Installation tips for the neophyte

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speedlever

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I have never installed a toilet before. But this is a job I would like to tackle myself. I have 3 old Gerber toilets that I want to replace with either a Drake or Drake II, once we decide which to use.

I have one toilet on a wood floor and the other two toilets are on vinyl flooring. I've scanned around the forum looking at the wax ring vs SaniSeal, etc. discussions, but haven't seen much recent activity discussing those options.

I recognize the pros use wax for the most part. But for someone who doesn't do this for a living and wants to take on the job himself, am I better off using one of the non-wax options? I have no idea (until I pull the old toilets) what the flange situation will be. So to minimize extra trips to the big box store, what would your suggestion be? Stick with the wax ring, but get both regular size and jumbo in case a flange is below floor level? Go with SaniSeal, Fluidmaster Better than Wax, Danco, etc?

Thanks.
 

Reach4

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In looking around, I suggest you add shims to your searches.

If you use wax, know that you compress wax. You should not de-compress wax. So for shims, with wax, you would want to have the shims in place before dropping the toilet on the wax, or have yourself in the position of pulling a shim out rather than inserting once you have smushed the wax.

The waxless products have the advantage of letting you de-compress or re-do. Wax has the advantage of being more adaptable to odd surfaces. Until you see the flange, you may not want to finalize your decision. Saniseal, for example, tells you not to use it on a flange with a top that sits higher than 3/8 inch above the floor. A closet flange sitting that high is fairly unusual. Wax can smush to zero height. I am not a plumber.
 
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Gary Swart

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A quick word or two of caution. If you use wax, as noted above, once the wax has been compressed, you absolutely can not move or remove the toilet and reuse the ring. What was not mentioned was when setting the toilet on the wax, do not use the nuts on the flange bolts to pull the toilet into the wax. Use body pressure only, and do not rock the toilet while compressing the wax. The flange bolts are to hold the toilet in position. BTW, I think you are overthinking the wax vs saniseal. The all work Saniseal has the edge on being able reuse, but other than that it's a matter of personal choice.
 

speedlever

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Thanks all. Yes, I do tend to overthink projects I've never done before. It is what it is.

I'll watch that video Terry. Thanks.

Bad timing on my part, but the doc thinks I have a degenerative torn miniscus. So my diy project may go on hold for a bit until I have knees that work. Bummer. But gives me time to meditate on my choices.

I have no problem using wax, but think the 'Better than Wax' seal looks appealing, depending on what I find once I pull each toilet. I don't have good vibes on the SaniSeal.

My wife has reconsidered on preferring round over elongated toilets. Now to decide whether or not it's worth $70-$80 each to bump up from a Drake to Drake II. We tossed the Entrada from consideration due to aesthetics. That 14 inch wide tank just seems awfully small compared to the 21 inchers we currently have. Too bad as I can get the Entrada for about $200/each.
 

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I almost never sell a round bowl anymore.

I have used the Sani-Seal and it works fine most of the time. If the flange is too high, they won't.
With wax, I can either use a single or drop a second one on top. Each install has it's own issues.
Most of the time the Sani-Seal works
Most of the time, I'm using two wax seals.

 
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speedlever

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In looking around, I suggest you add shims to your searches.

If you use wax, know that you compress wax. You should not de-compress wax. So for shims, with wax, you would want to have the shims in place before dropping the toilet on the wax, or have yourself in the position of pulling a shim out rather than inserting once you have smushed the wax.

The waxless products have the advantage of letting you de-compress or re-do. Wax has the advantage of being more adaptable to odd surfaces. Until you see the flange, you may not want to finalize your decision. Saniseal, for example, tells you not to use it on a flange with a top that sits higher than 3/8 inch above the floor. A closet flange sitting that high is fairly unusual. Wax can smush to zero height. I am not a plumber.
How do you trim those plastic shims? Box Cutter?
 

speedlever

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I almost never sell a round bowl anymore.

I have used the Sani-Seal and it works fine most of the time. If the flange is too high, they won't.
With wax, I can either use a single or drop a second one on top. Each install has it's own issues.
Most of the time the Sani-Seal works
Most of the time, I'm using two wax seals.
Terry, what's the purpose of those jumbo wax seals? Use 1 jumbo instead of 2 regular sized seals?
 

Terry

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The Jumbo is an inbetween size. Those may work too in many cases. I tend to use the two wax method, as it means I carry two types of wax, and not three on the vans.
 

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Ah, so the jumbo is in between 1 and 2 wax seals size-wise. What do you mean about carrying 2 types of wax instead of three?
 

Terry

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I carry a regular wax ring, and a wax ring with horn.
Sometimes I use the wax without the horn.
If I stack, I normally set the horn wax over a regular ring. There are times though when the horn doesn't work.

