Why is it that in many restroom installs the toilets aren’t properly centered in the stall? The result is, you have the stall so far to one side that you are almost leaning on the stall wall while on the throne.
I’ve not worked in construction and or plumbing, so I don’t get why this is a problem.
I’m going to guess, the plumber puts in the toilets according to building code, and someone else puts in the stalls and orders the wrong size?:dubious:
My guess is that the people who put the pipes in don’t install the walls. The plumbing (particularly in larger buildings) might go in weeks or months before the walls get installed, and they may have to switch to a different model in the intervening time, so all the pipes seem to be off-center.
Maybe for people who like to ride sidesaddle?
All it takes is one person to read a blueprint wrong and for no one to catch the error.
Or the plumbing designer and the partition designer didn’t bother talking to each other.
Or an uncalibrated measuring tape.
Or a stupid mistake.
Or something else.
Take your pick.
The real botheration is why the wall-mounted TP dispensers are at knee level, so a) you can’t sit comfortably [especially in a narrow stall], and b) it’s a devil of a time getting TP out.
I’m guessing that to make one stall larger to be ADA compliant it throws off the spacing of the walls for the other ones. Or there may be other factors in play like which way the doors open and what obstructions there might be in the room.
My guess is that the partitions are an after thought.
The building is designed and framing, plumbing etc. are all planned out.
Say the plan calls for 4 toilets in a row. The plan will call for the last toilet in the line to be 2 feet from the side wall and every other toilet to be 4 feet from its neighbor (for instance).
Now when the partition crew goes to install the partitions they find that the studs in the wall in no way line up against the equidistant line between toilets. The crew has to have a solid place to anchor. So they do the best they can within the limitations of places to attach the partitions and the degree of variability designed into the partition system itself.
While we’re fixing the “centering” problem, maybe we can find a way to either have 1) larger stalls, or 2) have the doors open outward, so you don’t wind up brushing up against the toilet once inside in order to close the door.
Maybe there used to be thousands of serious injuries every year in public bathrooms from people flinging open the stall door and hitting passersby, but I kind of doubt it.
I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of new construction with this problem, but it seems fairly common in older buildings, where the toilets may have been put in in 1970, and they subsequently put in replacement partitions that are of standard sizes, as opposed to the bespoke ones that were original to the building.
So you get the situation where the toilets aren’t quite centered.
In an airport stall, I was always glad if they were not centered–it gave me a wider space on one side to set down my carryon. Maybe they were designed by somebody who had actually experienced using them, who said “Hey, let’s leave wider space on one side for people to set down whatever they might be carrying”.
It’s increasingly obvious that more and more things seem to be designed by people who have never used them, from laundromats to websites to highways
How old is the building?
Does it predate the ADA?
When I’ve seen misaligned stalls, it was because one was widened to comply with ADA and the new partition pushed the rest aside a bit.
But, for a newly-built building, somebody changed something after the plumbing system had been extracted from the design and forgot to update the plumbing schematic.
If you want “really screwed up restroom (not bathroom - no bathing facility) design” - look at all the large public buildings with exactly the same number of seats in the women’s rooms as seats + urinals in the men’s rooms.
For those who miss the obvious - it takes a woman a bit longer to use the facility than it takes a man.
It was once common for long lines to extend from the women’s room and none from the men’s.
Come to think of it, it has been in older buildings. I don’t recall anything new like a medical building having this problem.
Seems like a good carpenter would be able to fit the installs to move them and change their sizes so they are more accommodating. I find it really uncomfortable to be leaning against one side of the stall door. I guess management for the building doesn’t care because they likely have private restrooms. I’m guessing it is far more expensive to move plumbing once it is installed.
And while we’re at it… HOOKS. Nothing worse than going into a stall in winter, and having no place to hang your coat.
Nope, I’m gonna guess the opposite!
My wildass guess is some genius thought they’d save some time and install the stalls before the lavatories were installed! They thought they had the plumbing right and went ahead. But then, it turned out the plumbing wasn’t quite right, and things needed shifting. In the end, they decided as long as the lav was in the stall, no matter how poorly centered, it was Aokay!
They’re playing Head games.
panache wrote:
We’ve had at least one thread about this in the past. It’s annoyed the heck out of me for years, because in many cases the mounting screw holes are already there. It was suggested that a.) people stole them, and b.) It was seriously suggested that they were removed so that they wouldn’t be stolen.
I would bet it on retrofitting to ADA throwing things off as well. Moving the drains would be a major job. If you do any remodeling in a commercial building, you have to come up to code on ADA.
We put a restaurant in an old building and ended up with 2 bathrooms that are almost as big as the kitchen. The location of the toilet, grab bars, and even toilet paper holder were very specifically called out. The toilets are close to the wall (but not uncomfortably so) so someone can easily grab the grab bars.
This actually came in handy the time I had a terrible stomach virus. Leaning against the wall was sweet relief in between waves.
I assume in most cases toilets are off center to accommodate the toilet paper dispensers. If you have one of those big bulky jobs it’s going to be a hassle getting in and out if there isn’t some kind of compensation like the wall being further away on the dispenser side.
“Moldmonkey Restaurant” - with a name that bad, it’s gotta be good! 
Don’t remember the thread, so can’t tell if this possibility was suggested, but c) broken, removed, but not replaced. For reasons of c1) too cheap to buy replacement parts, or c2) assuming a new one would also get broken later, so just skipping it
In the case that the stalls had to be re-aligned, you can sometimes see the evidence in the mounting holes left in the floor or wall at the old spacing.