Regarding the elongated vs. round issue, we were in a similar situation. My understanding is that some men/boys prefer the elongated because of the "aim" problem. In the end, we went with the round. With a small bathroom, that inch or so really matters.

As for toilet choices, there are a zillion threads on that. Do a search with kohler, toto, American standard and you should find them. People here are Toto fans!

Thanks! For lazypup, I'll have to scope out our local codes for residential, but I know there's no way we have clearance of any of those to the tub or wall, and probably not to the sink (this is a 100-year-old house with a tiny bathroom, though it's pretty typical for our city). Is that sort of thing generally grandfathered in for a replacement situation? (Seriously, to get 15" clearance from the centerline to a wall/sink/tub, we'd have to knock out that wall of our house! :) I guess we'll just skip the permit if not. I'd love a bathroom with those clearances, but not in the cards for this little house! Seems like round bowl is the way to go, though, since that will maximize what clearance we do have.

Artemis78 asks (questions answered out of order in relation to the posting): "...we have a very tight space to fit the toilet in. The current one is a round bowl that is set out from the wall, ... will still have a tight squeeze between the toilet and the nearby tub. ... So I'm thinking this means we should stick with a round bowl to save the meager inch or two that we pick up doing that ..."

Within a specific toilet model the elongated bowl version will stick out farther from the back wall than the round bowl version, but there are some brands and models of elongated bowl toilets that have shorter dimensions from the wall to the front of the bowl than the round bowl versions of other brands and models. A manufacturer's specification sheet or a tape measure taken to a showroom may help you better than general advice from this forum. Also, the base of the user's spine, or tailbone position, near the hinge of he toilet seat will be the same for the round and elongated versions of any specific toilet model, so the knees of the person who sits on the toilet will stick out the same distance whether the bowl is round or elongated.

"Wondered if anyone could share which high-efficiency toilet you chose and how you like it. Our plumber recommends the Toto Drake as a good basic model, but I want to understand what else is out there, too."

Understand that the best toilet designs in the world come from Japan. Until recently, the only Japanese designed toilets that have been readily available in North America have been the Toto line, and they are very good. In direct answer to your question, we installed a Toto Vespin II (the skirted version of the latest Toto Drake) in January of this year, and it fully satisfied our (high) expectations for it. It flushes well with minimal water use, and the flush action completes rapidly; it is also easy to keep clean.

The "other" major Japanese toilet maker (number 2 in market share in Japan and considered more innovative than Toto) is Inax, which is just making a big push into the Nortth American market. Five years from now, an inquiry such as yours undoubtedly would have a lot of responses recommending models of Inax toilets. Inaxes are as excellent as Totos, but harder to find.

Because of the way that Toto and Inax have elected to market their wares in North America, you will see neither at any big-box store. You will have to go to a specialty plumbing retailer to see a Toto or an Inax in a showroom setting. Or, you can fly to Japan, where all of the toilets in the airports, and most of the toilets in the high-end hotels, are Inax. Terry Love, who sometimes contributes to this forum, sells both Toto and Inax in the Seattle area, and also on-line.

Here is a link that might be useful: Terry Love's consumer toilet reports

Thanks---yes, I do have spec sheets for all of the Toto and Kohler toilets and have been sorting through those; don't know Inax but will check them out too. (Our neighborhood plumbing store sells both Toto and Kohler, but I don't think they carry Inax.) Mostly just curious to hear about people's personal experiences with different models. Our current toilet is 29" from the wall to the end of the seat, and it looks like---assuming we can move the pipe back (it's the main reason the toilet is getting replaced)---any of the newer toilets will be at that distance or less. The round bowl Totos seem to drop down to 26" or so, which would be great, but we'll have to go play with the actual models to see if it actually equals a difference in knee space---that's an interesting point that they may actually be the same. We don't actually need to walk past the toilet since it's up against the wall, so the space concern is really just an issue of knee space between tub and toilet. (Can't turn it as there's a window in the way, sadly!)

We are in the bay area, but down in the south bay. Our inspectors will allow us to merely replace a toilet that doesn't meet current code clearances as long as we don't move the rough in.

This was a bit of a bummer for us, since we wanted to improve the clearance (though still not meed minimum code requirements) and wanted to move from a 12 inch rough in to a 10 inch rough so we could get the Cadet 3 Round bowl, universal height which has 26 1/4" depth to the wall but requires a 10 inch rough in (so we'd have to move it). We changed the orientation of the toilet to meet code and still chose this toilet. Our choices were limited because we wanted both short distance to wall plus universal height (we didn't want to use risers). The other Toto toilets were at least 28" when you added the requirement of universal height. This American Standard is the only higher height toilet we could find with 26". And the Cadet series has a good track record and good MAP scores.

We really wanted to do a skirted toilet, but there were none that met other requirements. We did also move the water out further to the side and install at GFCI circuit down there in case we want to do a skirted later or install a washlet.

Actually, I gave the wrong link in case anyone else is looking specifically for the taller toilets. The correct model is this one