Moving toilet in 1930s row house bath - am I crazy?

[Anonymous]

I’m starting to plan a remodel of my master bath and moving the toilet about 4 feet (swapping with the vanity) would make the layout so much more functional (we also plan to expand the bathroom into the upstairs landing so this will be a fairly big project no matter what). Has anyone ever done that esp. in an old house? Was it worth the cost and effort? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

It might not be possible based on your plumbing.

[Anonymous]

It was 2020 but I demolished my townhouse bathroom moving the toilet to the opposite corner. Very much worth it for a terrific layout. $20k. I provided tile, glass door, new toilet and vanity so more like $28k. Kept the original claw foot tub and added a large walk in shower.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends a lot on the size of your house - a larger TH with space to spare, yes. A small house where every foot counts I’d keep the bathroom the same footprint.

I had the latter and glad I didn’t lose space elsewhere, still a better and more functional bathroom and I kept reasonable sized bedrooms

[Anonymous]

Toilet drain sizes are much larger than sink drain sizes. Think 3-4" for WC versus 1.5-2" for sinks.
Toilets usually drain into a floor connection - or you can get a 'back-out' toilet that shoots to a drain in the wall but it all still have to work with gravity to remove the soiled water so the pipes still have to move downwards to the main soil stack.
I am guessing your sink doesn't have a 3-4" drain connection in the floor and is too high for the back-out toilet position.
The good news is that there is no fixture count change if you are simply swapping so no need for a permit.
But it still sounds like a lot of plumbing work to get the proper sized piping in place so you may as well consider putting the two fixtures wherever works best. Swapping positions isn't going to reduce the amount of plumbing labor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Toilet drain sizes are much larger than sink drain sizes. Think 3-4" for WC versus 1.5-2" for sinks.
Toilets usually drain into a floor connection - or you can get a 'back-out' toilet that shoots to a drain in the wall but it all still have to work with gravity to remove the soiled water so the pipes still have to move downwards to the main soil stack.
I am guessing your sink doesn't have a 3-4" drain connection in the floor and is too high for the back-out toilet position.
The good news is that there is no fixture count change if you are simply swapping so no need for a permit.
But it still sounds like a lot of plumbing work to get the proper sized piping in place so you may as well consider putting the two fixtures wherever works best. Swapping positions isn't going to reduce the amount of plumbing labor.

Alternatively, if you really want to save on space, consider an a wall hung WC. The toilet 'carrier' (i.e. what we think of as tank) is in the wall. I put one in my child's bathroom - it is a huge space saver and never had a problem with it. My architecture firm puts them in homes we design and we had them in our own office with never a problem. For our office, it was about 50 people for 4 bathrooms so those units got a lot of use. Wall hung is much easier to clean underfoot as it doesn't touch the floor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Toilet drain sizes are much larger than sink drain sizes. Think 3-4" for WC versus 1.5-2" for sinks.
Toilets usually drain into a floor connection - or you can get a 'back-out' toilet that shoots to a drain in the wall but it all still have to work with gravity to remove the soiled water so the pipes still have to move downwards to the main soil stack.
I am guessing your sink doesn't have a 3-4" drain connection in the floor and is too high for the back-out toilet position.
The good news is that there is no fixture count change if you are simply swapping so no need for a permit.
But it still sounds like a lot of plumbing work to get the proper sized piping in place so you may as well consider putting the two fixtures wherever works best. Swapping positions isn't going to reduce the amount of plumbing labor.

Alternatively, if you really want to save on space, consider an a wall hung WC. The toilet 'carrier' (i.e. what we think of as tank) is in the wall. I put one in my child's bathroom - it is a huge space saver and never had a problem with it. My architecture firm puts them in homes we design and we had them in our own office with never a problem. For our office, it was about 50 people for 4 bathrooms so those units got a lot of use. Wall hung is much easier to clean underfoot as it doesn't touch the floor.

For wall hung carriers, Geberit is the best and works with many brands of toilets.

[Anonymous]

Yes,
The juice is not worth the squeeze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m starting to plan a remodel of my master bath and moving the toilet about 4 feet (swapping with the vanity) would make the layout so much more functional (we also plan to expand the bathroom into the upstairs landing so this will be a fairly big project no matter what). Has anyone ever done that esp. in an old house? Was it worth the cost and effort? Thanks!

Upstairs it sounds like?
Slab concrete foundation? Or pier and beam?
Certainly easier than downstairs if slab.
Requires either replumbing through the wall, or running an angle on pipes, which some plumbers might not want to do.
Certainly doable but with a jump in plumbing price for sure.