Is this a rear discharge toilet?

I'm told by the building management that this is a rear discharge but looking at the back it doesn't seem so.

Additional photo.

That's a floor mount, rear discharge bowl.

American Standard Yorkville
Kohler Barrington
Gerber Maxwell
Also Caroma makes one.

The drain is 4-1/4" above the floor. It takes either a special reinforced wax ring intended for wall mounting, or a neoprene rubber seal.

And next time peal off the paper label on the water supply.

Interesting. It looks like the turn back would be too sharp to be rear discharge. But I'll take your word for it.

Also any hunches about why it broke?

A standard toilet discharges down to a toilet flange about 12" from the wall...there's no way that toilet directs the discharge there!

Not much of a clue as to why the thing broke, but given this is somewhat different than the usual home toilet and the fact that it broke for some reason, I would suggest a plumber for this job. He will need to determine what cause the break and what to do to prevent it from happening again, and since this takes a different wax ring or seal than most home toilets, he will be better able to install the new unit properly. DIY just isn't always the best avenue to take. You might try and be successful on your first attempt, but then again you might end up with another broken toilet or a leak that would require another effort which usually means a lot more time and expense.

Gary Swart said:

Not much of a clue as to why the thing broke, but given this is somewhat different than the usual home toilet and the fact that it broke for some reason, I would suggest a plumber for this job. He will need to determine what cause the break and what to do to prevent it from happening again, and since this takes a different wax ring or seal than most home toilets, he will be better able to install the new unit properly. DIY just isn't always the best avenue to take. You might try and be successful on your first attempt, but then again you might end up with another broken toilet or a leak that would require another effort which usually means a lot more time and expense.

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The key term in the original post is "building management". That usually means that the ownership doesn't welcome DIY activity. I'm not sure whether the original poster was just curious or whether he was planning on doing something about fixing that fiasco, but if it were I, I would be up the butt of the building managers to fix this bad situation promptly, and to hire someone competent, as you suggest, from the outside to fix the situation properly.

chmedly said:

Interesting. It looks like the turn back would be too sharp to be rear discharge. But I'll take your word for it.

Also any hunches about why it broke?

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I am guessing that it is broke because it was leaking and someone over-tightened it to get the leak to stop, and just made it worse.

Just my DIY guess.

The last two answers are spot on. I missed the "building mgt" in the original question. It would be rare for a building to allow you to do your own plumbing repairs, and it would be very unwise to do it anyway since the liability for any damages resulting to any of the other units would be on you. It is pretty standard that a licensed and bonded plumber be used for plumbing repairs in apts and condos.

Thanks guys. Here are some more details. We just bought this reo condo and I knew we had some fixing up to do but didn't realize what the toilet was or how bad it was. We usually do our own handyman work including plumbing so I didn't think much of it. But plumbing isn't my strongest suit, that's more my dad's bag. Once he had a look at it he said he's seen these rear exit toilets before but wasn't sure that this actually was one. The association maintenance department seems to be willing to install the toilet if I can get one. I'm not sure why they don't have a vendor to recommend seeing as there must have been quite a few of these in the building (almost 300 units) but I'll get some more info next week. I came here trying to figure out what it is I'm looking for. Here's another photo of this beautiful piece of machinery.

The cracked plaster at the wall needs to be looked into when you take that off. May be water damage, ( possible leaking wax ring), or possible movement of the flange in the wall.

Hold on to your wallet...because rear discharge toilets are only made as pressure assist models anymore, so you will be looking at $350 to $500 for the new toilet.

The sharp turn would indicate that this toilet uses the same "pattern" as a floor discharge and then it is modified to add the rear flange and turn the outlet to the rear. I makes a poor waterway to have that abrupt turn in it. Normally, if there is one toilet like that in a complex, then they are ALL like that, not just "quite a few".

I found a Yorkville bowl on clearance on the interwebs for about $100. But after some reading it sounds like most (if not all) of the floor mount rear discharge toilets are pretty lame. I'm tempted to just get what I can as cheap as I can (potentially with mismatched colors etc) and see what it's like. Or is there something good that's worth spending more on?

btw, anybody know if the elongated yorkville bowl has the same mounting hole positions as the round front? Also, would the existing Crane tank work with the yorkville or do I need the yorkville power assist for it to work correctly?

Mansfield quantum 149-123 is also a rear outlet floor mounted. I had one installed and it's not bad only the plastic casing around the lever to flush the toilet broke off. However since it is pressure assisted its noisy when you flush

The only difference between a round front and an elongated one is in the seat area, not the mounting points. There is no much chance of a Crane tank having the same mounting bolt dimensions as an AMerican Standard toilet so save your money and buy the AS version. If you buy the tank and bowl as a unit it usually cost considerably less than buying the two pieces separately. For the same reason a Cadillac costs less as a complete car than assembling it a piece at a time. Unless you do like Johnny Cash and do it "One piece at a time" by stealing them.

A gravity tank does not work on a pressure assist bowl. The Yorkville is a pressure assist toilet.

There is no such thing as an inexpensive rear outlet, floor mounted bowl.
Kohler also makes a floor mount, rear outlet bowl with Flushmate.

What about dura it happy d 14023 or stark 3 012809 bothnof which appear to be floor mount rear outlet toilet.

Benjo said:

stark 3 012809

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Wow. Learn something new every day.

I still have a Philippe Starck toothbrush that they gave me when I lived in the Starck-designed Paramount Hotel in NYC for a while when it was still new. The joke was that the rooms were so small you had to step outside to change your mind. But the design was extraordinary, and he had even designed the furniture, which was so small you would expect it to be uncomfortable, but it was fabulous and very functional.

And I admit to having had more than a few beverages at Asia de Cuba in Starck-designed Morgan's Hotel. Before that I lived in Dallas for a time, and if you lived in or visited Dallas in the mid-80s, you probably at least visited Starck Club, a notorious nightclub that he designed in The Brewery, one of the original West End nightlife spots. (Starck Club was the setting for the nightclub scenes in RoboCop.)

He's well-admired by the European design community, so I guess it's no surprise that he'd be doing bathroom and kitchen items for Duravit. If the Paramount furniture was any indication, I'll bet those toilets are comfortable to sit on, but it is interesting that there isn't a peep in the Duravit literature about how well they work. I guess that isn't the marketing pitch. Ah, well, quel dommage.