I am sure when I learned to use a toilet in the 1960s some of the hardware my boyish bum was placed on must have been the original Victorian Thos Crapper polished mahogany. Or maybe not but in any case it seemed to have lasted a long time. In my house these days I seem to replace a toilet seat every 12/24 months; the rubber pads fall off, the hinges break, the screws corrode or the seat itself turns out to be mdf and slowly explodes as it sucks up the piss.
Do I have to buy a new one from Harrods to get quality?
I replaced both in the main house when we moved here 14 years ago with what was actually B&Qs least expensive option. STWNFI liked them because they had a wooden cover over the fixings area as well as wooden seats. I liked them because they we the least expensive:-)
They are both still perfect.
We left the original in the granny annex which we then let as a holiday let for the past eight years. It is still there and still perfect with no loss of parts.
I've no idea what make it is but its as fitted by the housing association who owned the place before us and ran it as a care home.
I seem to have no issues. My last one lasted over 20 years and only broke due to a large item dropping on one corner and cracking the plastic, which was in itself better than cracking the actual toilet, after all. Not sure about these friction soft lowering mechanisms though, Mine is almost non existent after a year. Brian
My toilet uses blind hole fixings and the white plastic ones that came with the seat/bog were utter crap. After a couple of attempts to fix the seat securely to the pan I found what worked for me was
formatting link
(there are other Ebay/Amazon sellers - and some that include the rest of the kit which is unnecessary if replacing the existing fixings)
_BUT_ the hole in the pan was still larger than the top part of the fixing so out came my box of assorted Aldi/lidl O rings and I found some the size of the hole that fitted over the top part of the fixing. I fitted 3 off O rings to each fixing. This kept the fixing centered in the hole whilst tightening. I think this non-centering of these blind hole fixings is the reason that many become loose, and it starts the first time you sit on the seat. Once the fixing is buckled on one side or slightly bent it will never fully tighten in the correct place.
Previous to changing the toilet I did have one where I fitted a cheap real wood seat and I see that some of the sheds/argos etc. still claim real wood seats at reasonable prices.
formatting link
With fixings where you can get to the back/underside of the pan to tighten/undo the nut I've always greased up the screw tread during fitting. It must be a rare household where pee or cleaning products don't seep under the fitting to form some layer of crud or corrosion that hampers removal years later.
Our first "soft close" seat (maybe from Wilko) lasted about a year before it went wrong. I replaced it with one from B&Q and that is still fine after 4 years. I think the design of the soft close mechanism varies between makes and the lousy ones fail after a short time.
I'm using the original one that was fitted in about 1950 when the house was built (it's concave section, so the bones fit). OK, it's black, no lid etc., but it has a bar and stays put. I've though of changing it for a paler one with a lid but, so far, haven't managed to find a similar one. Also need to be a big opening, for some reason I can't fathom.
Once I ordered toilet seat hinges from Hafele and replaced them and refitted the seats with the old wooden parts. It was expensive and not really worth the bother, and those hinges broke as well.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.