How to Buy and Install Your Own Squat Toilet
If you want to have a squat toilet in your home or office,
there are two possible solutions:
1:
Buy and install a squat toilet.
2:
Buy or build an elevated squatting
platform contraption.
If you live in the right part of the world, you can simply go to the local store and buy a squat toilet. This plumbing shop in Yangshuo, Guangxi Province, China, carries a variety of squat toilets. Or you could ask this Turkish plumbing supply company.
There is good news for squat toilet enthusiasts: You can now buy squat toilets over the Internet!
Blue Earth Ceramics makes the BEC-116BO Natura 16" Natural Position Toilet (bowl only) or, for the whole kit, ready to install, squat, and flush, the MD-Plus: Squat Toilet (complete with tank). Both are available through Amazon, see the links at left.
Blue Earth Ceramics also makes what they call an "EZ-retrofit box-installation", basically a raised box about 12" high that puts the squatter on a small raised platform maybe 24" wide by 36" deep.
Somewhat surprisingly, some American plumbing manufacturers make squat toilets. You do not find them routinely carried in the stock of home improvement stores, of course, but you (or your plumber) can order them.
Zurn obviously suppports squat toilets, as they offer a detailed specification sheet.
Sloan makes lots of parts used for connecting squat toilets to the water supply and waste lines.
American Standard has made squat toilets in the past. They have always been rather difficult to find in their on-line North American catalog. in their North American catalog. Alternatively, ask your local hardware distributor to help you get it from them. I have seen American Standard squatters at aecasia.com and productsasia.com, but those sites are not especially helpful, or even accessible!
Also remember that squat toilets are sometimes called
"eastern style" or "international" by U.S. manufacturers,
and sometimes they are called "Indian pans"
outside the U.S.
You can ask Google to help you find these with
some simple searches:
"indian pans" toilet
eastern style toilet
Somewhat surprisingly, if you ask Yahoo or Google to search for "squat toilet manufacturer", this page comes up as one of the most relevant on all the Internet. That's due to all the meta-level discussion about the topic, including that previous sentence...
Parryware also carries squat toilets. Search their catalog for "Indian Pans".
Squat Down Inc is a North American importer and seller of all sorts of squat toilets and components.
For those in the UK, Trent Bathrooms may be a local source.
If you plan to build your own, you might want to adhere to the U.S. Army official specifications. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers specification for building squat toilets in Saudi Arabia contained, within item P-1a (WATER CLOSET), section 3.9 (PLUMBING FIXTURE SCHEDULE), page 15400-47, the requirement that "Flushing shall be in conformance with FS WW-P541 with complete visual washdown from non-splashing flushing rim." and that the "integral, skidproof foot pads" shall be elevated 13mm above the finished floor level. FS WW-P541 is a U.S. military standard for flushing.
| Some people use a small stool to elevate their feet while seated on a raised commode, to somewhat mimic the anatomical pose of squatting. | |
But maybe you can't have a proper squatter.
Maybe you rent your home and your landlord doesn't want to replace the toilets.
Well, you can buy a small stool like those shown at left. Or, you could build or buy a squatting platform that fits around a toilet.
NaturesPlatform.com sells one: "It has a five-degree slope so that you don't have to balance on the balls of your feet. It folds up in 3 seconds so other family members are not inconvenienced. It is lightweight, but still strong and stable enough to hold a 300-pound man or woman." Too bad that 5-degree slope is not included in FS WW-P541!
The Nature's Platform inventor and site's author claims that "The knowledge it presents has been described as 'the greatest medical breakthrough of all times.'" Seriously? Telling people they should squat to poop is supposed to be "the greatest medical breakthrough of all times"? I still think that the discovery of microbial transmission of disease, the development of immunization, the discovery of penicillin, and a nearly complete elimination of smallpox and polio rank significantly higher.
As for squatting platforms from other parts of the world:
The "Evaco" is built of Stainless steel and wood, and is made in Singapore for the southeast Asian market.
The "In-Lieu" is built of plastic by the Rotadyne company in Australia.
The "Lillipad" is built entirely out of wood in New Zealand.
"Squat pans" are available in stainless steel from Franke in Poland.
Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box."
In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.
The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.
Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.
Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.
Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.
| A Sani-Flush blue border indicates a toilet that I've used. |
How long have my Toilets of the World pages been around? I'm not exactly sure, although they started in the mid 1990s as a single page on a Purdue University server. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you see what that looked like as far back as January 17, 1999.
My cromwell-intl.com domain appeared in September, 2001, although the Wayback Machine didn't notice its one enormous Toilet of the World page until January 17, 2002. Some time soon after that I split it into categories, and the collection has grown ever since.
In December, 2010 I registered the toilet-guru.com domain and moved the pages to a dedicated server.
If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):
