As all things in our house, toilet usually doesn’t last a lifetime. It tends to break and leak after several years since its installation. The surface loses it bright spotless white color; the cracks also ruin its whole look. The flushing mechanism doesn’t work as well as it used to when it was brand new, the pipes become cluttered. Sudden water gushes and flows that are impossible to stop and that threaten to flood the entire bathroom and leak to other rooms, ruining the flooring are other signs, which let you know that it’s probably necessary to let your 10 or even 20 years old toilet go and replace it with a new one.
Besides, if you’re planning to remodel your bathroom, including laying new tile on the floor, then you’ll most likely have to take your current toilet off to carry out all the renovation. After that’s done, you may re-install your own toilet or buy a brand new one to give your bathroom a complete makeover. If you want to go eco-friendly and spend less money on your bills, then you may consider purchasing a water-conserving toilet. It may seem unbelievable, but toilets use more than one third of the total water consumption in your home. So, opting for a toilet, which has a dual flushing system and allows to choose the amount of water you flush (the corresponding button is divided into 2 parts: full flush and a half of it) is a good start of saving water and, consequently, paying less for utilities.
So, if you can’t seem to be able to clean your toilet perfectly no matter how hard you try, or if it broke down and started living its own life, pouring water everywhere or refusing to flush, or if you simply want to update it and implement conserving technologies, then don’t wait any longer and make a change!
At this point, you may look for a plumber. It’s a great choice, if you want to get the job done quickly and decently. He’ll help you choose the right toilet bowl and related items that will go perfectly with your bathroom and sewage system. And, of course, he’ll take off your old toilet bowl without any troubles or complications (like broken pipes or flooded bathroom) and install new one at no time. And, he’ll certainly have all necessary tools, so you won’t have to waste money on them. Besides, if you want to place your toilet on some new position, but not where the old one used to be, it requires the change and rerouting of pipes. So that definitely needs to be done by professional plumbers.
You may easily find a good one and hire him if you go to our site HireRush.com and look through the plumber or handymen ads. Find the one, who provides his services in your local area and at a reasonable price.
But if you still want to do it yourself and have enough time and, most importantly, physical strength for that matter (because toilet is quite heavy), then we will give you some tips on how to remove and install toilet. Then, you’ll be able to realistically assess the amount of work and complexity of the problem and figure out, if you’re able to do it on your own or if it’s better to entrust the task to professional.
The tools and supplies you might need are: toilet, of course, with all hardware, a screwdriver, old towels, magazines or newspapers to put your old toilet on and not to scratch or crack the floor, a utility knife, bathroom caulk, something to shimmer the bowl with (like stainless steel washers; pennies will do as well), wax ring, closet bolts and toilet connectors if they don’t come with the toilet, torpedo level and adjustable wrench.
How to install a new toilet. Removing and installing steps.
1. Preparations
Collect all your supplies and lay them out in the bathroom, so that if you need anything, you can easily grab it.
2. Shut off the water
Turn off the water supply and flush your old toilet for the last time (not for nostalgic reasons, of course, but to get rid of the water in tank). Remove the leftover water from the tank manually using a piece of cloth or a sponge.
3. Take off the old toilet
In order not to lift the whole toilet, remove the water tank first and then proceed to the toilet bowl part. To get rid of that piece, undo the trim caps at the bottom of the bowl along with the nuts and washers that sit on the securing bolts on both sides of your toilet.
Then, take the knife and make your way with it along the seal that fills the space between the toilet and the floor and provides extra connection and leakage protection.
After you’ve done that, you should be able to lift the bowl part freely.
4. Clean up the mess (prepare yourself, as it’s going to be nasty)
Once the old toilet is temporarily placed on old towels and is waiting to be taken away, it’s necessary to scrape off previous disgusting wax gasket and stuff a piece of cloth into the drainpipe (unless you’re willing to enjoy the smell of sewer gas while completing the rest of the tasks).
Your old toilet may have left dirty marks on the floor, so grab a bucket and cleaning supplies to remove them and prepare the surface for a brand new one.
5. Getting the flange ready
Check if there’re any damages and make sure that it’s safe and sound. Then, attach self-adjusting closet bolts to it, get rid of the cloth you stuffed the sewage pipe with and put a new wax ring onto the flange in between the bolts, securing it with the caulk. It’s much easier that placing it onto the underneath part of the toilet bowl, but you can do it either way.
6. Install the toilet bowl
Lift the bowl up above the flange and try to place it the way that the securing bolts go through the holes on both sides of the toilet. Then, finish the process by pressing toilet against the floor to ensure good connection between the bowl and wax ring. Level the toilet out using pennies or special plastic shims. When you think that it’s perfect, hide your shimmers under the bowl. Then, place a washer on each of the bolts that are sticking out of the toilet’s side holes now. Put the nuts on top of the washers and tighten them really good. Cover the securing part with the trim caps.
7. Water tank
Put the bolts and apply seal where necessary and assemble the toilet by connecting tank and bowl. The procedure is similar to the previous one: lift the tank and make sure that the installed bolts go through the holes on the bowls’ top. Secure the bolts with nuts and check if the tank sits tight and sturdy on the bowl.
It fact, you could do this step before attaching toilet bowl to the floor, but it would be too difficult for you to install the whole toilet as those two pieces are quite heavy on their own, not mentioning their joint weight.
8. Finish line
Once you’ve managed to assemble the toilet, attach a seat part to it together with a lid. Connect your toilet and water supply system and make the water tank fill up. Open the top of the tank and adjust water filling levels.
Check for any leakage.
9. The very last step
Cover the line between the toilet base and floor with caulk, even it out with fingers and let it dry. You may skip this step (some people say that caulk doesn’t allow to notice leakage early enough), but I think that it gives toilet finished and neat look.
