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Fitting a back-to-wall WC with an offset fitting.

RogerS

RogerS

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Has anyone done this and can give me some ideas? The offset is needed unfortunately.

At least I'm not cussing as much as I used to. Even in this hot weather !
 
Yes, I've had to do this a number of times....I'm assuming you mean a difference in the height of the outlet of the pan, compared with the height of the 100mm waste pipe connection?
If so, you can buy offset pan connectors with various degrees of offset & angles.

McAlpine offer one of the widest ranges and I personally think they are still one of the best quality available.
 
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Can it be avoided. Even a small offset is apt to cause big problems.
 
Thank you both for the suggestions. I have two problems. First the existing soil pipe connection is slightly higher than normal and also slopes …luckily in the right direction. Pretty sure that has been resolved by shortening the length so that the point of ‘contact’ with the pan is now the right height.

The second is intractable and is the cold feed for the cistern’s proximity to the soil pipe connection. This pipe is not possible to shift without rebuilding the house as there is no easy or simple access to the other side to reroute it. The ‘fix’ is to use an offset connector (current plan albeit not going well) but rotated 90 degrees to shift the pan enough to the left of the soil pipe connection so as to miss the cold feed.

Trouble is getting the pan to connect ‘blind’. Bit like the children’s game….Pinning the tail on the donkey…only this time I feel like the ass.
 
Distinterior said:
I have always avoided them like the plague.....
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+1
Me too. A potential for future issues, corrugated pipe doesn't fare well with soit waste despite what the manufacturers would have you believe. I've witnessed one that had been in 12 months and it wasn't a pretty sight. :oops:
 
Lons said:
+1
Me too. A potential for future issues, corrugated pipe doesn't fare well with soit waste despite what the manufacturers would have you believe. I've witnessed one that had been in 12 months and it wasn't a pretty sight. :oops:
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Surely all those corrugations fill up overtime ? Ending up with a smooth bore?
 
Rodger doesn’t look like you have much choice but to use an offset.
I have one in stock that has smooth internal walls …..will try and photoimage.jpg
 
To be honest Roger as long as it’s an upstairs bathroom & from looking at your photos in your position I’d opt for a brand named concertina one, they work fine & will give less of an abrupt restriction than the offset connector in your photo.
The advantage being you can connect the toilet up & check the connections for water tightness prior to finally pushing the toilet against the wall, also be aware they come in different lengths.
I’m not a huge fan of the concertina type connectors but have never known one fail due to normal use & can as in your case be a god send.
 
Having seen the 'photos Roger I'd agree that to be the simplest solution as it would be a very short run.

Had that been in my house I'd have done one of three things:

1). Stick in a false wall in front of the cold feed just to the height of the cistern top which means you can put the pan where you like. You would lose maybe 50 to 70 mm space as you bring it forward but that's not much unless it's very tight and what I did in one of our downstairs toilets as the outlet was in the floor to suit the original double syphon WC so too far forward)

2). Cut the waste outlet pipe close to the wall to give more room for one of the offset connectors available, or a short flexi.

3). Cut out the wall around the cold feed and re route it which might not be the easiest but far better aesthetically

I'm sure it wouldn't be likely in your case Roger but I've remembered something else I came across. It was a run of around a foot or so from memory of a concertina pipe, properly supported and luckily ran under the bath next to the WC. The customer had seen a leak and thought it was from the bath waste but it wasn't and a rat had climbed up the drain (upstairs bathroom) and chewed though the thin plastic wall so a bad leak every time the bog was flushed. :rolleyes: No sign of the rat apart from droppings so we knew the culprit.

I had to replace with another concertina but was able to fit a vermin control flap in the manhole to prevent further entry as the lady of the house became a bit paranoid.
 
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I’ve been to a couple of jobs in bungalows where Roland has nibbled through the pan connector, the last one the lady said she’d got an awful smell in the bathroom, on taking out some boxing it was obvious to me a rat had chewed through the top of the connector.
The customer just wouldn’t accept this at all so as it was too late in the day to change the pipework & she had another toilet she could use I suggested I foam fill the hole to stop the smells & pop back in the morning to make repairs.

When I arrived in the morning unsurprisingly this is what I found

20251108_092730.jpeg

I’d completely filled the whole of the connector with foam but Roland had been busy & much to the customers horror & disbelief she had to accept the fact there were indeed rats in the drains around her property. 🙁
 
Unfortunately people just don't realise or refuse to accept that there are rats in every sewer system and exactly what is is they live on. :rolleyes:
 
Lons said:
Having seen the 'photos Roger I'd agree that to be the simplest solution as it would be a very short run.

