Install A Soft Close Toilet Seat

I’m sure every couple has had this discussion in their home. It is the toilet seat up or toilet seat down discussion. My husband tends to forget to put the seat down, and of course I  would much prefer that it is down. What if there was a toilet seat that goes down automatically?

A girlfriend of mine recently installed one in her home and she loves it. After seeing hers, I ordered the Bemis Whisper Close seat and installed it myself. I never thought I'd enjoy a toilet seat so much.

These are known by several names. The most popular name is the soft close toilet seat, but they are also referred to as quiet close toilet seats and self-close toilet seats.

No matter what you call them, I find them to be amazing. No longer will you have to worry about the seat staying up. With just the slightest push, the toilet seat will ever so slowly decent until it gently rests on top of the toilet bowl. Just think how nice that will be, no more hearing someone dropping and slamming the toilet at night while you are sleeping.

The secret is in the hinges of the toilet seat. They are designed to keep the toilet in the up right position when you need it to be, but when you want to close the seat, a gently push will make the seat begin to lower very slowly.

One advantage of using this type of toilet seat is if you have small children in your home. How many times have they dropped the toilet seat? You are in your house, sitting down and all of a sudden you hear that seat slam down. You then wait to hear if your child is crying, but then you go to check it out to see if the seat is now broken. You won’t have to worry about that any more with this toilet seat.

Another thing is safety. As I previously mentioned, a child can drop the seat and frequently it could come down on their little fingers and cause damage to them. With the quiet close toilet seat, that will no longer happen.

Installing a quiet close seat is very easy to do. It is a very simple installation. You can do it yourself, no need to spend money hiring a handyman or plumber to do this. The only tools you will need is a screwdriver. If your existing toilet seat has metal bolts, then you might need a wrench to help hold the bolt as you unscrew it. For the most part you can use you hand to hold it. The new toilet seat will probably come with plastic nylon bolts. Remove the old seat, clean the area around the holes and install the new soft close seat. This will only take you about 10 to 15 minutes to do.

Self close toilet seats are very comfortable. You will not notice a difference between a regular toilet seat and this one. The only difference will be in the hinges and the way it closes. When you do go shopping for one, make a note if you have a traditional round toilet seat or an elongated one. They make soft close seats for both styles.

If you shop online, you will find a larger selection of toilet seats. You can probably find one in any color you want. We went to the local stores and all they offered where white toilet seats. We found the one we wanted on Amazon. While we were they shopping we even found a wooden soft close toilet seat. We might buy that for the bathroom in the den when it is time to replace that one.

The four leading manufactures of these toilet seats are Bemis, Kohler, Mayfair and Toto. Each one makes excellent self close toilet seats based on the reviews I have read on the web.

When we first started looking to buy one, we went to the home improvement stores near us. Their selection was very limited and had brands I never heard of before. Plus I thought the prices were a little high. I went over to Amazon and found a much wider selection and much better prices.