Tuesday, July 26, 2011

 

Toilet Seats

A few years ago I remember seeing these slow closing toilet seats which I thought were awesome. I didn't think about getting them at the time because I thought it would be a difficult project.
These last few weeks I started thinking about them again because I wanted to replace our toilet seats. They were old and I wanted to enjoy the slow close feature. After some research, I picked out Bemis 9170CHSL because I wanted high density molded wood and of course it has the slow close feature. Unfortunately only one retailer carried it: Chicago Faucet Shoppe and shipping would start at more than 25% of the price of the seats. Ouch.
I went back to research but just couldn't find another model until I visited Home Depot Pro and saw this: Bemis 553CHSL. This model was very competitive with 9170CHSL that I originally wanted. Including the exterior looks, there were only two differences:

553CHSL uses regular molded wood vs high-density molded wood for 9170CHSL
9170CHSL allows the entire seat and cover to be taken off via easy hinges on the top, 553CHSL does not have this

I looked through Bemis's website but just couldn't find any information about 553CHSL.
After looking at the product again and seeing what else I can get, I went with 553CHSL.

The installation is another story. Let's just say I should have followed the instructions. Nothing broke though, I just made it harder for myself while I was screwing things in.

The seats are nice. I like the Whisper Close feature and it works on both the seat and the cover. I did notice the cover isn't flush with the seat. It's offset a bit to the right. I have a suspicion it's the manufacturing. At any rate, it's not too bad. The hinges are very big compared to the old seats' hinges which were much smaller so I notice this a lot more than the offset problem.

One thing I have to complain about Home Depot is they don't do a good job of advertising the features on the product page. If I didn't visit the Pro store, I would have given it a miss if I saw it online. No where in the product page does it mention the Whisper Close feature. In the text it however does say: "... prevent slamming..." but that's not enough. I'm also wondering if it's Bemis's fault for not providing an accurate description.

It's been about a week and so far these are great seats.

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