elphaba: "Plumbers are asking me if the water for the washlet is heated?"

AFAIK, all advanced toilet seats, including the Toto Washlet, warm the water for the wash function. The reservoir where the warm water is stored is fairly small (a good thing, from an energy conservation standpoint), however, and, as the warm water is used for washing, cold water from the pipe is used to replenish the tank; so if you have a parade of users, one right after another, the water may run cold by the third or fourth user, and it will take a short while for it to come back up to a more comfortable temperature.

Incidentally, the size and shape of toilet bowls, particularly among Japanese toilet makers, is pretty well standardized, and your choice of a Toto toilet does not limit your choice of advanced toilet seats to the Toto brand. An advanced toilet seat with separate wands (spray arms) for the "posterior" and "feminine" functions, each positioned to direct the spray at an optimum angle for the specific function, is superior, IMHO, to one-wand toilet seats. Toto Washlets have a single wand that has two separate nozzles, and the respective spray angles cannot be optimized for the separate functions to the extent that can be done with a two-wand system. We, too, have a Toto toilet, but the toilet seat that we selected to put on it is a two-wand "Clessence" model made by Toto's major rival in Japan, Inax.

The water in the reservoir, with the heat off, will be room temperature. 70 degrees?

Sometimes our heater is on, sometimes off. Warmer is definitely more comfortable, but unheated water isn't horrifyingly uncomfortable or anything like that. It can get your attention. But we don't find it a problem.

Thanks very much for the info to both of you! Great info!

Our model doesn't have a reservoir, it heats instantly. You can set the temperature to many levels. Before starting to spray, it purges the cold water from the line. No standby power lost to heating the reservoir, but it pulls a lot of current when the water heater is on -- in my remodel, I ran dedicated power for the Toto seats..

mongoct: "The water in the reservoir, with the heat off, will be room temperature. 70 degrees?"

Rarely. The water that emerges from our pipes here is at about 51 degrees F., compared to our room temperature of about 67 degrees F.

Our Inax Clessence has a reservoir of somewhat less than a quart capacity, which it keeps full automatically, and heats the contents to perhaps 80 degrees F. (user-adjustable), somewhat warmer than room temperature. When we visit the commode, the water in the reservoir usually is preheated to that higher temperature. The seat has a "sleep mode," in which it does not heat the water continuously if the toilet is left unused for several hours.

"mongoct: "The water in the reservoir, with the heat off, will be room temperature. 70 degrees?"

Rarely. The water that emerges from our pipes here is at about 51 degrees F., compared to our room temperature of about 67 degrees F. "

I wasn't referring to the temperature of water flowing out of the supply pipes, but instead to the temperature that the water in the bidet's reservoir would be after sitting idle for a while.

Before entering the house, water coming out of city supply pipes or out of a residential well will be earth temperature, generally in the low- to mid-50s. If you ran your bidet for several minutes, sure, the reservoir would eventually start passing 50-ish degree water through it.

But if your reservoir has a quart capacity, won't that quart of water reach room temperature after it's been sitting idle for a while? That's what I was referring to. With our bidet's water heater "off", the water in the reservoir will eventually warm to room temp.

Does the Inax really only heat to 80 degrees? We have two different "washlets" in our house. The BioBidet1000 has three water temp settings that range from the low 90s to about 104 degrees. Our Toto S300 has a slightly wider range, from around 85 to 105.

mongoct: "But if your reservoir has a quart capacity, won't that quart of water reach room temperature after it's been sitting idle for a while?"

What is possible with modern cheap integrated circuits is nothing short of amazing: truly, like magic. Inax keeps the how under tight wraps, but the hints in the owner's manual suggest that there is a chip in there that amounts to a 24-hour timer with an heuristic learning capability.

The heater element in the Inax consumes only something like 25 to 30 watts, maximum; but, when left unused for a long period, the Inax goes into "sleep" mode and uses only a couple of watts, no more than an LED television uses in "off" (standby) mode. I guess that the water in the tank then eventually equalizes to room temperature -- but we have our programmable home thermostat set to allow the temperature to drop as low as 55 degrees overnight.

