Recently we looked at a folding shower and Greg a reader of the blog sent me a link to this interesting concept that could help conserve space in a tiny/small bathroom. The SinkPositive is promoted as a way to:
- Conserve Water – Fresh water for your hands, grey water for the bowl.
- Save Money – Put money in your pocket by detecting costly leaks and reducing water bills.
- Manage Small Spaces – Get more elbow room with the ultimate small space solution.
- Touch Free – Eliminates interaction with germs on faucet knobs and handles.
- Engages all Ages – Convenient and immediate visual cue inspires hand washing of even the smallest hands.
As a retrofitted sink basin, SinkPositive replaces a toilet tank’s lid to enable a touchless hand wash with clean, supply line water before redirecting the used (grey) water to the toilet bowl for the next flush.
Learn more about the SinkPositive at their website. http://sinkpositive.com
Please tell me what you think of this option for your tiny/small home.
Neat idea but you’d be cleaning mold out of the tank a lot wouldn’t you? Gray water isn’t just soap and water; it’s dirt and germs, skin cells and saliva, etc.
Also, wouldn’t you have to flush the toilet to get water to flow for brushing your teeth or washing your face? I know I don’t use a toilet tank’s worth of water for those tasks.
Clearly not a sink replacement as this is conceived, but merely a hand washing station that saves you water and costs zero additional footprint in a tiny home bathroom. It isn’t expensive, but I’ve seen DIY options with more features. For the less handy, this is pretty damn awesome.
I at the design no grey water is stored into the tank, it goes straight to the bowl. Bowl full? Than it just forces it way past the U.
Well I’m not mechanical so I can’t say I understand how it would work based on the diagram. But the wording above says “before redirecting the used (grey) water to the toilet bowl for the next flush.” I misread that as “tank”. There is a big difference between tank and bowl and that’s my mistake. 😉
This is years late on a reply, but these toilets and lids store the grey water the previous users washed their hands with in the tank. This water will be used during the next flush cycle. The only thing that happens is the water is redirected from the fill valve up through the faucet. When the the toilet is flushed the fill valve kicks on. This is when the faucet water starts. When you wash your hands it is filling up the toilet tank. When the toilet tank is full the water shuts off like any normal toilet. Now the toilet is ready to use the dirty water for the next flush. A double use of water. Use the dirty water to flush the dirty contents. two flaws – only uses the cold water supply. Hand washing is done with cold water only and you must flush the toilet to operate the sink.
Just wondering how awkward it might be for smaller people to reach the sink from the front of the toilet if it’s in a tight space where you can’t really get at it from the sides. I like the basic concept, but would still prefer a composting toilet to a water using one. You’d probably still need a regular sink in addition to this one for anything other than just washing hands after using the toilet since you’re only diverting water on it’s way to the toilet anyway and if the toilet tank was already full from that you wouldn’t want to add any other water from tooth brushing or whatever. You’d still need to make sure you have a low flow toilet too as it doesn’t reduce the amount of water needed, just lets you get a double use out of some of the water.
It’s a good idea but in most places I lived every time I reached in there to fix the toilet to get it to seal properly to limit water use the water is frigid since it uses cold water. You could hook it up to the hot water but then you have scalding water. I’m sure a way could be found to get a bearable temperature but in the end I’d just want to use a composting toilet.
You can use a mixing valve to have luke warm water or some variation. They make a valve special for toilets to mix hot and cold water so that the tanks don’t condensate, so that would make the water room temp. You should wash your hands at a comfortable temp, not too hot or cold, so that would do it.
Seems awkward to get to. You wanna stand in front of the sink, not reach for it or have to bend down. The bowl of the toilet clearly obstructs the ability easily access the toilet. The only way I can see this kinda thing working is if the sink were facing the rear of the toilet and you could approach from the rear.
A good idea. I only use cold water for hand washing anyway, and my soap is home made biodegradable. Yes, it has drawbacks, but the water saving feature is worth it, once you get the timing down for how long the water runs. As to reaching over the toilet, if you are that short, you probably will have special fixtures for your size anyway. I’m 5’5″, and can reach mine just fine.
These are on probably every residential toilet in Japan. From as long as I can remember…. at least more than 25yrs. I had one for years there and I don’t remember any problems with cleaning the reservoir or anything else. The water was pretty cold in the winter however.
I’ve used one of these before and personally don’t like it. The water is cold — downright frigid in the winter! — and, with a low-flush toilet, there’s barely enough time to wash your hands properly. Plus this wouldn’t work with a composting toilet.
If space is too tight to install a sink, make sure that the shower faucets are installed at a comfortable height so people can use those to wash their hands.
Another idea is to install a tiny sink — Ikea has some ones that are only 17 3/8″ deep — in the shower. It wouldn’t jut out enough to bother someone using the shower. When the shower isn’t in use, people can just reach over and use it.
it will not work in a composting toilet.REALLY
It’d be nice if you added to the discussion instead of making snarky remarks, Bill. This is a friendly place to chat, and there’s no call to be rude.
As it happens, many people who are interested in tiny homes also want to live off the grid and therefore wouldn’t even be using a flush toilet so this solution would not work for them.
Sorry, meant to add yet another alternative: You could install a tiny sink a foot or so above the toilet.
