Which type of toilet should I choose — close coupled, back to wall or wall hung?

Toilets are usually chosen from a picture, and the picture does not show the two things that decide whether you will be happy in five years: how you get at the cistern when a fill valve fails, and what is carrying the pan. Both are settled before anything is tiled, and neither is easy to change afterwards.

Step by step

1. Understand the close-coupled toilet.Cistern bolted directly on top of the pan, everything on view, pan standing on the floor. Cheapest to buy and to fit, everything accessible in seconds, and every part is a standard part available anywhere. The cistern and the pipework are visible and there is a gap behind the pan that collects dust.
2. Understand the back-to-wall toilet.The pan stands on the floor but its back sits flush against a piece of furniture or boxing that conceals the cistern and the pipework. It looks far tidier and there is nothing behind the pan to clean around. Servicing depends entirely on the access left to the concealed cistern — normally through the flush plate.
3. Understand the wall-hung toilet.The pan is bolted to a steel frame inside the wall and does not touch the floor at all, so the floor cleans in one pass underneath it. It looks the best of the four and it is by a distance the easiest to clean around. It requires a supporting frame bolted to the floor and back to the structure, which has to be built in before tiling.
4. Understand the low-level and high-level cistern.A separate cistern on the wall above the pan, joined by a flush pipe. Traditional in appearance, fine mechanically, and the flush pipe connection is another joint to seal. Common in period bathrooms and in some conversions where the cistern has to sit away from the pan.
5. Ask the servicing question first, on any concealed option.For a back-to-wall or wall-hung installation, ask exactly how the fill valve is replaced. The answer should be 'through the flush plate aperture', and the aperture should be big enough to get a hand and a valve through. If the answer is anything else, get it changed before the tiling starts.
6. Check what the wall can carry, for wall hung.The frame carries the pan and the person on it, and it transfers that load to the floor and to the wall. It needs a floor it can be bolted to and a wall or stud structure it can be tied back to. Frames are made for both masonry and stud walls, but the installation is not optional and not improvisable.
7. Check the waste outlet type and position.Pans have horizontal, vertical or S-trap outlets. The outlet has to suit where the soil pipe goes — out through the wall behind, or down through the floor. Changing this is a drainage job, not a toilet swap, and it is where the cost of a rearranged bathroom hides.
8. Look at rimless designs.A rimless pan has no enclosed rim ledge, so there is nowhere for the deposit under the rim to build up and nothing hidden to clean. In a hard water area this is a genuinely useful feature rather than a marketing one, and it also removes the blocked rim jets that cause weak flushes.
9. Weigh the cost honestly.A close-coupled toilet is a couple of hours' work and a standard part. A wall-hung installation is a frame, a concealed cistern, structural fixings, boxing and tiling. The difference is not the toilet — it is everything around it.

Common mistakes

• Choosing a concealed cistern without confirming the access route — Fill valves fail. If the only access is through tiling, the failure becomes a bathroom job.
• Assuming a wall-hung pan can be fixed to any wall — It carries a person's full weight on a cantilever. It needs its frame, properly installed and tied back.
• Choosing a pan without checking the outlet matches the existing soil connection — Changing from a horizontal to a vertical outlet, or moving the pan, is a drainage alteration and it is far more expensive than the toilet.

Alternatives

• Comfort height / raised pan: A pan a little taller than standard, noticeably easier to sit down on and get up from. Worth considering for anyone with knee or hip problems, and available in most pan types.
• Short projection pan: A pan that sticks out less from the wall, for a very small cloakroom or a tight space beside a door. Costs nothing extra and can be the difference between a usable room and an unusable one.
• Macerator toilet: For a toilet where there is no gravity drainage route — a basement, an outbuilding, a loft. It depends on electricity, it is noisy, and it is intolerant of anything unsuitable being flushed. A genuine solution to a genuine problem, and never a first choice.