But, over time, if the seat gets used every morning at, say, 8:00, it "learns" to wake up from "sleep" mode at, say, 7:30, and to heat the water in the tank to an "awake" temperature so that it will be ready at 8:00.

"Does the Inax really only heat to 80 degrees?"

Frankly, I don't know. The temperature is adjustable, and we have ours set to the lowest setting, which is pleasantly warm, but not hot. I guessed 80 degrees, but it was only a guess.

The BioBidet 1000 has the same thing, they call it an "Eco-Mode" or something like that. It "remembers" what times of the day you typically use the seat, then "sleeps" during the unused times and "powers up" all the preheat things (seat heat, water temp) so they will be ready at the times that you typically use the toilet.

I don't recall if the Toto S300 has that mode. It's in our other bathroom.

We fiddled with all the seat and water temp settings on the Toto and the BioBidet when we first got them. I agree with using the lower temps. Having it on the higher temps, that's almost a reverse thermal shock. Too warm when you sit, too warm when you wash.

It's amazing how far "toilet seats" have evolved, isn't it? lol

Any questions about Toto Washlets can be answered by the company's technical support department over the phone. Go to the totousa.com website to find the correct phone number.

Bidet toilet seats with heated seat and water must be plugged into a GFCI outlet within 2 or so feet of the toilet, our outlets are on the adjacent wall in the WC areas. As previously mentioned, some bidet seats have a tank that heats and keeps the water warm, others are "instant" and heat the water at time of use. There are many brands of bidet toilet seats. We're very happy with our Coco 6035R and I recently bought a USPA 6800 (which appears to be identical to the Coco, down to the same remote control). I wanted another Coco, but it's currently unavailable in beige.

There are a number of online sellers for bidet seats, google will help you compare brands, models, and pricing. Each manufacturer has a website and most feature videos that highlight their features. The appearance and functionality of the remote was important to me - I didn't want a button labeled "enema" - and I needed beige seats, only a few brands offer the beige color (which coordinates with Toto's Sedona Beige). I originally wanted a Toto Washlet, but found that the same features are offered by other brands at a fraction of the cost.

In short, you will need a GFCI electrical outlet for bidet seat heated water. It's simple but make sure you put in the outlet now. And, to save several hundred dollars, explore alternative brands other than the Toto Washlet.

dianne47: "There are many brands of bidet toilet seats. We're very happy with our Coco 6035R and I recently bought a USPA 6800 (which appears to be identical to the Coco, down to the same remote control)."

You are correct, of course, that there are many brands of advanced toilet seats, but the number of makers are probably a small fraction of the number of brands. As you may suspect of your respective Coco and USPA toilet seats, there is a possibility, maybe even a probability, that they both are made by the same third party and merely marketed by Coco and USPA, either of which marketers may change its subcontractor/supplier from time to time. Even for Kohler, which sells a lot of toilets in the United States, advanced toilet seats comprise only a tiny segment of sales, and although I would not be shocked if Kohler expended the cost of R&D and the commitment of valuable production lines to the manufacture of such seats, I would be mildly surprised if Kohler did not instead subcontract the R&D and production for a niche product so near to the margin of its line of business.

In Japan, where most toilet seats, both those installed in construction of new homes, apartment, and in commercial offices, hotels, and restaurants, and replacement seats for those applications, are of the "shower" or "advanced" or Washlet variety, I am aware of only three major makers of such toilet seats: Toto, Inax, and Toshiba. As here, there are many brands, of course, but, looking carefully at them, most of the off-brand seats appear to be just like models made by the major manufacturing companies, and may just be rebranded by their marketers.

There are not a lot of moving parts to break down in an advanced toilet seat as there are in, say, an automobile, but the availability of parts and the company behind the warranty might be matters for consideration when making a purchase.