We rarely think about such mundane fixtures in our homes such as toilets, but on occasion they remind us just how important they are — or how nasty they can be. It was such a situation that we found ourselves in this past weekend when our upstairs butt-throne decided to leak and cause it to piss down rain into our kitchen, soaking a cupboard full of dishes, a rack of spices, and leaving many copious puddles on the countertops. Luckily (if you can call it that), the water was from the tank, not the bowl, so at least it wasn’t a shower of sewage.
Nonetheless, it was incredibly unpleasant to clean up. Many brave towels gave their lives in the war. The upstairs toilet had been acting up for a long time, having a disturbing trend of sinking slowly into the floor and resembling the leaning tower of Pisa minus the gawking tourists. We knew the time was coming quickly when we would have to do something about it (or deal with shooting columns of liquipoop), but this sealed the deal — we had to do something. The house had a royal flush and we were holding a pair of nines. Time to be handy.
So, at 5:30pm on Friday night I dug into the task of removing the offending appliance and seeing what I was up against. Removing the toilet presented a huge amount of rotted floor below it, which explained the problem of the leaning latrine, but didn’t exactly help my confidence in solving the problem.
To my rescue came my father, Wayne, who graciously dropped whatever he was going to do that evening and came over with his tools to help me figure out the best way to redo the flooring since it had rotten out all around the base of the toilet. After a few hours of fiddling and fitting, we had a new floor in place. At 8:30pm we took off for Mason City and Menards and, after looking at all the options and pricing privies that were out-of-stock (grrr…), we settled on an Eljer Titan elongated. It has a 10+ rating on flushability (one-flush solves all), 1.6 gallons per flush (eco-friendly), a 16 1/8″ seat height (ADA-approved), and a 3″ flush valve so things move quickly. It was pricey, but our best option for long-term relaxing and enjoyment.
Another couple of hours and I had it installed and working by 12:45am. It’s a huge, beautiful thing compared to the old piece of junk. The flushing sequence is quick and fast — you press the lever and there’s a Whooosh–GLUGUGUG! and that’s it. Done. Everything you can think to deposit in that bowl gets whisked away to the great sewer in the sky in about a second. It is very impressive, and I don’t get a kick out of a bog very often.
Below you can see the pictures of our adventure. And yes, I really did throw the old toilet out of the 2nd-story window. It was damned fun and highly recommended entertainment.
-
- Taking the Tank Off
-
- Old Tank Parts — Well Past Their Prime
-
- Tossing the Toilet Tank Out the Window
-
- The Toilet Tank in a Snowbank
-
- The Multitude of Previous Bathroom Colors
-
- Unbolting the Toilet Base
-
- Removing the Toilet Seat
-
- Draining the Base in the Bathtub
-
- Tossing the Toilet Base Out the Window
-
- The Toilet Parts in the Snowbank
-
- The Rotten Flooring under the Base
-
- Keston Helping with His Shovel
-
- Keston Watching Daddy
-
- Keston Helping with Wrenches
-
- After Digging Out the Rot
-
- Dad Opening the Hole with a Saw
-
- Exposing the Floor Joists
-
- Wayne Pralle: Circular Saw Artist Extraordinaire
-
- The Repaired Flooring
-
- New Toilet Base Installed
-
- New Toilet Tank Installed
-
- Beautiful New Toilet
(37 comments) said:
(116 comments) said:
(151 comments) said:
(56 comments) said:
(16 comments) said:
(58 comments) said:
(130 comments) said:
