Close Coupled Toilets
The close coupled toilet
is the most commonly used in UK homes these days. The cistern is directly
coupled to the toilet pan by 2 bolts and a large rubber sealing washer,
often referred to as a dough-nut washer. |
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This type of toilet will be suitable for most installations. The points to watch are where the water inlet is on the cistern and how the soil pipe connects for the waste. Usually the water inlet is at the bottom of the cistern, but might be to either left or right, so you need to position your supply pipe accordingly. However some cisterns have a back or side feed, so be careful as your new w.c. may not have the safe inlet position as the one you are replacing. The waste outlet is usually horizontal, but this can be converted to vertical by means of an adapter bend. The Riva wc illustrated has an open back pan to enable the soil pipe to bend left or right if it has to exit to the side. |
| Some close coupled toilets like this Maitrix have a fully back to wall pan. This makes it impossible for the soil pipe to be taken left or right for side exit. The only options possible are horizontal, straight through the wall, or vertical down through the floor. The advantage is that there are no visible pipes and cleaning is easy, but the installation can be a bit tricky as the connections need to be made before the pan is finally fixed in position. |
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A Word
of Caution
If you are replacing a low level toilet (see
next page) with a close coupled type, look carefully at how the soil
pipe exits from your exiting low level pan. If it goes horizontally
straight back through the wall you should have no problem connecting
any close coupled pan, or if the soil pipe turns right or left to exit
horizontally to the side any open back close coupled pan should fit.
If however the soil pipe turns down and exits vertically through the
floor the pipe will need to be moved closer into the wall to allow connection
of a close coupled w.c. Where the floor is concrete this may not be
possible to achieve without a lot of digging out, and even if the floor
is timber the repositioning of a soil pipe can be impaired by a joist
below the floor surface, so in these situations measure carefully. |
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