There have been a couple of threads talking about bidets. They seem to start with an innocent question followed by the typical thigh-slapping, "golly, why don ya jus' git a garden hose an' a sprayer nozzle?! Hell, do it outside and make it a show for your neighbors!" While we all love high-quality potty humor, the signal-to-noise ratio was a little bit high, and there wasn't a lot of useful, actionable information.
I've installed one, the Bio Bidet A8 Serenity, and wanted to provide some information and pictures that might be helpful. Note that bidets are also called Washlets. Also, note that you have to search on both to get a complete view from Amazon.
You will have two issues. You will need to remove the front of the hump on the back of your toilet. You will need an outlet near your toilet.
Research - I called every manufacturer of bidets in the country. Don't be impressed, there are five, maybe six. I even called a guy who imports them. I also called the only two suppliers of toilets, Dometic and Thetford. (Yes, there are a couple of esoteric toilet suppliers that start at $5,000 for just the toilet. I omit them for self-evident reasons)
Ordering - Came from Amazon via prime. Simple and quick, though expensive. If I ever total my rig, I'll be sifting the ashes for my laptop and my bidet. (Hey, you are the one reading this so lets just agree to not judge each other)
Issue - All bidets *require* at least 1.5 inches from the center of the toilet seat holes to the front of the tank. RV toilets don't have 'tanks', but most of them have humps that cause the same problem. Neither Dometic nor Thetford has a decent toilet that does not have a hump. One of them does have a low-profile (shorty) plastic toilet that they make for the tiniest spaces, but that won't work for us. If you don’t have that clearance, or find a way to make it, there isn't an electric (read: "heated water") bidet anywhere that will work for you. Yes, they have some clip-on hose bidets, but then you would be back to the 'garden hose' conversation.
Installation gets to be either tricky or impossible, depending on your abilities. Here is what I did.
Installation - wear gloves
Remove toilet - Turn off the water to the toilet and drain the toilet
- Remove the water line in the back of the toilet. I have a Dometic 320 and the sprayer hose did not need to be removed separately
- Remove the caps covering the bolts, and remove the nuts
- Remove the toilet and bring it outside
- Remove the toilet seat and set it aside. This is done by popping the caps on the back of the toilet and unscrewing the plastic bolts with a phillips head screwdriver. You will need to reach way under the toilet and grab the nuts at the bottom. You should be able to use your hands, they are not that tight.
Cut away hump - This was the tricky part. Mine was porcelain. I did not fully remove it; I just cut away about a 1/2 inch of the front. Note that while this is ugly, the washlet will cover it, so nobody sees it at all. Mine looks fine.
- Tools - I rented an angle grinder for $15/half-day and I purchased a diamond bit wheel for $14.
- Protection - I heavily duct taped the toilet to prevent accidentally scarring it. I also used the tape line to act as a visual guide for the cutting. I also wore my glasses.
- I made a shallow cut along the lines that I needed to cut away. I then made repeated cuts to deepen them until a solid <thunk> broke it free.
- I used the grinder to carefully smooth out and level anything that I missed
- I then wiped down the toilet to remove the dust created by the grinder
I then re-installed the toilet, but did not re-connect the water. Some instructions say to replace the rubber seal. My toilet is less than a year old and did not need that. Yours may.
Bidet Installation - Following the instructions, I installed the bidet. It took 20 minutes and only because I was going slowly and carefully.
- Unpacked the bidet
- It comes with a 'mounting plate' that you bolt to the toilet using the holes that the old toilet seat used. Mine had a couple different holes, and the bolts were a little odd shaped - this allowed for some variability in the location of the bolt holes.
- After mounting the plate, the bidet seat just clicks into place.
- The water connection instructions expects you to have a tank and tanked toilets have a few more connections, and the package came with an assortment of parts to fit most scenarios. I didn't need all of those pieces - I just needed the T-connector to get water to the bidet. Just take a look and see which you need.
- Plug it in.
Done. Let me know if you have any questions.
We now open up the floor and let the hilarity begin.
Linear Mode
