Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Luxury toilet seats coming out of the water closet - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

Take a trip to Japan and you're floored by the health-minded fastidiousness of the culture.
Cab drivers wear white gloves, place lace doilies on the backseat head rests. Courteous cold sufferers hide behind a gauze mask to contain their germs. Hotel guests find slippers at their door (so please remove your dirty shoes).
And most fascinating, when venturing into a hotel or even a public bathroom, visitors are greeted by an auto-washing toilet seat, most often bearing the Toto brand name Washlet, inviting you to enjoy a hands-free, paper-free, hyper-cleansing potty visit that's weird and wonderful at the same time.

Connected to the toilet's cold water line and a nearby GFCI electric outlet, then controlled with a side mount or wireless remote, even the most basic ($300 and up, online) Washlet warms its seat for comfort, pre-mists the bowl (so sediment is less likely to stick) and turns on a surprisingly effective air freshener as soon as you settle in.

Best of all, this thing really scrubs you clean - back or front (for the ladies) - with a stream of warm water directed in a fine or forceful, pulsing, steady or oscillating fashion. Then dries you off with a breeze of warm air.

Pricier ($675 and up) Washlets are even more accommodating. While lesser examples temporarily run out of warm rinse water (held in a rear holding tank) after 45 seconds, a sleeker, tankless S300e or S350e delivers unlimited quantities, heated instantly with a ceramic element.

Adding robotic charms, too, a proximity sensor on the S350e automatically lifts the lid (or lid & seat) as you approach, drops 'em after you depart. And turns on a night light to help guys aim more accurately (in the dark) from a standing position.

Want automatic, hands-free flushing, too? For that you must invest $3,500 to $10,000 for one of the fully integrated (and quite handsome) smart toilets in Toto's Neorest line.

These high-performance "thrones" are often cited as a shining example of Japanese tech innovation and eccentricity. Most amusingly so in that episode of The Simpsons wherein Homer, on a sojourn to Tokyo, is befuddled by the indecipherable controls and "dancing water" antics.

So you might be surprised to learn (as was I) that the first example of this "better than a bidet" species was made in the U.S. and imported to Japan by Toto, starting in 1969.

That "wash air seat" had a clunky medicinal look, mostly used in hospitals and nursing homes. The things are still a great helper for elders and anyone incapacitated to maintain dignity and independence during ablutions.

But Toto envisioned a much wider audience. So it tweaked and domesticated the beast, then finally launched its own more consumer-friendly Washlet in 1982 with a prime-time TV commercial that hit a sore spot with some Japanese viewers but tickled lots more. In the ad, a girl is trying to wipe black paint off her hand with paper, making a mess. "Paper won't fully clean it," she says. "It's the same with your bottom." Today, smart toilets are found in 70 percent of Japanese homes.

Marketing Washlets and Neorests in the U.S. has been harder. As recently as four years ago, Toto's international division chief Hiromichi Tabata groused to the Japan Times about "the cultural taboo over talking about toilets" here.

But the tide started turning, Toto U.S.A. president William Strang told me recently, after he suggested to kitchen and bath retailers to put a Neorest or a Washlet seat "in the showroom bathroom that your visitors use. They're squeamish the first time. But after a chance to test drive, they truly fall in love with it."

And become proselytizers for the cause. Like my buddy Brian ("no last name, please") a medical researcher for a leading Philadelphia hospital who invited me over to sit and "peri care" on his $3,500 Neorest 500. "It seemed like a crazy luxury when I bought it four years ago. But its performance has been flawless, and when you enjoy using it at least once to several times a day, doesn't seem an indulgence at all."

Strang says his techy toilets are now a suitable subject for dinner party conversation. "When I have a new model in the house, people line up to try it." And it's acceptable brunch talk, too. The CBS Sunday Morning show recently devoted a lengthy segment to the Toto Museum in Tokyo and its products.

Strang claims there's even an enthusiastic customer base for a new flagship model - the $10,000 Neorest 750H - which furthers the species' already sophisticated ("E-Water+") germicidal hygiene with antistick bowl finishes and an ultraviolet "Actilight."

But I see this newbie as the means to make Toto's less pricey models seem positively "cheap." Like the $750 and up S350E Washlet seat - available in round (snug) or elongated seat versions, white or beige. My Toto of choice, the S350e does almost everything the kingly Neorests do and looks reasonably at home on all but the narrowest of toilets.

Ready to splurge on a new toilet as well as a smart seat? Check out Toto's neatly integrated Connect+ series - such as the Carlyle II Connect+ with Washlet S350e Connect+ (spotted online for $1,400 and up). A comfortable universal height design, available in either low consumption (1.28 gallons per flush) or ultra efficient (1.0 gpf) form, it neatly hides the smart seat's water pipe and electric line. And while billed as "elongated" can often fit into a spot formerly occupied by a round toilet with the deployment of Toto's optional (and unique) 14-inch rough-in kit. Ask your plumber if it's right for you.

source: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160228_Luxury_toilet_seats_coming_out_of_the_water_closet.html

by Jonathan Takiff

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com