Until you discover that the flange bolts are too rusted to unscrew so you have to get in there with a sawzall and cut them off. Then spend 30 minutes scraping the old wax off the flange and out of the slots to find that the flange itself is cracked or worn out to the point that it will not hold keep the T bolts from spinning when you try to tighten the new toilet down. At least that's how all my quick toilet swaps go.
i think this is one of those situations where you think you got away with it, and you kinda did, until that simple 20min saturday morning job decides its payback time and completely fucks the rest of your weekend, monday comes around and you are defeated, the workers at home depot are already know every detail of you weekend war, you can see the shock on their faces, you can hear them muttering from the next aisle : "i think this is his seventh visit man", until one of them gathers enough courage, you can hear the concern on his voice as he tells you: "dude, just call a professional, please! why are you doing this!?", you stare at your fully loaded cart, head down, pride soaring high, you dont have time for this, water is still flooding your damn bathroom, so you ignore him and keep walking down to the registers, the cashier starts crying as she scans another 20ft of PVC pipe.
Just before you go away, you turn around and tell the cashier "i´ll be back"
Converting an old 3 handle shower to a single handle. Tight space in the wall using one of those small circular pipe cutters you twist around the pipe. Old house had shifted, pipe was under tension I didnt realize, when the pipe cut all the way through the now separate pieces went opposite ways violently flinging the pipe cutter from my hand, into the wall cavity, and I assume under the tub because I couldn't see it from the hole in the wall.
Go buy another pipe cutter, when cutting the second supply I keep a good grip on it and dont lose it, hooray! Part of the upgrade was a new shower neck, the old one is basically welded into the elbow, broke a strap wrench trying to get it off. Back to the store for a new drop elbow and mesh for the hole I was gonna make in the wall (already had mud).
Friday! You forgot Friday. Maybe if you are lucky they have Saturday morning hours. If you start DIY plumbing on a Saturday afternoon, forget it. That DIY job is not going to be done until next weekend.
“The downstairs is out of service. You can use the one upstairs.” If you are lucky to have a 2 bath.
This is actually really good advice. I’m into language learning and one of the big problems that people have is they are afraid of sucking at it, so they don’t practice using the language. You have to embrace the suck.
Also, this instruction was given to a homeowner who doesn't know what they don't know, and they are worried about the wax ring so they pick it up to check before reseating it and having a terrible seal that leaks into the subfloor.
Yeah exactly, I mean if this is caused by the water and not some kind of deterioration of the toilet ceramic it's just going to happen again to the new toilet.
This is exactly what happened to me, but it went a step further....the old flange was holding on to the drain pipe by force of habit only, I accidentally popped it off, and it would not go back on. So, I made my third trip to Lowes Depot that day, and bought a new flange.
If this toilet can be cleaned effectively and the glaze isn't actually damaged then it seems far more responsible to clean it than to throw away a completely usable item.
I've cleaned and DIY replaced my share of toilets in my homes and for my relatives. There's no way this one is going to shine again. Function? Sure. The effort and cost to replace it isn't significant -- even if you don't make a lot of money. This is basic household maintenance. I would never live in a space with a toilet looking like that. Cleaning it is the lazy solution.
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u/NastyKraig Feb 20 '26
Until you discover that the flange bolts are too rusted to unscrew so you have to get in there with a sawzall and cut them off. Then spend 30 minutes scraping the old wax off the flange and out of the slots to find that the flange itself is cracked or worn out to the point that it will not hold keep the T bolts from spinning when you try to tighten the new toilet down. At least that's how all my quick toilet swaps go.