Concealed Toilet Cisterns

[Onoff]

24 minutes ago, warby said:

If a bath full of water weighs 8 stone that is the same weight as my wife. On this basis are you suggesting she should sit in the bath whilst the silicone cures. Silicone cures in 48 hours. If she has to do this for each toilet, bath and shower base for 48 hours for each appliance, that would seem ideal from my perspective. Could you please let me have your full name and address for the divorced papers.

My wife weighs somewhat more than this. On that basis she'll have to spend LESS time waiting for the silicon to cure. Seems I should be doing all I can to encourage her to lose a few pounds!

[DeeJunFan]

Dangerous territory lads!

 

[JanetE]

On 13/06/2016 at 09:11, AliG said:

 

I noticed on the pics you posted Nick that there isn't any mastic around the toilets, had it just not been done yet. The suppliers catalogue has a piece that fits between the toilet and the tiles (called an accoustic/isolation shield) the salesperson said not to bother with it and the fitters would just use mastic, but I wonder if it is actually needed to get a better fit.

We have got these acoustic/isolation shields for our toilets. Has anyone used these I wonder. They look like a good idea and I believe it is simply necessary to carefully cut away the excess  and run a bead of silicone around after the toilet has been fitted?

[Nickfromwales]

I personally don't fit them. I don't like anything that spaces the pan any further off the wall than necessary. As far as actoustic isolation I'm not exactly sold on them as the noise of the flushing water in the pan is the only real noise / sound, and the fill valves are almost silent ( fit a flow restrictor where pressure is particularly high ) so I'd not bother with them.

From my experience with them, they tend to stop the pan going back at a perfect 90o to the wall and the silicone line is then also much thicker than it needs be. 

[Fallingditch]

On 01/06/2016 at 22:17, Nickfromwales said:

 I can keep posting them until you get the trap doors out of your head

not one of these has any other access than through the flush plate. Bingo. 

 

Nick: I see you've posted pictures of Roca as well as Geberit. I know Grohe do a lot of concealed cisterm options also. Speaking from your perspective as someone who has fitted a lot of these cisterns, do Geberit have any particular advantages over (say) Grohe? or Roca?

[Nickfromwales]

The only differences I can recall is some do the extraction and I've not seen it on others. I'll confess to not ever having asked / checked properly tbh, but apart from that they're much of a muchness afaic. 

If I had to choose I'd go Geberit, as I'd be looking for long term parts availability. That would be my primary concern.

Price wise there's not a big enough difference to argue, considering this'll be buried behind your tiles for the foreseeable.  

 

[Stones]

5 hours ago, Fallingditch said:

 

Nick: I see you've posted pictures of Roca as well as Geberit. I know Grohe do a lot of concealed cisterm options also. Speaking from your perspective as someone who has fitted a lot of these cisterns, do Geberit have any particular advantages over (say) Grohe? or Roca?

 

I've bought Grohe cisterns.  The've not been fitted yet but seem good enogh from a laymans perspective.  I've not bought flush plates (yet), I had planned to use the push flush button supplied, creating a point of access to the cistern via a removable tile on the bulkhead that will conceal the cistern.

[ProDave]

On 22 June 2016 at 11:25, Nickfromwales said:

I personally don't fit them. I don't like anything that spaces the pan any further off the wall than necessary. As far as actoustic isolation I'm not exactly sold on them as the noise of the flushing water in the pan is the only real noise / sound, and the fill valves are almost silent ( fit a flow restrictor where pressure is particularly high ) so I'd not bother with them.

From my experience with them, they tend to stop the pan going back at a perfect 90o to the wall and the silicone line is then also much thicker than it needs be.

NOT my experience.

 

I didn't know such things and the concealed cistern in the next door en-suite is screwed to the studwork of the wall. the flushing noise is not to bad but it's the 10 seconds of "WOOOOSH" as the cistern fills up that is the irritating noise.  We have very high water pressure and no flow restrictors.  Is there anything EASY I can retro fit to make this silent?
 

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

NOT my experience.

 

I didn't know such things and the concealed cistern in the next door en-suite is screwed to the studwork of the wall. the flushing noise is not to bad but it's the 10 seconds of "WOOOOSH" as the cistern fills up that is the irritating noise.  We have very high water pressure and no flow restrictors.  Is there anything EASY I can retro fit to make this silent?
 

Have you tried part opening the cold isolation valve to slow the water velocity?

 

edit : NOT the ballofix 15mm isolation ( if one is fitted ) I mean the one inside the cistern. 

[Nickfromwales]

6 hours ago, Stones said:

 

I've bought Grohe cisterns.  The've not been fitted yet but seem good enogh from a laymans perspective.  I've not bought flush plates (yet), I had planned to use the push flush button supplied, creating a point of access to the cistern via a removable tile on the bulkhead that will conceal the cistern.

Do you have a link to the ones you've chosen? 