I think its a great idea although personally I’m looking at composting toilets for our future cottage. Hubby will need some convincing though so if it is a no-go for him, this would help make a flush toilet more efficient. Now if they could redesign the toilet with the tank/sink to the side of the bowl like that beautiful but super expensive one (I think you may have featured it last year Kent?) in a cheap version…
There is a toilet manufactured by Dux or Caroma that already does this. This is a great idea for retrofitting existing toilets though.
This type of hand rinse toilet has been S.O.P. in for Japan for 30 years that I know of.I always thought that they where a good idea.I have never seen one in the US stores like Lowes or Home Depot.Sometimes people would have a special gold fish bowel on the top of the toilet and every flush would do a slight water change in the bowel.
It looks like some thing similar that is used in prisons (at least ones that I have seen on television or in books or online).
I currently live in Japan and many of the toilets have this system, including the toilet in my apartment. It is only for hand washing, not for brushing teeth, etc. I don’t like it mostly because the water tends to splash out onto the seat and floor while I am washing my hands, but obviously many people are happy with it since it is used so prevalently here.
I don’t see any real water savings here. The faucet uses fresh water and the diagram clearly shows the drain tube going into the overflow pipe which will just drain out like a normal drain bypassing the bowl completely. I like the space saving idea. Would be easily enough to be converted to a hot and cold tap when building your home from scratch.
Ken: the water that this sink uses that normally goes into the overflow will go into the overflow anyway whether you have the sink or not. The purpose of this water is to top-off the water in your toilet bowl, which gets sucked out of the toilet by vacuum from the trap whenever you flush. So it is not adding anything to the amount of water the toilet normally uses.
This is only new to the USA, I live overseas for 3 years and this toilet sink combination was the norm for most homes and apartments. We can learn a lot by the way others live outside of the USA
I have this sink attached to a toilet in my house. My 1916 home has a retrofitted toilet in what used to be a tiny closet off the kitchen– no room for a sink otherwise, and I hated washing my “bathroom” hands in the kitchen sink, especially during meal prep time. This was a great, cheap solution.
The water drains directly into the toilet basin, and thus it does save water. (I doubt you could ever save enough on water usage, though, to pay the $110+ for the sink.) The toilet needs to be scrubbed a little more often, probably due to the soaps and etc. that come into it through the sink– but it’s not at all an unmanageable increase. It is absolutely frigid in the winter– but it takes so long to get hot water into a sink in the winter anyway that I rarely use warm water to wash my hands even in our more standard bathrooms.
I wouldn’t hesitate to use this in a tiny house setup, where space is at a premium and a little ergonomic awkwardness is easily tolerated… but I might actually look into disassembling the parts and building a basin sink setup on a slab of granite or something similar. The sink is very shallow and splashing would be a messy problem when brushing teeth, washing faces, etc.
I think the real advantage here is for the planet . We could all be a little inconvenienced on her behalf . She certainly is on ours …just sayin . 😉
This has been around for years in Japan. Seems to be the preferred toilet install over there.
Who says it MUST be on a toilet tank? could not one build a small shelf for this to sit on away from the toilet? and plumb it to the shower grey water storage tank? and tap off the shower supply water?
Just a thought. I like the “smallness” of this sink.
Seems like you really only need one sink in a tiny house, in the kitchen. After all, it’s only a few steps to wash your hands in the kitchen sink; why must one be in the bathroom?
Please tell me what you think of this option for your tiny/small home.
Nice idea, but I cannot use this sink. I “sink” outside year round here in south central sunny Arkansas.
Thanks for your input everyone! This is the solution I’ve been searching for! Old house in PA. Popular “toilet in the middle of the basement” with a home made shower. No sink! Nowhere to put a sink. Since it will be a seldom-used 2nd bathroom (once I hook everything back up and remove the spiders) this will be the perfect second bathroom. Thanks guys and girls, you are true geniuses!
A little late with a comment but I just found this blog today. This sink is amazing. To me, saving money is secondary to saving water. I let it mellow if it’s yellow but I can’t stand the smell. This is a much better alternative because even though I currently don’t flush every time, I do wash my hands every time!
In the tiny home we plan to build this would make the difference between having 1 1/2 baths to having 2 almost full baths. With the sink above the toilet that would allow a shower where the sink would have gone. Makes a whole new ball game for a small space.
Good thinking!
Hi everybody !
I found this blog while making some googling about systems mating a toilet and a washbasin.
This one seems to be interesting, but the one I am going to install is another one, it’s called “WiCi Mini” and shown on its own website http://www.wici-concept.com
Not only does is come from france (I am french :D), but it’s also available with an optional metalic mount allowing to hand the whashbasin on the wall, up to 0.6 meter away from the toilet itself… what seemed to be easier to use it !
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WOW….I love the design features on the French site! Thanks very much for the link! We’re planning a tiny bath in our converted garage. Now I have hope that it can be a little bit chic:)
The profile smart toilet from Caroma is so much better than this adjust to fit sink top. The profile smart only uses 1.28 gallons per flush. It is a dual flush toilet meaning it uses less on the half flush side. A button for # 2’s and a button for # 1’s. You choose how much water you want to waste. The sink faucet is also aerated unlike what is pictured above.
This site has alot of useful information and the ability to purchase this toilet. http://www.plumbingmall.com/profile-smart/