"Grindintosecond" (Grindintosecond)
01/07/2016 at 16:04 • Filed to: None
5
30|
"Grindintosecond" (Grindintosecond)
01/07/2016 at 16:04 • Filed to: None | 5
| 30 |
When trying to fix the downstairs toilet a year ago, I wound up replacing it. A year+ on with a new toilet and new wax ring and all of a sudden, a flush generates lots of water out from where the stool meets the floor.
“Wax ring!” I proclaim to my mother-in-law, who is embarrassed and believing that perhaps she broke our shitter. Merry Christmas.
“No problem!” I say, thinking i’ll just go use that spare wax ring in the garage, later, when I get back from work in four days.
I return four days later. Visiting family has been gone a good while now and I get to work. I turn off the water. I flush it. I throw down old towels to absorb the water from under the lip across the floor. I unbolt the sucker and set it on two things. The front lip rests on the litter box cover (so my cat can poops in his privacy) and the back lip rests on the empty econo-size tidy cat litter, uhh, box that the litter came in. For my cats poops.
I scrape off all the wax from the floor flange, as directed. I look under the toilet and ensure wax isn’t left over and it’s clean, as directed. I put the new wax ring on the toilet bottom with some force to stick it on, as directed. I place the toilet on the floor and sit on it to smoosh it down evenly, it sits flat on the floor, as directed. I bolt it all up again and turn on the water for a fresh flush.
Ejected. Water all over the place again, just like last time. “Fuck!” I loudly proclaim to my wife, working upstairs, as she’s typing away.
“What’s that dear?” I ignore her and walk out of the bathroom leaving the towels on the floor and the plastic shopping bags full of paper towels and scraped wax parts.
I sit at the computer for twelve minutes and then have to go pick up my daughter from school. Another me-day wasted. A family of four life continues with two adults and two young girls and one thank-god functional toilet.
If this was Victorian England, we could easily crap out the window onto citizens below. A regular life minor annoyance back then just like finding a hair on your slacks today. At the office, a co-worker would point that lint out and you would deal with it without thought. Instead, he would say, “Blimey Phil, a bit o shit on you lapel there.” And Phil would flick it off across the cubicle just like any fly. that’s how minor of an issue it was in good old England, where they washed the streets regularly to prevent cholera.
Nope. God invented post-Victorian society complete with machines to make daily life easier, until we have to repair said machines and throw tools out of aggravation. I wonder if God secretly enjoys us cursing things with his name. Look at what I made them do! Ha Ha!
The next day I washed and dried the towels, turned off the water and flushed the toilet, sopping up the water it spread over the floor. I unbolted that sick fucker and set it on the boxes of litter, again. I cleaned the wax off, again. I put on a new, self-contained, semi-waxless, mousetrap re-invented toilet gasket. By this time I had just pulled a left side lat muscle putting the toilet down and after bolting things together, it did the same thing again dumping water out across the floor.
I will spare you the removal. I cursed again and took a motrin and cursed while swallowing it. I discovered the distance from the actual sealing surface of the toiled underside and the floor flange is less than a half inch. 3/8’s I think. I put on a re-inforced wax ring and the toilet sits on that rocking a litle bit. I cursed the reinforced ring inside the wax. I think I don’t have time for those gimmicks. Time for a basic wax donut without any invented crap. I’ll get one later when my wife takes me for coffee and a pain-killing cranberry nut-bar. so nutty. She takes care of me.
The lesson is this. Whatever the product says, measure things out and look close. Nothing is a one-size fits all. Toilet wax rings especially. Just get a wax ring and make sure your toilet sits on the floor and not that flange.
Now, on the personal lesson learned. If you are married or in whatever domestic living arrangement instead, do things around the house that can get you minorly hurt. If it’s fixed, whatever, as long as your other half appreciates your hard work, you’ll know you picked a good one.
Tomorrow morning that toilet better work or I’m calling a plumber.
OPPOsaurus WRX
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:09 |
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this toilet would not work well for what I did to mine last night
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Grindintosecond
> OPPOsaurus WRX
01/07/2016 at 16:10 |
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I know. Clear? Did the designers even use a toilet in their life?
Party-vi
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:12 |
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Bruh. Get on my level.
wiffleballtony
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:13 |
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A clear toilet is the best and worst invention of all time.
Highlander-Datsuns are Forever
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:14 |
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At the tender age of 16 my father pulled me aside and gave me a master class in wax ring installation. It’s amazing how something so seamingly simple can be such a pain in the ass.
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wiffleballtony
> OPPOsaurus WRX
01/07/2016 at 16:14 |
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I had a bunch of pizza and *hot* wings last night, it was like a terrorist attack had happened in the bathroom stall.
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OPPOsaurus WRX
> wiffleballtony
01/07/2016 at 16:15 |
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thats kinda how I felt. i think it was the Wendy’s
Birddog
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:15 |
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#1. Screw the Wax Ring. Get some Plumber’s Putty and make your own seal.
#2 Check that the water isn’t leaking from the gasket between the tank and bowl.
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wiffleballtony
> OPPOsaurus WRX
01/07/2016 at 16:18 |
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Did you get the chili?
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OPPOsaurus WRX
> wiffleballtony
01/07/2016 at 16:19 |
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nope, a burger, a chicken sandwich, a fry and a soda
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wiffleballtony
> OPPOsaurus WRX
01/07/2016 at 16:20 |
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Hmmm doesn’t seem like much to provide any serious intestinal gymnastics.
