Can You Put a Commercial Toilet in Your House?
Ask any plumber, and they’ll tell you that one of the most common questions they get asked is “Can I put a commercial toilet in my house?” A couple of reasons homeowners are considering commercial toilets as they carry out a bathroom remodel:
- Commercial toilets are aesthetically pleasing due to having no tank.
- Because of their powerful mechanism, commercial toilets get clogged less and last longer.
- Accessibility. Because accessibility is essential, most commercial buildings install commercial ADA toilets. Accessibility is one feature many homeowners are beginning to look into today.
Whatever your reason for inquiring into this issue, let’s get to the bottom of it. Let’s find out if you can put a commercial toilet in your home.
Residential vs. Commercial Toilets
So, what sets commercial and residential toilets apart? Let’s compare the two so you know whether commercial toilets are compatible with your home or not.
Commercial Toilets Are Tankless, While Residential Toilets Feature Tanks
This is mainly because commercial toilets don’t store water but rely on a water line. One reason for this is that getting their water straight from the waterline gives them the high pressure they need to operate efficiently. Residential toilets, however, keep their water supply close by, as it’s more cost-effective.
Commercial Toilets Require More Robust and Complex Plumbing
Commercial toilets are built for more use and more flushing. Because of this, their lines are often bigger, needing to be at least an inch in diameter. Residential toilets only require water lines that are half to three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
Commercial Toilets Require Higher Water Pressure to Flush
By design, commercial toilets require more pressure for flushing than residential toilets.
Can I Put a Commercial Toilet in My House?
Having seen these three main differences between commercial toilets and residential ones, we can now answer our question: Can you put a commercial toilet in your home?
The answer is an emphatic “no!”
Trying to run a commercial toilet on residential plumbing will only lead to ruptured pipes and could lead to damage to your home. Your residential plumbing is not built for the pressure required by commercial toilets.
Another reason installing a commercial toilet is not advisable is that you’ll have to upgrade your plumbing to accommodate the commercial toilet. That’s because the way commercial plumbing works is different from the way residential plumbing works.
The complexities of commercial plumbing bring in another factor you must consider—codes. You must follow many more codes to ensure your plumbing system works according to your community’s guidelines.
What’s your best option in this case? Consider a tankless toilet.
Benefits of a Tankless Toilet
As the name implies, a tankless toilet is a toilet that doesn’t rely on a tank of water to work. Instead, tankless toilets get their water directly from a supply line and at a pressure high enough to carry human waste through the drainage system.
Installing a tankless toilet will offer you many benefits, some of which include:
Water Conservation
Another advantage of a tankless toilet is that it helps save water. That’s because it uses less water to flush liquid waste than it does solid waste.
Less Maintenance
Thanks to fewer moving pieces like valves, gaskets, and floating balls (among many others), tankless toilets require less maintenance.
Saves Space
Because they’re more compact than their tank-fed counterparts, tankless toilets give you more freedom to design your bathroom the way you want. For example, you can have more space to add an ADA-compliant shower system.
If an ADA-compliant bathroom is something you’re planning on, the answer doesn’t simply lie in commercial ADA toilets. It lies in careful planning and getting the right fittings—of which a tankless toilet and ADA-compliant shower system are a great start.
So, if you’re looking to upgrade your residential bathroom, give us a call at (888) 228-4925. We’ll be more than happy to help you with your upgrade.
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