Squat to Sitting Toilet Conversion
What the Job Involves & What It Costs (2026)

Why people convert, and why now

Squat toilets were standard in many older Malaysian terrace houses, flats and kampung homes. They are hygienic and easy to clean, but they become a problem as the household changes: parents who find squatting hard on the knees, someone recovering from surgery, a new tenant who expects a sitting toilet, or a buyer who sees the squat pan as the first thing to renovate.

The timing matters. If the bathroom already needs re-tiling or its waterproofing is failing, converting at the same time avoids paying for two rounds of hacking. If the rest of the bathroom is sound, a careful conversion can be limited to the toilet area, though the new floor tiles then have to match or complement the old.

What the conversion actually involves

1. Protection and isolation. Water supply off, the room protected, a plan for where debris goes.
2. Hacking out the squat pan. The pan is usually set in concrete, often on a raised step or in a sunken recess. It has to be broken out without damaging the soil pipe below.
3. Dealing with the step or recess. A raised step is hacked down; a sunken recess is filled and screeded so the floor becomes one level with the correct fall to the floor trap.
4. Drain connection. The new WC is connected to the existing soil pipe with the right fitting, which is where the outlet position matters most (see the next section).
5. Water supply for the cistern. A squat toilet often had no cistern, or one high on the wall. A new supply point and stop valve are added at the right height, plus a point for a bidet spray if wanted.
6. Waterproofing. Once the floor is opened, the membrane has to be redone and allowed to cure, with a water test before tiling.
7. Tiling and fitting. New floor tiles (and wall tiles where the old ones were disturbed), then the toilet is set, sealed and tested.

The drain position decides the budget

Our bathroom renovation cost guide is blunt about it: the toilet drain is cast into the slab at a fixed position, and relocating it requires core-drilling and is expensive, typically RM2,000 – RM5,000 extra. So the first question on any conversion is whether a sitting toilet can sit over the existing outlet.

Buy the toilet after the old pan is out and the outlet has been measured, not before.

Waterproofing is not optional

Breaking out a squat pan breaks the waterproofing around it. If the new floor is tiled straight over the screed, the leak shows up months later in the ceiling below or at the base of the wall. Treat the toilet area, and ideally the whole wet floor, as a waterproofing job: membrane, curing time and a flood test before the tiles go down. Our bathroom waterproofing cost guide explains the non-hacking and hack-and-redo options.

Condo, flat or landed house

In a landed house the main constraints are the existing drain and the floor build-up. In a condo or flat there are extra steps:

• Hacking in a strata unit normally needs management approval, a renovation deposit and set working hours; our strata renovation rules guide covers what to ask.
• The soil pipe below your floor may run into a shared stack, so any work near it must be careful and clean.
• Noise from hacking affects neighbours, so plan the noisy days with management.

Choosing the new toilet

For most conversions a floor-standing one-piece or two-piece WC is the practical choice, because it connects to a floor outlet and needs no wall carrier. Things to decide before buying:

• The outlet type and position that suits the existing drain.
• Seat height and a firm, easy-clean seat if the toilet is mainly for an older person.
• A dual-flush cistern, which our toilet repair guide mentions as a reason people replace older WCs.
• A bidet spray point, which most Malaysian households want and which needs its own supply tee.

Component prices from our guides

No two conversions cost the same, so we do not print a single total. These are the published component prices the quote is built from (indicative Klang Valley ranges, 2026):

A conversion confined to the toilet area sits towards the lower end of these items; a conversion that becomes a full bathroom refresh sits closer to the basic bathroom tier.

Converting for an older parent

Many conversions are done for a parent moving in or getting older. If that is the reason, think about the whole route to the toilet, not only the pan: a level floor without the old step, non-slip floor tiles, a grab bar fixed into solid wall rather than tile alone, good lighting at night and a door that opens easily. It is far cheaper to add these while the floor and wall are already open than to come back later.

How ClickBina handles a conversion

A squat-to-sitting conversion is exactly the kind of small bathroom renovation ClickBina handles: we manage the hacking, plumbing, waterproofing and tiling as one job and coordinate the trades, so you are not chasing four contractors. WhatsApp us the bathroom's location (condo or landed, which floor), roughly how big it is and whether you want only the toilet area done or the whole bathroom. We reply within the hour. A site visit is RM150, waived if you go ahead, and the price we agree is a flat price with no hidden charges. See our renovation page for the wider services.

Sources & methodology

• ClickBina bathroom renovation cost, toilet repair, bathroom waterproofing cost and floor tile replacement cost guides — every price row above.
• ClickBina strata renovation rules guide — approvals for hacking in condos and flats.

How we estimated prices: every RM figure is quoted unchanged from the ClickBina guide named beside it; they are typical Klang Valley market ranges for 2026, not fixed rates. A conversion is priced after the drain position and floor are known.