Have you ever noticed that whenever a white person goes to certain places overseas, they become insufferable when they return, because they can’t stop talking about their magical discovery of bidets? On a related note, I went to Singapore for work earlier this year, and now it is my turn to participate in this time-honoured tradition.
The easiest way to install a bidet in your home is to get a bidet toilet seat attachment. There are a lot of choices out there, but I went for the Tushy Ace, almost purely because their website cracks me up. They have t-shirts that read “Ask me about my butthole”, and there are so many bum jokes in their marketing that I can’t stop giggling like a 6-year-old. I do love a company that fully embraces their product in a fun way.
I’ve been using it for a bit over a month now, and here’s what the installation process was like, what’s good, what’s bad, and what else you need to know about it.
Before we get started, I need to give you a heads-up that we’re about to get to know each other very well through this story. There is no way to write about a bidet without getting a bit personal. Hopefully, we can still make eye contact after this.
Installing the Tushy Ace
Technically, installing a bidet toilet seat is quite easy, and the Tushy website is full of helpful advice on how to do this. Legally in Australia, you are not allowed to do this yourself. I don’t think anyone will come and arrest you, but choosing to install it yourself is a risk.
It was a risk I was willing to take, until the flush on the toilet in my wife’s bathroom broke and I tried to fix it. I made it worse. I asked my dad to help me fix it. We made it worse. I had a friend help me fix it again. We made it so much worse it could then only be flushed with a bucket. I then decided to quit amateur plumbing for good and called an absolutely lovely plumber named Ben.
Ben knew what he was doing, including that we needed slightly different kinds of localising attachments to what Tushy suggested. He recommended getting a non-return mini-stop in a system with two taps. This was good on two levels, one is that the non-return means that you don’t accidentally backflow poo into your drinking water (let’s not go back to cholera). The other level was that having the two stop taps means that you can turn off the water to the flush and the bidet separately in case you ever need to isolate any plumbing problems.
But, overall, it’s a pretty quick and simple thing. You screw in pipes, screw the seat to the toilet, plug the cable into a US-AU adapter, and then plug that into the wall.
One thing you will want to keep in mind is that this toilet seat is a long oval. It hangs over the edge of my toilet a bit and has me sitting further forward a lot. It’s fine, but it is interesting seeing how different U.S. toilet shapes are to Australian ones. Your toilet may vary.
Using the Tushy Ace
First, I must tell you a personal story: I grew up in what was essentially a solid concrete bunker in the mountains. The only heating we had was underfloor heating (we had tiles) that was powered by a large boiler my parents used to throw whole tree trunks and bales of newspapers into. It did not get warm. Even on the hottest summer’s day you still have to wear a jumper or two in the underground parts. The porcelain toilet seats were like torture in winter. It was like sitting on a giant ice cube. My whole life I have dreamed of having a heated toilet seat.
Friends, dreams really do come true, because this toilet seat is heated. Your temperature options range from “not heated” to “warm”, “very warm”, “perhaps this is too warm now”, and then two other higher levels of warm.
This is fairly standard for electric bidet toilet seats, but I am not exaggerating when I say that it’s the best thing ever and something I have dreamed of since I was old enough to sit on a toilet.
Operating the toilet seat is really easy, using the supplied remote. It gives you haptic feedback when you press a button, and there are lights to tell you which level of water pressure/angle/temperature you’re on (there are 5 different levels, 6 if you include cold). If you knock the remote off the holder and can’t reach it, you can also press the “Bum”, “Dry”, and “Front” buttons on the side. The side buttons don’t have any of the adjustments, but they get the job done.
If you’re worried about a kid activating the side buttons without anyone on the toilet to block the water from hitting whatever, then be assured that the toilet has a pressure sensor, and will only activate when you sit on it.
I will admit to having some reticence about using the higher levels of water pressure, because I think it’s slightly normal to be nervous about the possibility of accidentally removing a sensitive body part like graffiti in power wash simulator. While it does definitely take some getting used to, and I do strongly recommend starting on the lower settings first as you adjust, the higher settings will leave you cleaner and still fully intact.
Overall, using it is really easy, quick, and now I can never go back.
Stuff That I Wish Was Better
The Tushy Ace is undoubtedly a great bidet, it’s a long way from perfect, and there are a few serious issues.
An annoying issue is that the position of the water stream is not as customisable as some other models I’ve tried. Even at its sharpest angle, the “front” setting is most firmly targeted at my bum, and the “bum” setting at best just kinda got the edge of my crack. I’m not sure if this just means that I have unusual biology, or that the spout doesn’t really have the range, but it is a little annoying. Instead of moving the spout to clean all the relevant areas, I have to move my body. It’s a fine solution and it works, but it was a bit frustrating.
The most annoying issue is that the “dry” setting is pathetic. On some bidet toilet seats, the dry setting is like sticking your arse in a hand dryer. On the Tushy, it’s like the seat is trying to gently blow on a spoonful of soup to lightly cool it a bit. It has a slight effect, but it’s mostly just weird and still leaves you needing to use toilet paper to dry yourself, slightly defeating the purpose.
The worst part is, though, that the water temperature settings could get someone hurt. On the regular, cold water, it is like ice. Nothing will ever wake you up so much as having a blast of ice cold water shot at your bum hole at full speed. In winter, you might want to turn up the water temperature a bit, but even on level 1 I find it gets too hot. It starts cold for a second, then it the ideal warm temperature for a few seconds, and then gets uncomfortably hot, and hotter and hotter. I’m not sure if it means that I have a faulty unit, or that it’s designed for places where the weather gets below freezing often and so it takes more to heat up the water, but level one (of 5) should not be getting this hot. It’s dangerous and could hurt someone.
My solution is to use the warm water, and then turn it back down as soon as it starts getting uncomfortable, but it’s not a perfect solution.
Tushy Ace Verdict: It’s mostly good
There is a lot to love about the Tushy Ace, but it’s not the best or cheapest available (I have no tested the cheaper options, so I don’t know if they’re any good). Toto is obviously the monarch of all that is washing your bum, but that’s even more expensive.
Where Tushy shines as a brand is on the non-powered bidet attachments, which look smart and sleek. Obviously, as someone writing for a technology website, I’ve reviewed the techiest option they have (and I love it and will be using it until it breaks, years from now, and want to buy one for my wife’s bathroom soon), but if you’re after a cheaper bidet attachment without the bells and whistles, the Ace is a good option that doesn’t have any of the problems listed above.