I wonder if it makes economic sense to install a bidet instead of a. Buying toilet paper for the rest of my life, and, b. Pumping out the septic system every X years.
Anyone have a bidet aftermarket installed? The problem, I think, is that warm water isn't normally at the toilet.
How do they solve the problem of piping warm water to the aftermarket bidet?
I kind of like the idea of a bidet. I once figured out that we spend around $150 per year for toilet paper, and I dont buy the expensive stuff.
The last time I had my tank pumped, it cost $115. But I always dig the dirt off the cover, so all the pumper has to do it run the pump. I think it costs $180 if he has to do the digging. But that price may be a lot different elsewhere, depending on state codes, distance to travel, and other stuff. (Dont guess, CALL a local pumper and ask for a quote).
I have not priced a bidet. In my case I'd install it myself.
There is another option, an OUTHOUSE. When the hole fills up, you grab a shovel, dig a new hole about 8 foot deep nearby and find someone with a team of pulling horses to pull the outhouse over the new hole. :)
Big gamily? I bet we don't spend half that. I'll have to check the price but I get a big bundle at B's maybe twice a year for the two of us.
Let's go with $150 per year for TP (plus the hassle of having to store it, especially if you're a Costco buyer like I am, where storage is the name of the game).
So, over your homeowning lifetime, which, let's say, is from 40 to 80, so, let's say it's 40 years, that's six thousand bucks in TP (for the whole house).
If you have, say, 3 bathrooms, that's two thousand bucks that you can save, per bathroom, over 40 years of a bidet versus TP.
How much does it cost to retroactively add a warm-water bidet to a bathroom?
You didn't say where you live, but you can't get the mailman to come out here for $115 per visit. So, it's going to be $500 minimum out here (and maybe more, I don't know). But it's never going to be anywhere near $115 for anything.
I will see if I can find out prices though, since I'm just guessing at $500.
Google google google
This article (which is kind of old though) says that just the new state regulations *add* $100 to the cost of pumping septic systems in the area!
They say that the average cost in 2009 was $325 every five years to inspect the septic system so I think $400 is probably a good number to use for this area.
So, $400 every five years is $3,200 over the 40 years that you own a home.
For the entire house, the costs are:
Let's call that 10K dollars is the cost of using the toilet paper. Does that make sense as a start?
I'll call in the morning to get a quote, but I can't imagine the prices are anywhere near what you're quoting.
Me too. I think the main cost is in heating the water. Either you pipe warm water to the toilet, or, you pipe electricity to warm the cold water.
Neither electricity nor warm water is usually at a toilet though, so, I'm not sure which basic option is best.
Actually, believe it or not, there is another option, which is not as chilly as an outhouse. You can get a roll of small plastic bags, and when you wipe your butt with TP, you just seal the used TP in the plastic bags and put it in the garbage can next to most people's toilets.
Would that work?
Of course, there's the cost of the plastic, but, I always grab a ream of the stuff at Costco when I go and stuff it in the cart (they let me). I use it to bag the cat litter, which is essentially the same thing we're talking here. And then I put the bagged cat litter in the trash.
So, for free, you can bag your TP and save about $10K in 40 years!
Funny slip of the tongue, big "gams"?
I don't know how much the Costco TP costs, nor how often I buy it. I think, pretty much, if I think hard, that I buy a package of the stuff every 3 months or so (I'm guessing but I think it's about that long).
How much does the Costco TP cost?
Google gooogle google
Looks like it's item #585578 and it's about $25 for 30 rolls (425 sheets/roll), 1,600 sq feet per package.
So, if I buy that package once every three months (there are teenage girls in the home), that's about $200 per year which is on par with the original estimate of $150/year by someone else.
Just the sales tax alone on that is almost twenty bucks a year.
If we add this up, we get the cost of TP over 40 years of owning your own home to be about $8K (where the tax alone adds almost another 800 bucks).
