In Europe, bidets are quite commonplace because they offer a convenient way of cleaning the pelvic area for a general population that isn’t as shower-obsessed as Americans. Bidets originally evolved out of Napoleon’s cavalrymen’s necessity to keep their pelvic area clean after a long day in the saddle; hence the name, which loosely translated means “little horse.” Their European origins give bidets a certain cachet, and they are certainly more accepted as a bathroom fixture in the United States than ever before; you would be hard-pressed to find a water-closet catalog without a matching line of bidets. And in a bathroom with plenty of room and a substantial fixture budget, a bidet makes what many feel is an attractive, if not exactly necessary, companion to the conventional toilet.
Bidets are usually installed side-by-side with toilets, so in most cases the bidet will be chosen at the same time and from the same manufacturer. Drain locations for bidets aren’t standardized, and they also need both a hot and a cold water supply, so the manufacturer’s literature will need to be consulted before calling a plumber to rough-in the plumbing. Valves are problematic, too; fittings from one manufacturer may not be compatible with the hole configurations on the fixtures of another manufacturer.
There are two basic types of bidets. The less expensive type is basically a low-mounted sink with a valve that sprays horizontally rather than vertically. The other type of bidet has a rim-filled flush like a toilet, a vertical spray fitting in the center of the bowl, a diverter to direct water to either the vertical spray or the rim flush, and a vacuum breaker to prevent siphoning of contaminated water back into the fresh-water supply.
Sometimes the perineal cleansing function of a bidet is desired, but there isn’t enough room in the bathroom or in the budget for an additional fixture. In that case, you might consider a unit like the IntiMist. For less than $1000, this personal-hygiene system mounts onto a toilet like a toilet seat but also offers electronically controlled self-cleaning bidet nozzles and a warm-air dryer. Personal-hygiene systems like the IntiMist are more common in Japan, but they are becoming increasingly available in the United States from manufacturers like Panasonic and Toto.