You’re sitting there, looking at the last few squares on a toilet paper roll. It’s not enough to get the job done, and even if you could reach your bathroom cabinet from here, you’re out. No matter what size your apartment, there’s an easy solution. Skip your gross, and ineffective TP, and ditch the plumbing nightmare that is wet-wipes. Instead, I recommend installing a bidet to guarantee your backside gets clean. Luckily, anyone can do it in a few moments.
Choose a Bidet for Your Apartment
Unless you’ve gotten permission from your landlord to add plumbing lines, then you’re going to be installing the easy bidet in your apartment, rather than a whole toilet sized unit in your bathroom. When you’ve been a renter for years, a ‘cool’ landlord might let you add a full bidet beside your toilet. However, they don’t have to give permission.
Most leases stipulate that if you make any changes, they become a permanent part of the property. So, not only is it a bad idea for your wallet, but there’s another problem. Almost everywhere in the USA, you need to be a professional plumber to legally add a feature like a second plumbing line for a full-sized bidet.
Without landlord permission, you’d violate your lease. Moreover, without the appropriate plumbing skills and certifications, you’d break the law. That could cause all sorts of trouble for you and the property owner.
Fortunately, there are three basic types of bidets. Better yet, two of them hook onto an existing toilet, and you don’t need any special skills. While your full bidet is a mess of permits and piping, the other two types typically take less than ten minutes from opening the package to having them fully installed.
Two Easy Bidet Options
You can choose from two simple styles of bidets to install. Mostly it’s a matter of personal preference. The first style is a spray head like you’d find in a shower. Meanwhile, the second type is more like a traditional bidet that has a fixed jet to wash you.
Less expensive versions of both sprayers and fixed bidets tend to have few, or no settings. Whether that matters to you personally is a choice. Ultimately it’s about comfort. Some people don’t mind a cold wash with set pressure.
Sprayer Bidet
For people who have young children, still in diapers, the first type has an added bonus. Sometimes called diaper washers, or handheld cloth diaper sprayers, the spray heads are outstanding for cleaning off cloth diapers. Before you put them in the wash, baby diapers should always get a rinse. The toilet is ideal for this.
You can pick up a super easy to install sprayer like the AIFUSI Bidet Sprayer for Toilet from Amazon. I love that this model comes with all the necessary hardware. The ability to handle cloth diaper messes and even dirty pets is a significant bonus. Read AFUSIs’reviews right here.
Fixed Bidet
A fixed bidet attachment often comes with more controls. While you give up mobility, you gain better temperature and pressure control. Dials allow every member of the house to adjust the warmth to their preference. Plus, the stream power adapts on high-quality models.
For a tremendous non-electric fixed bidet, I recommend the Tibbers Home Bidet. For those who prefer to skip any electric parts near their water sources, this model is ideal. Plus, the retractable nozzle is easy to use. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness of a Tibbers Bidet. Check prices and availability on Amazon, here.
How to Install a Bidet in Your Apartment
Putting in your own bidet is very easy. Most come with full instructions. The only downside is that some models come with no T-valve, which necessitates a quick run to the hardware store. Follow these steps, and you’ll be TP free in a few minutes.
- Choose your style. Regardless of whether you like the control of a spray head, you can move, or a fixed setting, the installation is very similar.
- Open your package and check that all the correct parts are present. This is a vital step in installing or building anything from a premade kit.
- Turn off the water to your toilet. You don’t want to clean up a flood.
- Get a bucket before you unscrew your water line. There may be some water still in the hose.
- Flush the toilet two or three times to drain it while you work.
- Locate the water line in the back of your toilet, and place your bucket below.
- Unscrew the hose and let the water dribble into your bucket.
- Take your T-valve and screw it onto the toilet where the hose came out.
- Attach the hose to one of the sides.
- Attach the hose for the bidet to the remaining end of your T-valve. Make sure that both sides are seated firmly to prevent leaks.
- For those bidets with electric controls for heating water, you may need to install batteries or remove the plastic piece that prevents the battery from touching the metal piece inside to complete a circuit and provide power.
