Can You Replace A Round Toilet With An Elongated Toilet?

Toilets are indispensable bathroom fixtures that have been around for centuries. Over the many years, toilets have been used, they’ve been updated in a variety of ways. Now toilets are highly functional, long-lasting, easy to use, and reliable.

Of course, the main function of a toilet is disposing human waste, but it’s also important for a toilet to be comfortable. After all, there may be times when you need to spend more than a few minutes on the toilet, and if the seat and the toilet itself aren’t comfortable, then this will make an already uncomfortable situation even worse.

Two popular toilet styles are the round toilet and the elongated toilet. Both styles have benefits and drawbacks, but can a round toilet be replaced with an elongated toilet? This question, as well as others that relate to it, will be answered in this article.

As long as you have enough space, you can replace a round toilet with an elongated toilet. Those who can benefit from the comfort that’s associated with elongated toilets often replace their round toilets with elongated toilets, even if the round toilets are totally functional before removal. But don’t combine an elongated toilet seat with a round bowl or vice versa.

Sometimes, toilet replacement is necessary. Individuals even swap out perfectly fine toilets here and there. In such instances, it’s not that the toilet isn’t working properly, but that another option is now needed.

This is a scenario that’s often faced by the elderly. If you’ve been using a round toilet all your life, but now it’s becoming harder to sit down and get up, then it may be time to replace the round toilet with an elongated one. But is this possible?

It is possible, provided there will be enough room for the elongated toilet. An elongated toilet is—you guessed it—longer than a regular toilet, which means it’ll stick out further from the wall. For this reason, if you have a sink or another bathroom fixture immediately in front of a round toilet, you may have a problem swapping it out for an elongated one.

For most toilets, the space from the back wall to the main drain is 12 inches. In some cases, the distance can be as low as 10 inches and as high as 14. And as far as height is concerned, a toilet is usually 16 to 16 1/2 inches off the ground.

Also, it’s best for a toilet to be at least 6 inches away from any side wall, but keeping more than a foot of distance is unnecessary and likely inconvenient. If you can get the measurements down, then you shouldn’t have a problem with getting a replacement. In general, if it’s already a tight fit for the preexisting round toilet, then getting a new, elongated toilet probably isn’t going to work.

While you can put an elongated toilet seat on a round toilet, doing so is not recommended. While the toilet seat will work—in the sense that it’ll go up and down as a toilet seat is supposed to—it’ll stick out beyond the round toilet bowl, looking quite strange and visually unattractive. Also, such a configuration would not be comfortable to sit on.

If the whole point of getting an elongated toilet is to make using the toilet more comfortable, then you shouldn’t try to combine a bowl and seat that are incompatible. Either get an elongated toilet or a round one. Unfortunately, you can’t have the best of both worlds in this instance, as you’ll just be left with something undesirable.

Just like how putting an elongated toilet seat on a round toilet bowl is possible but not recommended, putting a round seat on an elongated bowl is also something that should be avoided.

In this case, however, it’s not that the seat will be sticking out, but that it would be too small. And when a toilet seat is too small, a part of the toilet rim will be exposed, and this will not only be unattractive visually but also unsanitary if the bowl is not completely clean. Moreover, because the bowl is not entirely secure, there is a chance that sitting on it may cause it to dismount or break, possibly in half.

It’s not that a round toilet is better than an elongated one or vice versa. It’s that one is preferred because it’s more comfortable, whereas the other is preferred because it doesn’t take up a lot of space.

This isn’t to say that a round toilet seat and bowl are generally uncomfortable. It’s just that some individuals, particularly the elderly and those who are living with disabilities, can’t sit down and get up as easily with round seats and bowls. For these individuals, using elongated seats and bowls is much better.