Floating toilets and weight limit

[ReacherSaidNothing]

We recently moved into a new house which has a floating toilet. Not my first choice but happy to live with it for now. I have a worry which is probably me being silly but my SIL is coming to visit us soon for the first time and she is morbidly obese (unsure of her exact weight and would never dream of asking). Do you think she would be fine to sit on the toilet or would it be at risk of getting damaged in some way? I'm happy to be told I'm being paranoid, stupid or mean but would just be happy to have other people's opinions or insight on this, thanks. SIL will definitely need the toilet when she is here as she has medical issues.

Its not the dead weight that is the problem, its the sitting on it and getting off it. There can be double the weight it someone just plonks themselves down on it or pushes up on it.

I get it, but if the safe working load is 250kg, there will be a break strain well above that. Unless the person is jumping onto it from a great height, sitting down, no matter how roughly, is unlikely to exceed the break strain.

As others have said, getting up is likely to affect the things around the toilet more than the toilet itself. I have a radiator next to mine, and would be more worried about the person assisting themselves with the radiator than the toilet bowl.

Ultimately unless you know how the fixings were actually put into the wall its hard to tell how much weight it can take.

I would worry more that someone might use the sink to get up, pull the sink off the wall, fall backwards heavily onto the toilet and break that as well, falling onto the floor. Obviously that wouldn't be good at all for the person and to add to it the damage would probably lead to significant water leaks before you could turn the water off as hot and cold water could be spraying all over the place.

If you have one of these toilets you need to be confident it is mounted properly and can take any weight that will be put on it. People using any toilet need to understand what they can and can't grab hold of to get off them as a lot of wall mounted stuff is not rated to take significant force and will simply get ripped off if significant weight is put on it.

I don't think they are a good idea.

Hope you will be able to resolve this OP, but awful to read that some have their home damaged by obese visitors. It's such a difficult thing for anyone to bring up, but I would be mortified if i did this ( and yes I am classified as obese at 13 stone). I think perhaps for our collective good there does need to be more conversation about this, even doctors shy away from telling patients that their ailment is caused or exacerbated by their weight, when you'd think a GP at least would be in the position to say this. Same with the proliferation of obese people in ads now, while it's great to show that we don't all have to be stick thin, it's gone to the other extreme.

If the lady is over 30 stone and awaiting joint replacement will she be able to climb your stairs to get to the bathroom?

@Westfacing stairs shouldn't be an issue, she lives in a first floor flat so seems to manage that. There's been a bit of huffing and puffing plus sitting down for a bit to recover after climbing stairs previously but she can still manage them

I was morbidly obese for about 20 years. Now I’m a trim ‘merely obese’ size 16.

The only furniture I have ever broken was the arm of my own sofa which crunched when I elbowed it juggling a baby. It was fine. Just crunched occasionally if you put full weight on it.

You have to be really very big or very careless to be damaging furniture.

@EmmasBudgie that is not a friend I would invite round. I would go to their house or meet them out at a cafe.
Could you look out on your local Facebook reuse page or local charity furniture shops? It seems such a shame to live with a broken sofa.

I think this is the best solution, fairly cheap to do and should help support the extra weight. I’d also buy a hand rail that uses suction pads to grip the tiles to go next to the toilet to help your SIL get up.

If you are really concerned about the sink breaking if used to help your SIL stand up, then maybe tell her in advance that the fixtures are broken and you’re waiting for a plumber to re fix it!