build has a separate toilet room, and only one outlet that is definitely more than six feet away, it would also require drilling a hole somewhere.

Weird. That’s certainly not common in apartments.

I don’t think separate toilet rooms are very common in the states at all.

Re: The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

#247

Post by kelnos »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #76
ghaff wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't run an extension cord but there are absolutely Toto washlets that just replace the existing seat. IMO, absolutely the better answer as there things probably can break in ways that a regular toilet won't.

Hand sprayer still cheaper and less likely to break. Power still an issue.

For a bathroom where I didn't have an outlet nearby, I bought a non-electric model from Brondell. It doesn't even replace the seat; it just sits under it. Super simple to install. It was $60, I believe. Sure, the hand sprayer is probably cheaper, and maybe -- maybe -- less likely to break, but I value the convenience of not having to use a hand sprayer.

Re: The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

#248

Post by maxglute »

dmckeon wrote: post #79

If anyone wants to explore the bidet space without replacing an entire toilet, I can recommend the Neo line of products from https://luxebidet.com/ They sell kits for under $70 USD that attach to existing toilets, using the space between the seat and bowl, and attach to the toilet's water supply with a tee fitting and one-way valve, either at the wall valve, or at the bottom of the tank. Installation should take less…

Kohler has manual ones with a lever arm that can swing the nozzle which I find more effective. Twist for pressure. I have no hope for JP software, waiting for PRC/SV AI powered bidet with brown eye recognition that cleans without aiming.

Manual ones can also have... stupid water pressure depending on your plumbing... which some will find addicting.

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