Toilet, toilet, you so scary

I was dreading this part. I’d watched a hundred videos of changing toilets on YouTube. No problem. Dead easy. Yea – in the real world. The rules according to Ugly Baby are different. This place has a snarky sense of humour – it likes to trip us on straightforward tasks. Then it points and laughs. Nope, I didn’t trust the toilet a jot. Would you?

If you, like me, had never considered how toilets get there and stay there – I direct your attention to the bolts on its side. Basically, it’s 2 bolts,  a wax ring and a matter of minutes. Not too tricky. Ohhhh, but didn’t our Granddaddy Toilet want to stay put? Nothing on YouTube mentions that, sometimes, the floor-bolts will have been cut to length and the thread truly buggered. If that’s the case, no amount of ragged spanner-twisting in the world will help you. Big fat no to bolt-cutters, too.

Lasting impression? I’ll show you lasting impression” said Granddaddy Toilet.

In the YouTube universe, it takes 3 minutes to change a toilet. It took 3 hours just to beat the bolts. Thankfully, this game of strength became a battle all Paolo’s own. For all my squeamish, skittish worrying – I had nothing to do with the toilet’s removal and exchange. Call me a peace-time observer.

Find yourself with two bad toilet bolts?

You’ll stop drinking liquids immediately and get good at Google, sharpish. Heaps of advice available, and finally a rented angle grinder did the trick. (Angle grinder vs ancient toilet bolt actually is the worst noise to ever come from a bathroom). Here’s the bull pen:

Then what happened?

Huge, unexpected benefit of  oblong vinyl tiles: the footprint of the toilet fit within just one tile, with plenty of room to spare. So we could lay a single tile, top it with a new toilet and leave the rest of the tiling for another day. If we hadn’t used vinyl – we’d have been without a toilet for far longer than 3 hours. Here’s what worked for us: (all credit to Paolo for figuring this out).

1. Old toilet comes out (“just like in the movies”);
2. {Due cleaning of floor with an entire box of TSP};
3. Quick-as-a-flash: remove wallpaper, skim coat & paint wall behind toilet;
4. Measure 1x oblong toilet-tile to go underneath and around the toilet;
5. Cut a large enough hole in the tile for the plumby-bits and wax ring to clear;
6. Install single toilet-tile in place;
7. Install new toilet on top of tile;
8. Shower & bed time.

Despite the bolt-killing delay, the whole thing was completed one night after work – with no need to cross legs and wince.

Squeamish factor?

Not as bad as predicted, but kept the extra-thick orange rubber gloves on just in case. It was only gross because the old toilet wasn’t nice.

Space gain?

The new toilet is so gleaming white and so, so sleek & small. It’s freed up close to an entire square foot more space – a lot when you’ve only got 24 of them in total.

Apartment aspect?

As for changing a toilet in an apartment? I was worried about that, too. Not such a huge deal.

1. New toilet comes out of box;
2. Old toilet removed in 2 pieces, placed in garbage bags, put into empty box;
3. Box put on dolley;
4. Dolley wheeled to waiting car;
5. Car makes speedy get-away to … Vancouver’s city dump;
6. Bowling ball sink comes along for company;
7. Entrenched reporter stays in car for safety… and, um, reporting.

Any suggestions for what to obsess about and fear now? Yesterday someone arrived at my site after Googling “if you get bit by a silverfish do you go to the hospital”… so that might be a good place to start. With half a bathroom and then just fiddly-bits left to finish: can I throw out the orange Hazmat gloves?