Im stumped as to why anyone would buy the cisterns without the access through the large flush plates tbh, as the extra grief of creating an aesthetically pleasing tiled access panel would instantly offset any extra cost, plus, also just IMO, I think the overall result is just better across the board. The only difference I can imagine, to swing such a decision, is to get a much smaller, understated flush button. 

Could you explain the latter of your statement as I may not have grasped what your doing properly   Ta. 

[ProDave]

I don't think there is one in the cistern?

 

If there is point to it.

 

Part opening the ballofix valve just makes the noise from a different place.

 

[Nickfromwales]

Nope. Sorry I thought you had a different type, such as the ones featured so far. 

You can get a flow restrictor, but it'll have to go in the inlet where the cold supply connects to the underside of the fill / float valve. 

Do you have access to the underside of said cistern?

[ProDave]

It would be very hard to get to to fit something to this one, it's more about knowing what to fit in the new house to make all things water work quietly.
 

[Frogeye]

Just going back a page or two.... Nick on your installation photos it looks like you've used a flexible waste connector for the floor standing pan - does this make things a lot easier?

[Nickfromwales]

What you can't see in that picture is the original existing soil pipe set so far forward that it needed setting back to align properly with the immovable soil outlet of the WC. As soil fittings were 1) too bulky and 2) too much offset, I had no choice other than to use the most rigid flexi I could buy.

I dislike flexible soil connectors passionately, and avoid them whenever possible. This was one job where it was unavoidable without re-doing the outside soil stack, which the customer declined.   

[Frogeye]

Thanks for the clarity on that Nick.

I've seen a few youtubers using them needlessly and wondered if their design had been radically improved since I last encountered them - I'll keep them in the 'emergency use only' category!

[Nickfromwales]

11 hours ago, ProDave said:

It would be very hard to get to to fit something to this one, it's more about knowing what to fit in the new house to make all things water work quietly.
 

Plumb Center stock the slim flow restrictors that sit in the inlet cold pipework. WC manufacturers normally give you a little plastic corkscrew type flow arrestor for properties with abnormally high mains performance, so maybe use both one of those AND an inline restrictor.

Which types of WC's do you intend fitting in the new place @ProDave ?

 

These type of things. They're available singularly at P Ctr, rated at different litres per min flow.  

 

PS, all these things will affect how long it takes to fill the cistern, but not usually a problem tbh. 

[Nickfromwales]

19 minutes ago, Frogeye said:

Thanks for the clarity on that Nick.

I've seen a few youtubers using them needlessly and wondered if their design had been radically improved since I last encountered them - I'll keep them in the 'emergency use only' category!

Some people on youtube, and in life in general, know just enough to be dangerous. 

The framed / concealed / wall hung units NEED a fixed soil and flush pipe connection so the pan can be pushed back without either pipe being able to move back / away. After the rigid connections you can take the soil vertically down or horizontally sideways with the supplied connector.

Onto the supplied ( 3" / 80mm European ) soil outlet goes an 80mm to 110mm uk standard adaptor. That's a male fitting which pushes into a push fit ( socket ) of a standard uk soil fitting. With a wide range of fittings available, and on a new build, there really is no excuse to resort to using a nasty flexi connector. I only use them on retro fit where the other option is either impractically expensive or the fittings just won't do what I need due to physical size / offset. 

DIY heroes love flexis as it removes the need for skill or imagination.  

 

[Stones]

14 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Do you have a link to the ones you've chosen? 

Im stumped as to why anyone would buy the cisterns without the access through the large flush plates tbh, as the extra grief of creating an aesthetically pleasing tiled access panel would instantly offset any extra cost, plus, also just IMO, I think the overall result is just better across the board. The only difference I can imagine, to swing such a decision, is to get a much smaller, understated flush button. 

Could you explain the latter of your statement as I may not have grasped what your doing properly   Ta. 

 

It's like being called into the headmaster's office! 

 

http://www.plumbingforless.co.uk/bathrooms/toilets/concealed-cisterns-and-accessories/grohe-eau2-concealed-cistern-63-ltr-sideback-inlet-cw-dual-air-button-38691-000

 

Toilet pan is a back to wall, floor mounted.  Neither of us are that keen on having a large flush plate and prefer the look of the smaller flush button.  The bulkhead we are building will be tiled all over, and has been framed such that the tiles on the top of the bulkhead will be whole tiles.  All I was planning to do, as I did in my last house, was to fix the tile that would sit over the top of the cistern in such a way that we could remove it fairly easily.  The method we chose in our last house was to bed it  on small dots of silicone and grout with silicone rather than tile adhesive / tile grout.  Worked fine in our last house.  

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

"You.....Boy!"  Still sends a shiver down my spine. ?

If you've done it before then your obviously happy and know how to best go about it. 

@Bitpipe had some flush ones which I'll look at for my next projects. I've a very handy mate who works the back shift on a £1m water jet so I'd prob get the cuts done by him. Cheeky £20 and job done. 

Beer heals a lot of problems. ?