PEP BB plumbing.sand.tiny.bolttoilet - Repair a Toilet That is not Bolted Down Well

So if I am replacing mine with a free Craig's list toilet, so new wax ring and bolting it down does it go here ? Same skills I have been dreading it but I should get it out of the front yard snd in to where guests can use it

Debi Baker wrote:So if I am replacing mine with a free Craig's list toilet, so new wax ring and bolting it down does it go here ? Same skills I have been dreading it but I should get it out of the front yard snd in to where guests can use it

If it isn't new it may need the transition piece replace between the tank and the bowl, and then you my need to put in a new flapper, and then the fill mechanism may also need to be replaced. So if it leaks between the bowl and the tank and the flapper doesn't hold back the water, and the fill tube doesn't function...you can get all these 3 things in an inexpensive kit

$20 from Lowes

Sue Reeves wrote:So if I am replacing mine with a free Craig's list toilet, so new wax ring and bolting it down does it go here ? Same skills I have been dreading it but I should get it out of the front yard snd in to where guests can use it

I think what you are describing is a straw level BB - Replace a Toilet.

I fixed a toilet that was rocking at one of the houses that I maintain today.  This one had a hold down system that I had never seen before, it uses two very heavy duty plastic blocks which have many holes in them to accept screws.  These plastic blocks are bolted to the toilet flange as the toilet itself normally would be. I had to pull the toilet to find out what the issue was.  Once I saw how this system worked, I ended up resetting the toilet in the wax ring (making sure that it was firmly seated) then slightly angling the screws down so as to pull it tight to the floor. This worked beautifully! I did reuse the wax ring because it was in really great shape, but I did roll the edges back up on top of itself to ensure a good seal.

I should point out that this system is designed to hold the bolts because these are very high-end houses and it has the added benefit of making the toilet smooth sided and thus much easier to keep clean.  

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
- repair a toilet that is not well bolted down

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must provide:
  - a before picture of the poorly bolted down toilet
See Attached
  - an in progress shot of you repairing the poorly bolted down toilet
See Attached
  - an after picture of the newly bolted down toilet
See Attached

Noticed the main bath toilet moves a bit when sat on. Time to tighten 'er down!

I found some old pics on my phone from our family vacation early December, 2021 that might be enough to qualify for this BB:

We went to visit my father-in-law in Naples, Florida for a week+, and the 2nd master bathroom toilet was rocking. I remembered that they'd previously had tile installed throughout the house, and suspected that with the likely changes in finished floor height, to contractor cut some corners, as this is a big house (5 bedroom), & my father-in-law technically lives there alone, but welcomes family visits all year round - but he never uses that bathroom toilet, so he'd never notice...

I have an intermediate Pic of the progress, and a pic of the completed job, and honestly, I don't know how I could've shown a still pic to prove it was rocking before anyway. The toilet seat was also cracked, and I didn't know anything about BBs then, so I didn't take a pic of the cracked seat, I just replaced it.

The hardest part of this repair was trying to find thinset mortar in small quantity in a primarily retirement affluent community town, where no one who lives there, does their own repair work, and the contractor and handyman workers couldn't afford to live anywhere nearby, so the local stores don't tend to stock those kinds of things.

It's customary for a tile installation (at least for commercial plumbing?) to bed the toilet in thinset mortar, to securely adjust for variances in the tile and the bottom of the toilet, but that wasn't done here. It's easy enough to do, so once I got some thinset and a replacement wax ring, I pulled it, cleaned up the bottom of the toilet and the floor, mixed up some thinset, and placed the toilet back in place. I gave it a little bit of time to start setting, and cleaned up the squeeze-out mortar.

The only reason I had taken these pics then, was to be able to joke about my "vacation photos" later.