I never put a wax ring on the bowl. You will see that instruction on the box, but if the wax drops off the bowl, it can land anywhere.
I set wax on the flange, not the bowl.
 

speedlever

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Update: I installed the first Drake I yesterday on the wood floor. The other 2 Drakes are going onto vinyl flooring. I did not have to use any shims. There is a very slight forward tilt (the bubble is still inside the lines), and I didn't want to shim in the front, so I left it alone. (I didn't check the old one before I removed it).

No real installation issues other than removal of the old toilet. The nuts on the closet bolts were rusted on so badly I couldn't remove them using pliers on the bolt while turning the nut with a wrench. In the end, I had to hacksaw about halfway through the bottom of the nut to where I could knock it over/off. There was no caulk around the base of the old toilet.

I used the Fluidmaster Better than Wax ring and it seems to work fine. The flange was just below the flooring so I used the included spacer. I had a hard time keeping the included brass bolts turned to keep them oriented properly in the slot, and just gave up and let them turn how they wanted while tightening the nuts.

So far, so good with the new toilet. The fill valve makes an interesting little noise when it shuts off, but as long as the wife doesn't complain, I'm not gonna worry about it.

I christened it this morning and it flushed fine. I found that it clogged slightly with a lot of paper, but quickly cleared itself with a little extra water in the bowl. I had the plunger standing by, just in case. ;)

I would have installed another one yesterday but my trip to the store to find toilet seats turned into an extended adventure complete with my daughter calling for help with her car (dead battery), so I had to go rescue her. I'll have to work toilet installations around a new car battery sometime today. Life happens. ;)
 

SteveW

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If you are still looking for toilet seats, make sure you get a soft-close one (they come standard on Toto toilets, by the way).

Once you use these you don't want to go back.
 

speedlever

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Lol. Honestly, we rarely, if ever, close the lid of the toilet seat. I don't know why. Now the seat stays down (naturally). But the lid? Always remains in the upright and locked position.

So for now we just put the cheapest white wood seats we could find on there... until my better half decides what she really wants on there. ;)
 

speedlever

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Regarding issues I had during the R&R of the old/new toilets, the closet bolts were my biggest issue on both accounts. On the old toilets, most of them were rusted to the point I had to hacksaw at the base of the nut to get them off. One toilet had a closet bolt rusted completely through and when I removed the cap, the bolt came with it. Fortunately, I did not notice any damage to the subfloor beneath, but it had to have been getting wet for it to rust through like that. The old toilets were 17 years old, so I guess there was plenty of time.

The last old toilet I did had one nut that was lightly stuck and I used channel locks on the bolt to hold it while I got the nut started. That went fine until it hit the damaged threads... which were too close to the nut to give me any room beneath it to grab and and force the nut past the damaged threads. I had to get a cutting wheel for my Dremel and cut it off. I couldn't hacksaw it because the bolt was too loose and I couldn't tighten the nut back down because it was stuck on the damaged threads. The nut on the other side was the only one on 3 toilets that removed simply by using a wrench. ;)

On the new toilets, I could not get the wide part of the bolts to stay perpendicular to the slot in the flange. No matter what I tried, some rotated when I tightened them and were parallel to the slot in the flange. Not having any ideas, I went ahead and secured the toilets to the flange as best I could and they seemed to tighten ok, but my OCD was not happy about the wide part of the bolt head not being perpendicular to the slot.

Fortunately, I used the Fluidmaster Better than Wax rings and can reset the toilets if I need to loosen and reset those bolts so the head is square with the flange slot. But right now, I have no ideas how to make that happen. While there was a very shallow slot in the bolt head (which is also how I knew the bolt had rotated), none of my flat blade screwdrivers would fit in it to hold it while I tightened the nut.
 

Reach4

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I went ahead and secured the toilets to the flange as best I could and they seemed to tighten ok, but my OCD was not happy about the wide part of the bolt head not being perpendicular to the slot.
If you are in there again, people often recommend securing the closet bolt with a nut to the closet flange before dropping the toilet.

At this point, if you think you want to rotate the screw from above, how about putting a mark on the top of the screw so when you know the orientation. Unscrew the nut, push the closet bolt down, rotate, and tighten the nut with the screw oriented as you want.

I am not a plumber, and I have not done this.
 

speedlever

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Thanks for the suggestion. There is a mark (a very shallow slot) on the bolt that indicates orientation. However, normal screwdrivers would not fit the slot and I was unable to stop the bolt from rotating when it tightened. So I fear I would simply repeat the process by simply loosening and then re-tightening the nut.

I haven't cut them off yet so I can fit the caps, just in case I decide to try another idea to keep the orientation square to the slot. Except that I don't have any ideas yet. ;)

Edit: and for some reason, I'm not getting email notifications of replies to the threads I follow. ??
 
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