Quadradeuce
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:20 |
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Nothing is worse than trying to fix a simple problem that seems to have no apparent fault.
I replaced the brake pads on my wife’s car the other week. Really simple job. After about a week they start grinding. WTF. So I assume that my lazy decision to not grease the guides bit me in the ass and now the pads aren’t disengaging. So I take them ALL apart and grease them. No dice. Then I decide that my cheap decision to not relace the rotors bit me in the ass, so I take them ALL apart again and replace the rotors. NO DICE.
So after a long cold night wrenching on this thing in the garage I decide to take it in to work so I have proper lighting and a forklift to use as lift and I am dead set on getting to the bottom of this thing. I take it all apart and re-assemble it about 6 times, all with the same grinding issue before I throw up my hands and head into the workshop of the tenant who rents the front of my building. Just so happens he’s a diesel mechanic who works on semis. He comes in, has me take it all apart, then glibbly points out that I have a bad bearing.
An hour later (and $250) I had a new hub/bearing assembly installed (and CV axle for good measure) and all was well. I wanted the world to burn, though.
Lossy
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:21 |
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This is one of the least enjoyable activities in home repair. Cheap and simple, but so frustrating. I had to do this after the previous owner had just stacked up seals with the flanges over 30 years. Then re-engineer a solution to make up that extra 1/2” of tile space from 3 different floors being laid over each other. Sucked.
ttyymmnn
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:23 |
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Measure twice, cut once. I got a used stool from a friend who was remodeling his house, and he did the install. It flushed okay, but the room smelled horrible. I don’t think he got the pipe completely covered with the wax ring and pooh smell was leaking into the bathroom. My solution: buy two brand new, low-flow toilets and have somebody else install them. Sure, it was more expensive, but it also got the water connections up to code (my house is about 30 years old), and they flush right. I’m all in favor of doing things myself, but, as Dirty Harry said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” I certainly know mine.
HammerheadFistpunch
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:25 |
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You that stuff that our bodies produce?
Shit?
Yeah, that...lets find a way to see it more clearly.
um....
And here’s your check.
YES SIR!
Seat Safety Switch
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:26 |
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Wax rings are basically the worst thing ever. Last time I installed a toilet I tried one of those stick-on tube things that are intended to replace them.
It sure did not, and now I get to learn how to replace a ceiling.
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Grindintosecond
> Party-vi
01/07/2016 at 16:26 |
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Did you see the failures of those? If the coating gets nicked just a bit or it’s an incredibly tight smoosh, it will fracture that coating and then over time, the insides wash away and thats it. Great idea tho but my space limitation is ....a limitation.
TheLOUDMUSIC- Put it in H!
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:27 |
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This is a bad idea.
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Grindintosecond
> TheLOUDMUSIC- Put it in H!
01/07/2016 at 16:27 |
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Anything that puts your bad on display is a bad bad idea
MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> Party-vi
01/07/2016 at 16:28 |
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your level is flawed.
I rock the old school wax
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MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> ttyymmnn
01/07/2016 at 16:33 |
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yeah you were getting sewer gasses back in.
I just installed a new low-flow toilet in our main bath about a month ago, was a pain in the ass but completely doable with a new wax ring that was included in the toilet purchase.
biggest issue is getting rid of the old toilet as my town declares it as construction debris and won’t pick it up at the curb.
They’re dicks.
Transit
> Grindintosecond
01/07/2016 at 16:37 |
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At least yours was installed properly in the first place. I discovered that one of the idiots who previously owned my house had caulked the toilet to the floor. We discovered it when the slow leak failed to come out onto the bathroom floor and instead rotted out the sub-floor underneath. The toilet actually sank a little bit before the joists slowed it down.
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ttyymmnn
> MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
01/07/2016 at 16:37 |
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The first old stool I put on the street, and it disappeared. If it didn’t, I was just going to break it up and chuck it in our trash can. And the installers took both of the old stools when I had the new ones put in. Now that I’ve got new connections, I might tackle the job myself, but I hope that I won’t need new toilets for many years.
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OPPOsaurus WRX
> wiffleballtony
01/07/2016 at 16:38 |
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Yea, it was pretty unusual for me. I’ve eaten some pretty questionable stuff and not had any problems.
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Grindintosecond
> Transit
01/07/2016 at 16:40 |
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Yeah i did it right the first time and cant do it right again. I should snake the actual pipe before trying again just to make sure there isn’t a solid blockage down there forcing the issue.
crowmolly
> MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
01/07/2016 at 16:49 |
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Yeah, and sewer gas can be explosive.
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wiffleballtony
> OPPOsaurus WRX
01/07/2016 at 16:52 |
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In my area, eating at a fast food chain by the name of Filiberto’s is always a dice roll. Doubley so if you eat at one of their knock offs like Ericberto’s or Steveberto’s.
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MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> ttyymmnn
01/07/2016 at 16:55 |
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I might just put it out there with the trash next week. If they don’t take it the break up method was the next plan
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MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> crowmolly
01/07/2016 at 16:55 |
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yeah that’s not a good thing at all
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Party-vi
> Grindintosecond
01/08/2016 at 07:15 |
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Mine has not failed yet, and I tend to abuse my toilet.