- For a fixed bidet, remove your toilet seat and lid. Then place the bidet over the holes. Finally, screw everything back in place.
- Attach the hose or spray head if needed.
- For sprayer models, you need to take the tank lid off your toilet, hang the hook to hold the sprayer on the side of your tank. Then, put the top back on.
- Turn your water back on and test your connections by flushing.
- Test your bidet sprayer to be certain it doesn’t leak.
Although that’s quite a few steps, it doesn’t take very long. Tool savvy people will be done in five to ten minutes. As for the rest of us, it could take as much as twenty minutes. Especially if you need to hunt for the valve to turn off your water, it adds a little time to the procedure. Still, it’s incredibly quick and straightforward.
Secret Bidet History
You may be asking yourself, “If installing a bidet in your apartment is so easy, why don’t more people do it?” That’s a fair question, and the answer is far stranger than you might expect. Americans got turned-off to the bidet because they were badly introduced.
While the first bidets appeared around seventeen hundred, most Americans first saw them in one specific place, European brothels. Since they help prevent UTIs and hemorrhoids, that meant early sex-workers could do their jobs more easily because of the bidet. Naturally, the association stuck.
Resultantly, early Americans didn’t associate the bidet with cleanliness. Instead, they became known for being part of the prostitution culture. Legal or not, this led many puritanical Americans who demonized sexuality to shun the ingenious device.
American bathrooms have evolved, but we never made space for a bidet. Unfortunately, that means installing a full bidet is more complicated. Hence, the habit never truly caught on here.
Bidets Get You Cleaner
Installing a bidet in your apartment seems like a foregone conclusion. After all, you wouldn’t use a dry towel to wipe your body off instead of a shower. So why would you rub your backside with dry paper to remove fecal matter? It’s not as effective as you think.
If you want to use dry towels, maybe it’s best to keep them beside the bidet. Just make sure you use fabric softener. Your backside will thank you for it.
The SAMODRA Non-electric Cold Water Bidet is perfect for keeping you clean. Plus, it makes an outstanding bathroom upgrade without the need for permits and permissions. You can find out more on Amazon by clicking here.
Wet Wipes
Doubtless, using wet wipes gets you far cleaner than outdated toilet paper. However, there’s a couple of hidden downsides to this method as well. First, some wipes use ingredients that can irritate the skin. Secondly, the constant rubbing also tends to bother your epidermis (skin).
You may use less wet wipe than you’d need toilet paper, but the impact is similar. Wipes are known for causing plumbing clogs. Additionally, they’re awful for the environment. What you gain in wet cleaning, you lose in other side effects.
Bidets Are Better for the Environment
Installing a bidet means using more water. Naturally, that leads a lot of people to assume it will impact their bills significantly. Worse yet, they also believe that means it’s terrible for the environment. However, the facts don’t lie.
A typical bidet wash takes about an eighth of a gallon of water. Most water companies charge you a few dollars for every thousand or several thousand gallons of water you use. You’d need eight thousand bathroom trips per month to use enough water to change your bill.
Average people pee four to ten times a day and poop one to four times. Assuming they always do that separately, that could be fourteen trips to the toilet per day per person. I did the math. It would take nineteen people a month to use a thousand gallons of water if they only ‘went’ at home.
Meanwhile, making a roll of toilet paper, from tree to toilet, takes more water than you’d ever anticipate. All told, it costs between twelve and thirty-seven gallons of water per roll.
Final Thoughts
A simple misunderstanding based on narrow-minded assumptions is the only reason you need to install a bidet in your apartment. If not for some WWII soldiers and religious sentiments, you’d probably have grown up with a bidet keeping you cleaner.
You can save over three hundred trees and thousands of gallons of water by switching now. Plus, you’ll be cleaner and healthier as a result. Bidets are a winning idea, no matter how you look at them.
Once you install your bidet, you’ll never go back to toilet paper again. It’s worth taking a few minutes to DIY this incredible bathroom upgrade.
