Church 18170NISL 000 Wood Elongated Slow-Close Toilet Seat, White

I needed to replace a wood Church seat that had provided about 16 years of service, and I thought this "premium" high-end model looked like a beautiful seat with the soft close and the satin nickel hardware. Unfortunately, the new seat cracked in just a few months of use. It really needs to have a better cross-section design profile -- the wood used is not solid wood (it is manufactured from wood particles) and it is "molded" into an arched cross-section profile shape instead of a thicker, move solid oval profile shape. This seat, to be truly "premium", also really needs 4 bumpers instead of just 2. My seat cracked right where the commercial grade seats have the additional bumper. The seat is being replaced by Church (Bemis) under the one-year warranty, but I have already replaced the broken Church seat with a new commercial grade plastic Bemis seat (7800TDG000) with 4 bumpers (bought on Amazon). It feels more solid and comfortable than the far more expensive, broken "wood" seat. I weigh around 240 lb., so I really do need to lose a few pounds, but perhaps Church is not able to make a higher-quality heavy-duty premium wood seat for persons of my weight at a price consumers will pay.

I loved this when we first got it. It's comfortable, seemed substantial and sturdy (not like the flimsy plastic seat that came with the toilet), and the soft closing hinges, while bulky really work well. However, it's made out of some kind of wood composite, such as particle board--and just after the warranty period, began to develop a crack on the underside of the seat. Perhaps more bumpers could have helped distribute the load better--the material is incapable of spanning between the hinge and the bumper, and we're not enormous people. At this point, we may be able to repair it before the crack goes clear through this seat, but it's frustrating to have paid this much for a toilet seat and had it crack in a little over a year.

Toilet seats take a beating in our house. Especially in the hall bath that is shared by three of my children. The first toilet seat (installed by the builder) had plastic everything including hinges and bolts that kept breaking. My kids don't know how to gently use anything so with the constant slamming of the toilet seat/lid and the clumsily plopping of bottoms down onto the toilet seat, the plastic parts take a beating and have to be replaced... frequently. After five years or so of dealing with breaking plastic parts I decided to buy a toilet seat with a big sturdy chrome bar hinge with an item description that promised to be hearty and industrial quality. So, not only do my kids not know how to gently use anything (and believe me it is not because I have not attempted to teach them) the boys can't figure out how to get the pee actually into the toilet bowl. So in less than a year, with the constant dousing of the hinges and the undersides of the lid and seat with urine (and my constant application of cleaning products to limit my family's exposure to such a biohazard) the heavy duty chrome bar hinges became corroded, pitted, rusted, and verdisgris. Also the finish/paint (whatever it is) on the bottoms of the seat and lid became blistered and eventually began to wear off. The bolts also (even though they were metal) were constantly becoming loose and had to be tightened. And of course the little plastic "feet" on the underside of the seat eventually cracked and fell off (because, you know, when you slam little pieces of plastic between a porcelain toilet rim and an enameled ring of MDF moving at 25MPH at least ten times a day it is bound to happen). Then when we remodeled the kids' bathroom a year and a half ago I bought the Church Elongated Soft Close Toilet Seat With Nickle Hinges. It is great! Easy to install, easy to clean. Best toilet seat we've ever bought. Love the soft close feature - no more slammed toilet seats/lids. It does only have two "feet" under the seat but they are not a hard brittle plastic that is easy to break; they are almost rubbery. A year and a half with my rough gang and it is still holding up -- no corrosion on the hinges, the finish is still good, and we have not had to tighten the hinges ever since it was first installed. The hinges have an easy disconnect feature that allows you to remove the seat for cleaning. This toilet seat was a game changer for us. If it weren't so expensive I would have just replaced all the toilet seats in the house with this one. We recently bought another one when we installed a new bathroom in our basement. Eventually I plan to replace all the toilet seats in the house with this one.

We bought this seat and really liked it for the first few months. Around 6 months or so, the seat got really slow to close. By the 10th month, it wouldn’t close. It would just stay up. We called the company and the customer service was excellent. They sent us out a new seat to replace the old. The new one exhibited the exact same behavior around the same timeframe. We narrowed it down to my 5 year old son “overspraying” a bit. This was causing the hinges to corrode and freeze in place. The actual metal was corroding with visible deterioration. We ended up just going with the version with white plastic hinges. The cover isn’t quite as nice but the plastic hinges are holding up much better.

Had to install this. I was told by my plumber that the metal hinges were no longer made on wood seats. He said the wood was too heavy for the metal. What? Made absolutely no sense. Those plastic hinges are the worst! I like using the cloth covers on my tank and seat. On my older one, the lower holed portion would not stay up because of the cover on the top seat. I had to hold it up. Well, this one is designed so that that lower holed portion of the seat does stay up on its own. Now I can go to "Church", up or down, every day. He! He!

But if you've ever had a bad, plastic seat, you understand! I've always replaced plastic seats with these painted wooden ones, but generally stick to the models that are half this price. When looking around for a seat for the new toilet we bought for our master bath remod, I really wanted something with brushed nickel-look hardware and more of a modern feel. The soft-close feature didn't factor in to my decision, but man! That soft close seat is the best thing ever! No accidentally dropping the seat in the middle of the night, waking up the SO (and maybe the neighbors!)! I like this so much I'm actually contemplating biting the bullet and replacing all the seats in the house with this one.

EASY TO INSTALL . WORKS GREAT.

Exellent quality and easy to install!