Had that been in my house I'd have done one of three things:

1). Stick in a false wall in front of the cold feed just to the height of the cistern top which means you can put the pan where you like. You would lose maybe 50 to 70 mm space as you bring it forward but that's not much unless it's very tight and what I did in one of our downstairs toilets as the outlet was in the floor to suit the original double syphon WC so too far forward)

2). Cut the waste outlet pipe close to the wall to give more room for one of the offset connectors available, or a short flexi.

3). Cut out the wall around the cold feed and re route it which might not be the easiest but far better aesthetically

I'm sure it wouldn't be likely in your case Roger but I've remembered something else I came across. It was a run of around a foot or so from memory of a concertina pipe, properly supported and luckily ran under the bath next to the WC. The customer had seen a leak and thought it was from the bath waste but it wasn't and a rat had climbed up the drain (upstairs bathroom) and chewed though the thin plastic wall so a bad leak every time the bog was flushed. :rolleyes: No sign of the rat apart from droppings so we knew the culprit.

I had to replace with another concertina but was able to fit a vermin control flap in the manhole to prevent further entry as the lady of the house became a bit paranoid.
Click to expand...
Options 1 and 3 are in the Hell will freeze over first category.

The corrugated extender option is a no-go as there is no length available between pan and wall to bend it into an offset.

So I very carefully fitted the offset into the wall pipe. Lined the pan up very carefully. Factored in the slight slope in the floor which is another story. Used the endoscope that Amazon delivered today and pushed the pan to the wall. So far it’s watertight but chickens still need to be hatched
 
I
Lons said:
Unfortunately people just don't realise or refuse to accept that there are rats in every sewer system and exactly what is is they live on. :rolleyes:
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And you need to be careful if they get out of the sewer. Back in the 90s I was working in SW10 London and three of us got very ill, me and my brother were unable to keep food down for over 3 weeks. My local doctor got concerned and started an investigation, eventually the client’s daughter in SW10 went to her en-suite and there was Rolland looking at her.
They informed the the local authorities which after investigating it found the cages in the sewer had broken and Rolland and his gang had free run of some of the poshest gaffs in London and spreading their diseases.
 
Roger, how does this waste pipe connection work, is it a friction fit with gaskets? Not common over here or L have never seen one.
 
They are push fit with a lip seal
There is a reasonable tolerance for misalignment but it has limits.

Ive had this job twice because of mismatched hight
First time I decided to "do it properly" and removed the pipe and hacked out the hole in the wall to match the new pan.
Then found the stack outside was all solvent welded.
So I had to buy a whole new set of fittings ,waste bosses,and stack .
Then found the ground socket was vitreous, cracked and wrapped in denso tape....
If I had allowed the horror story to continue Id probably have ended up renovating the sewage works.

The second occasion I fitted a concertina pipe.
No drama.


They seem to be a bad Idea but unless youve bought them off temu they will last as long as you like, and as far as flow restriction is concerned you may find the spigot on some foreign-made WC pans has an internal diameter that is as small as 2 and 3/4" anyway.


With the coldwater supply ,I dispise the idea ,but boxing the pipe then butting the wc to the new structure is often the neatest way around the problem
 
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fuse said:
........ With the coldwater supply ,I dispise the idea ,but boxing the pipe then butting the wc to the new structure is often the neatest way around the problem
Click to expand...

One of my suggestions but I understand why it's a "hell will freeze over first" option for Roger. :)
 
fuse said:
Good its sorted now
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It isn’t.

Well at least I’m pretty confident the trap seal is OK as I had water in it for two day’s without a drop. This morning I filled up the cistern a quarter full and went outside to do other stuff. Just been up to look and the effing this is all over the effing floor. I am going to make it my life’s ambition to take a sledgehammer to every ‘back to wall’ bog in the world.

I did check the cistern seal before even attempting the pan to pipe connection and all was good. So now with these bloody B-T-W abominations I have to take it away from the wall to find out which/where etc. Then fight to get the sodding thing back in place. I hate f****** plumbing.

That will be tomorrow when I’m calmer
 
 
Tomorrow came and using a mirror I could see a choice of two where it was coming from. So nowt for it but to disassemble and start again. Dismantled the cistern, looked for rough edges in the holes...nada..so stuck it on top of some 2x3 and filled it a little ....assembled as if it were on the pan, bolts'n'all. No drips.

Other work predicated attention...finally this afternoon late, re-assembled everything and moved the WC into position for the final push. Has it disturbed the cistern setting ? Left it alone for the rest of the day as need to get the conservatory floor ready for the tiler next week and I need to put down some damp-proofing.

I tippy-toed up there this evening. Will I see a floor of water? Not so far. But we've been here before and there is always tomorrow...
 
