Not so fast!

The model of commode we have is one of those low-rise, one piece, silent flush jobs that were popular in the 70's.

We go to Home Depot and pick out a nice model. A padded one, of course, for the Lady of the House. I bring it home take off the old seat and get ready to bolt the new one in place. Uh-Oh!! It doesn't fit!!

Get this! The mounting bolts on a "standard" toilet seat are spaced 5-1/2 inches apart. The holes on this "vintage" piece of hardware are spaced 7 inces apart!

So we take it back to the store and explain that NOWHERE on the box does it mention the mounting stud spacing. We finally make the return and head off down the aisle to pick out another one.\

No such luck!

Every single toilet seat in the store had the "standard" 5-1/2 inch spacing. I checked. I brought my tape measure this time to be sure! Not one 7 inch seat to be found! So, I go over and tell my story to the woman in the "Kitchen & Bath" counter. Right off the bat she says, "You must have one of those one piece, low rise models that were popular back in the 70's." "Yep!", Says I. She whips out the special order book and turns, virtually, right to the page. She points her finger down on a picture and says, "That's what you need right there!" and spins the book around for me to see. "Aah! Nice one!", I say. Molded hard wood. Ivory colored. Brass hardware. 7 inch stud spacing. That's it!

"How much?", I ask. Are you ready for this?!

$98.50

Can you friggin' believe that!? A HUNDRED dollars for a stinkin' TOILET SEAT!?

I said, "I could buy a WHOLE NEW damn commode for that much!!" PLUS I would get a toilet seat with it FOR FREE!! JEEZ!!... "Bullshit!", I say and out the door we go!

I AIN'T PAYIN' $100 FOR NO DAMN TOILET SEAT!!

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• Drilling through ceramic isn't easy. It takes a special bit and lots of patience. One false move and, "Crack!" You're buying a whole toilet.
  
• Because of the design of this 'monstrosity', the water tank is literally built right in. The bolts go backwards into the tank. A hole in the wrong place could cause the tank to spring a leak... not to mention the problem with plugging the original holes.
  

I called about 1/2 dozen plumbing supply houses in town. The best price I could get... from places who even knew what I was talking about... was $71.00! At this point, I think we're going to live with it until we get to the point where we're ready to redo the bathroom. As you can tell from the pictures, the floor needs to be replaced. The thing will have to be taken off its moorings at that juncture anyway. When we get that far, we'll consider replacing the whole thing.

Up to 600 bucks for a crapper seat! Now, that is ridiculous! They must be industrial strength. I read about it now and then.

How about a 750,000 dollar two-hole outhouse? We had that happen here in Washington State. If Senator William Proxmire from Wisconsin was still alive, he would have issued his "Golden Fleece" award on that one....

Well, she's got a conversation piece now!

The fill valve is corroded and doesn't completely shut off. Water flows at a trickle virtually all the time. The flush valve sometimes gets stuck. You have to jiggle the handle to get it to work right. Under NORMAL circumstances, I could go to the local home improvement store and buy a kit to replace all the working parts of a "standard" shitter. This thing?! I don't even want to GUESS what it's going to cost!

Conversation piece? I've got your conversation piece! Every time I go to the head it starts a conversation. I just can't wait until we have our first dinner party and one of the guests asks for directions to the can... "Sorry about the leewarward tilt, there. It'll cost us a hundred clams to level the perch."

Sheesh!!

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Apparenty, the US Government is really into the "Shitter Movement."
I think they have too much time on their hands...

Toilets in the U.S. of A. must use 1.5 gallons of water or less for a flush. Older toilets, and ones from Canada, use 3 gallons. Yes, you can get in a whole shitload (pun intended) of trouble bringing one across the border if you get caught.

There are some tricks to getting a low-flow toilet to flush properly. First is plumbing. Make sure the pipes are clear and unobstructed. Any restriction in the flow makes it harder for the water to get up enough speed to sweep the waste down the sewer. Second, make sure the vent pipes are good. As the water goes down, the air in the pipe has to go somewhere. If the vent isn't good enough, you get an airlock (a shit-lock, rather) that literally pushes the water back. Next, there is a little foam float on the flusher inside the tank. When the water gets to a certain height, the flap will close. Adjust that by moving it up or down the chain until the flap stays open for the maximum amount of time. Finally, adjust the water fill so that it goes as high as you can get it... right up to the top of the standpipe... before it overflows. Just remember that there's a "critical point" where the highest part of the water inlet must be one inch (or more) above the highest water level. If you don't keep this critical point there's a chance that the water in the tank can siphon back into the supply lines. Some fill valves have a vacuum breaker built into them to prevent this. If you don't know you have one of them, you must keep the critical point level 1 inch above the water level.

In summary, you need to fix things so that the water builds up some momentum as it goes down the hole and into the bowl so that it can swish out all the waste and then rocket right down the shit-pipe with the least amount of resistance. If you take a few minutes to doctor up your toilet you should never have to worry about having to flush twice.

I just went through all of that for the upstairs crapper. I went to replace the water valve in that one and ended up replacing the whole thing. The bolts were so corroded (50 years old) that I broke the porcelain trying to loosen them. I ended up tearing out the whole thing. There's ANOTHER story!

So I'm standing there with a wrench in one hand and a fractured piece of the toilet in the other. Water gushing all over the floor... "FUCK! Just plain FUCK!!", I grumbled.

I go outside and smoke that "cooling-off-cigarette" then come back in to take-up the old shitter. There are four bolts holding it to the floor, instead of the usual two. "Old toilets must have used four of them.", I'm thinking. The front two were actually lag bolts. The back two were half-and-half bolts. (Lags on the bottom and regular bolts on top with acorn nuts.) I get them all out and start rocking it back and forth. It's stuck down pretty good. "There's lots of caulking around the base.", I'm thinking. Finally, it breaks free.

What do I find? There are TWO wax rings, stacked one on top of the other and a shitload of caulking compound. I look down into the hole. There was no flange! Just a straight piece of cast iron pipe, sawed off flush with the floor! The two wax rings and caulking were there to seal the gap between the "horn" on the bottom of the commode and the floor!

I'm just about beside myself at this point! It's a lucky thing that the guy who works at the plumbing store was a master plumber before he got into retail. He goes over to the shelf and grabs a PVC flange that has a rubber gasket on the bottom. He said to stick it down the pipe so the gasket seals the pipe and the flange sits on the floor boards. Screw it down to the floor all around the perimeter through the six holes that are there for the purpose. The "closet bolts" go into the slots on the sides. (Turn/twist the flange to align the bolt holes before screwing it down.)

It was a shitty job :shit: (literally) but I finally got it done... BEFORE Menanie got home to see what I had done to HER bathroom! She though I did a good job making her powder room all nice for her! (That old crapper was looking pretty crusty! ) I didn't tell her that I broke the old one until I knew that she was happy with the new one.

quote:

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...why not splurge on the ass seat?

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It's not a very well designed ass seat if you end up having to do that!

Agreed, drilling through that loo doesn't look feasible, especially as you'd have to make a watertight seal in at least one redundant hole.