I've had three close coupled toilet cisterns recently without the holes at the top to fix them to the wall. All from different sources. My local plumbing shop tell me more & more are like that lately.
Who decided that it isn't necessary to fix the cistern to the wall?
15 litres of water wobbling about on the strength of two bolts going through holes in the base? I don't think so.Fortunately easy enough to drill with a masonry bit & DIY.
I wouldn't drill the cistern. Normally holes are moulded in. Drilling could cause fracture lines. Why not use silicone mastic stuff to fix it - at least to prevent it hitting the wall if your customer leans back whilst performing.
The base area where the fixings are is probably stronger than the back where you would drill. The biggest risk is if the floor settles and the bog settles then the whole weight is taken by your wall fixings!
Just reading your note again - why would it be "wobbling about" - surely the weight of the water would be helping to hold it down. I really think that rigidly fixing to the wall and the floor (via the WC) is asking for problems.
Drilling holes stops fracture lines, not causes them.
Cisterns have been fixed to the wall for the last 25 years to my knowledge, for good reason IMO.
If you don't fix a cistern to the wall & a WC to the floor, surely you are asking for problems? A combined close coupled toilet + water weighs a fair amount, then a fat bastard sits on it.
I'm for bolting the bugger down :-)
But if the fat bastard causes the WC to settle by a few mm, then isn't this likely to break something if the cistern is also fastened hard to the wall. Perhaps not too much risk on a solid floor - but on an upper floor I can see an potential problem. - also - modern cisterns aren't as wide as they used to be.
I still think drilling it is very risky.
When I fitted one - which did have fixing holes, I used rubber tap washers either side of the cistern screws and didn't tighten the screws much.
Well, the manufacturer...
But the manufacturer obviously does think so.
But this potentially introduces stresses that the manufacturer has deemed bad, which is why they left out the screw holes in the first place - it clearly wasn't a manufacturing fault that there were no holes.
I've installed two close-coupled toilets in the last twelve months. As it happens, the first (Armitage Shanks) had wall-holes and the second (Duravit) did not have wall holes.
The Duravit was installed in my sisters house, where the whole bathroom was gutted. As there is only one toilet we had to keep the old toilet going as long as poss and then commission the new one straight away. In the end, because of how the tiling went, the Duravit was assembled and temporarily connected to water and waste and ended up sitting (and being used) a good 12" away from the wall, with no support at the back and not even screwed to the floor. It was absolutely fine.
Just my two penneth, but if the manufacturer deems that the assembled toilet unit is free-standing (apart from being fixed to the floor), then adding wall-fixings to the cistern may actually be a bad thing.
Was it expecting an Armitage Shanks?
LOL. This is only a bog standard response though.
Adam
Ditto, but if it hadn't had holes I would've improvised something. I'm with Dave on this, it's not sensible to have all that wet weight unsecured.
I know of one that's just fine without fixings. The syphon was replaced and the new donut washer was thicker than the old one. Rather than take the whole thing apart again to drill new holes, it was left "for later" (later probably being never)
Yup, I have seen quite a few like that.
Don't know. On a solid floor is probably ok, but when I tried one on a timber / chipboard floor there was enough wafting about of the cistern to be irritating.
I solved mine with a bead of silicone on the back, that then glued it to the wall. Still leaving a little movement to allow for movement of the pan.
I just put a couple of dabs of silicone on the tiled wall before putting the cistern in place.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "John" saying something like:
Which is what you're supposed to do - I always use conical plastic roofing washers under the screw head to allow a bit of movement. I've lost count of the number of cisterns I've seen which have been very simply affixed with fairly tight brass screws and you know what? Not one of them has ever been cracked by aforementioned fat bastards. It's likely that the number of fat bastards in the population is now higher than it was, so I don't take the chance.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember John Rumm saying something like:
Yep. Where there are no holes at all I spadge a big blob of silicone or expanding foam 'twixt cistern and wall.
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