Are Wall-Mounted Toilets Worth It?
We weigh the pros and cons of these luxury fixtures
You’ve probably seen wall-mounted toilets, for the most part, in commercial buildings and public spaces. With flush buttons embedded neatly in the wall and bowls that hover above the ground, these toilets cut a sleek silhouette. But you could also install one in your own home, giving your bathroom a clean, modern look and a pleasant sense of separation from the murky workings of your plumbing.
The mechanisms that power a wall-mounted toilet are installed inside the wall, out of view. A cast-iron or steel carrier is affixed between two wall studs and houses the tank, made of lightweight plastic and plastic foam. The carrier also supports the toilet bowl, which is anchored through the drywall, so the bowl doesn’t touch the floor.
Pros of Wall-Mounted Toilets
Wall-mounted toilets have some advantages over standard toilets, mostly in terms of creating a particular look and feel. This may seem like merely a stylistic point, but, in fact, it can go a long way toward making your bathroom more comfortable and accessible, too.
They save space. In addition to offering a more streamlined look, this setup saves space in the bathroom. Wall-mounted toilets can save up to 10 inches by moving the tank into the wall. This makes an especially big difference if you have a small bathroom to begin with. It’ll give you more room to maneuver in front of the toilet, and without a base that touches the floor, the space will feel a little more open and tidy.
They’re easier to clean. Because the toilet hovers above the floor and the tank is inside the wall, there’s much less to clean: All you need to deal with is the bowl and seat. It also makes cleaning the bathroom floor easier because you don’t have to work around the base of a regular toilet where it meets the floor.
They can meet code where floor-mounted toilets can’t. With their compact size, wall-mounted toilets offer more flexibility when designing or updating a bathroom, potentially allowing them to meet building code clearances in small spaces where a floor-mounted toilet might not. Most building codes require at least 21 inches in front of the toilet. That’s an easier criterion to meet for wall-mounted toilets, which can save about 10 inches by having the tank inside the wall. The height of the toilet from the floor can also be customized: It can be adjusted to sit 17 to 19 inches off the ground, which is the Americans with Disabilities Act standard for toilet seats.
Cons of Wall-Mounted Toilets
While wall-mounted toilets have a few benefits over floor-mounted models, there are some disadvantages to be aware of, mostly regarding the cost and renovation work they require.
They’re more expensive than standard toilets. While a standard toilet can cost less than $200, the combined cost of the components of a wall-mounted toilet tends to be upward of $1,400. Though you can often buy the toilet bowl and the in-wall carrier together as a package, many manufacturers sell each item, as well as the tank, separately, so you’ll have to be extra careful to choose components designed to work together.
The cost of labor is high. Depending on your circumstances, you might need to spend several hundred dollars to move supply and waste lines and possibly reconfigure wall studs to accommodate a wall-mounted toilet. While installing a standard toilet can cost between $150 and $300, installing a wall-mounted toilet is more likely to start around $500 and may cost $1,000 or more, depending on where you live and the amount of work required.
It takes substantial work to install. Switching from a standard floor-mounted toilet to a wall-mounted unit usually requires opening a wall, rerouting the waste pipe, and likely patching the floor tile where your old toilet was. You’ll also need a wall that is thick enough to contain the concealed tank. The minimum thickness of that wall is usually about 10 inches, depending on the toilet model you’ve selected. You also need to know whether your framing uses 2x4 or 2x6 studs when choosing the tank, because manufacturers make carriers for both sizes.
It’s harder to access the tank. While you will still have access to the tank—you can remove the flush button panel to get to it—it’s not as easy as lifting off the lid of a typical toilet tank, and it’ll be harder to both see and reach inside the tank to troubleshoot a problem. You may encounter issues that require you to call a plumber or handyman to access the plumbing inside the wall, which increases the long-term cost of maintaining a wall-mounted toilet.
Bidets are trickier to install. With a standard toilet, you can install a bidet attachment or bidet seat yourself by shutting off the water supply and replacing the existing toilet valve with a two-pronged valve, which redirects some of the water to the bidet. But if your plumbing is entirely behind a wall, you may have to call a plumber or handyman to do this for you. For bidets with an electrical hookup, which need to be plugged in to work, you need an outlet nearby, and the cords will leave the toilet area less neat and streamlined than you might have envisioned with a wall-mounted toilet.
How CR Tests Toilets
CR currently tests standard floor-mounted toilets as well as smart toilets. To develop our toilet ratings, CR test engineers put the fixtures through a series of tests involving waste removal, bowl cleaning, and drain line clogs. To test solid waste removal, we dump marble-sized plastic beads, weighted sponges, and water-filled condoms into the bowl and measure how well each flush handles the simulated waste. We also look at how well a toilet moves waste from the bowl to the sewer and whether there’s enough force to prevent the waste from getting stuck along the way.
We test a toilet’s bowl-cleaning abilities by marking the inside of the bowl with water-based red paint in two places, then flushing and measuring how much paint has been removed. For noise, we measure the decibel level of a toilet’s flushes in a silent chamber. For smart toilets, we also assess how well the bidet cleans the user.