Assuming it's $400 every five years to pump out the system, and assuming that you never have to pump if you don't put TP down the septic, then the costs over the 40 years you own a home is about:
Costs:
---- Let's round that out to 10K dollars
How much is a retroactively adding a bidet to the 3 bathrooms in a typical home?
I think the problem is heating the water, either by electricity or by piping hot water, neither of which is usually in a bathroom stall.
Gams are lady's legs.
You can get units that incorporate a spray and which fit under the toulet seat, about $30 up. Although not quite the same as a bidet, they do the same job. Neither removes the need for TP, just reduces the need.
We have two, like them.
On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 19:12:17 -0000 (UTC), Martim Ribeiro wrote in
I have mine pumped about every 5 or 6 years.
You think you won't use paper after squirting water on your butt?
Never had one, but with limited flow, the water is going to start out near room temperature.
Our Township requires us to pump every three years
I have one of those inexpensive bidet seats. I really like it, and it greatly reduces the need for TP. Most of the TP I use isn't very shitty, so it can be put in the trash rather than down the toilet (which almost never gets stopped up now).
That's a good point that the low-flow Kohler toilets that I have get stopped up all the time. They're a POS, figuratively speaking.
But why is the TP not completely clean? All you're doing is blotting up water, which is just like what you do after a shower.
Why can't you use a towel? In the home I stayed in Europe long ago, I remember they used a hand towel (a different one per person) which, since I had my own bed/bath, was just one for me.
How is the water heated? Electricity?
As for negating the need for TP, why isn't your butt as clean afterward as when you first step out of a shower?
All you have to do is blot up the water, but a towel can do that, can't it? (That's what they use in Europe when I last stayed at a friend's home with a bidet.)
Good question. I don't know the answer.
I can only say that I've stayed in peole's houses with bidets in other countries where they use a small hand towel to blot up the (clean) water.
It should be no different than the towel you use after taking a shower, with respect to how clean your butt should be after using the bidet.
I think the warm water issue is the biggest one.
Dunno how bidets work, but you're not gonna have a gas-fired one, so, it's either electricity or it has hot water piped to the toilet.
With electricity, I can see maintaining a temperature being easy. With hot water piped in, I can see it might be like what it's like in most showers, where the first few seconds are too cold and the last few seconds too hot, with a goldilocks zone needing to be dialed in manually.
Nice guys on that Biffy web site.
855-979-6263I spoke to "Joe" who was happy to answer my questions.
He says that they have two types of "heaters".
The magic is in the spray shape, otherwise it's just a garden hose, and in the heating (otherwise it's a cold garden hose).
The electric is set to be in the range of 92 to 99 at the factory. You can't change it (not without jury rigging it to be hotter).
It's about $140 which will be about $150 or $160 taxed and shipped, which is pretty much what we calculated for a years' worth of TP for the whole house.
So, if you have 3 bathrooms, three of these might take three years to pay for themselves over the time period (I forgot to ask about electricity cost so I called back, and got Joe, who read off the specs for me).
It plugs into 120VAC of course, but then it is 24V at 1.660 amps, which means it's about 40 watts. Dunno if that's continuous, but I guess at
40Watts for 24-7 use, that's, oh ... click click click ... 350KWH if I did that math correct.At something like 10 to 50 cents a KWH, let's average that to about 25 cents a KWH in my area (admittedly I live in a high power cost area), that's about $90 per year in electricity costs. Hmm...
That's bad since TP per bathroom is about that (give or take).
So, did we just replace the cost of TP with the cost of electricity? (Is my math reasonable?)
His own words.
The water isn't heated. No need, we live in Florida but even if we didn't I doubt I'd bother heating it.
The efficacy of a spray of water depends on various things. Chief among them are consistency and configuration. Did you eject solid and dry material or was it thin and watery. Sticky? Greasy? Are you obese with your huge butt cheeks hanging down and obscuring the source? Numerous folds and crevices from piles?
In comparison to showers, I, at least, apply manual abrasion to the area in question - generally with a bar of soap - and do not depend upon a stream of water to cleanse.
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