RogerS said:
I am going to make it my life’s ambition to take a sledgehammer to every ‘back to wall’ bog in the world.
Click to expand...
Having worked on one today I can fully sympathise with this view.
We got our bathroom redone a couple of years ago, I didn't feel up to all the work involved so we got a one stop shop to do all the tiling, fixtures and fittings. I didn't appreciate then how bloody awkward it is to work on back to wall units so didn't query it on the design. Today I had to replace the fill unit in the cistern, the float wasn't cutting off the water and we had a constant dribble into the toilet.

Easy enough to source a replacement and I've changed similar in the past on conventional non back to wall units without any fuss.
The Btw toilet is a nightmare, to get at anything you have to pull it out disturbing the soil pipe connection. Worse it seems to be designed for easy first time installation without any consideration of future maintenance. I'd watched the plumber install it and noted the conventional fittings thinking I could fix that. What I hadn't noticed was he installed the fill unit with the long flexible connector on the cistern and then installed the cistern on the toilet. With a conventional unit I'd just have reached up under the cistern, unscrewed the fill unit and disturbed nothing else. On the btw toilet I couldn't access the fill unit plastic nut from below, I had to dismantle the whole cistern from the toilet. Instead of disturbing one connection which could be easily checked after the work I had to check multiple connections on the inlet pipes, the cistern to toilet connection (which leaked on first reassembly) and the soil pipe connection (which also leaked on first reassembly).
 
jimhanna said:
Having worked on one today I can fully sympathise with this view.
We got our bathroom redone a couple of years ago, I didn't feel up to all the work involved so we got a one stop shop to do all the tiling, fixtures and fittings. I didn't appreciate then how bloody awkward it is to work on back to wall units so didn't query it on the design. Today I had to replace the fill unit in the cistern, the float wasn't cutting off the water and we had a constant dribble into the toilet.

Easy enough to source a replacement and I've changed similar in the past on conventional non back to wall units without any fuss.
The Btw toilet is a nightmare, to get at anything you have to pull it out disturbing the soil pipe connection. Worse it seems to be designed for easy first time installation without any consideration of future maintenance. I'd watched the plumber install it and noted the conventional fittings thinking I could fix that. What I hadn't noticed was he installed the fill unit with the long flexible connector on the cistern and then installed the cistern on the toilet. With a conventional unit I'd just have reached up under the cistern, unscrewed the fill unit and disturbed nothing else. On the btw toilet I couldn't access the fill unit plastic nut from below, I had to dismantle the whole cistern from the toilet. Instead of disturbing one connection which could be easily checked after the work I had to check multiple connections on the inlet pipes, the cistern to toilet connection (which leaked on first reassembly) and the soil pipe connection (which also leaked on first reassembly).
Click to expand...
I feel your pain. Whoever came up with the idea of these needs his testicles (the ladies are far to sensible to design anything so bloody stupid) put into a grinder on slow
 
I have back to wall concealed cistern units in the bathroom and ensuite, have had to do maintenance on both over time and they are damned awkward. I cursed the plumber each time but he didn't listen. He wouldn't, it was me who bought and installed them. :rolleyes:
 
Sounds like the plumbing version of changing the headlight bulbs in some cars, that requires most of the front end dismantled.
 
duke said:
Even if they were a thing here I would never install one, the regular hole in the floor ones can at times be a pain.
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What’s surprised me over here is that the toilets are completely stand alone units, not fastened to the wall at all even though they are only an inch off it sometimes.
What I still haven’t investigated is just how they work, some are like airplane ones with pressure involved.
 
RogerS said:
I am going to make it my life’s ambition to take a sledgehammer to every ‘back to wall’ bog in the world.
Click to expand...
Bathrooms are probably the worst room in a house to refurb and so called "fashion" and "modern" just make things worse. What is wrong with a cistern on the wall and a toilet on the floor connected by a flush pipe. Even high level cisterns look ok in older properties and they are much easier to fit and maintain. The close coupled toilets are something of a necessity in modern homes as they don't want the weight of a cistern on the wall, close coupled transfers it all into the floor.
 
Spectric said:
Bathrooms are probably the worst room in a house to refurb and so called "fashion" and "modern" just make things worse. What is wrong with a cistern on the wall and a toilet on the floor connected by a flush pipe. Even high level cisterns look ok in older properties and they are much easier to fit and maintain. The close coupled toilets are something of a necessity in modern homes as they don't want the weight of a cistern on the wall, close coupled transfers it all into the floor.
Click to expand...
Ah the memories. At the old BBC Engineering Training Department near Evesham, there was an original Thomas Crapper
 
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