Our Toilet

When we first moved into our home our toilet in the full bathroom was rocking. I told Bruce about it and he said OK. He didn't tighten it. So, I tried to play handy lady and tightened the toilet. Unfortunately, I made it too tight. It cracked the toilet bowl in the back. It wasn't leaking until a child used too much toilet paper and we had to plunge it then it started leaking out the back. So we had to turn off the water. This was late Saturday night. Since we don't shop on Sunday, it was Monday early when I went to Lowe's. The toilet set we had was a $114 set. We really didn't have that kind of money to put out for a new one. I noticed they had a bowl only for $25. I asked a clerk if it would fit our tank. He said 99% of the time that they fit any toilet and since the bowl was the same brand as our original. I brought it home and Bruce had the old one taken off. When we went to put the new one on we realized we needed some hardware that hadn't come with the new bowl. I went to Wal-mart. They didn't have what I needed so I went to Ace Hardware. While I was in Wal-mart Bruce called and said I needed to find some kind of waxy stuff that was surrounding the hole where the toilet sits. When I was at Ace they showed me a set of the wax ring and hardware I needed. I took it home. We installed the new bowl. When we put our old tank on we realized quickly that we were the 1% of people that have their old tanks not match a new bowl. Our tank sat too close to the wall, we could not get the lid to go on. So, off I went again to Lowe's to get the tank that matched the bowl, $29. We installed that, but it was leaking water from where it bolted to the bowl. We bought silicone and put silicone around the bolts. That slowed the process of leaking, but didn't stop it. The next day we took the tank off again and shoved silicone with a popcicle stick into the hole and then put in the bolts. It is no longer leaking. What should have been a 1-2 hour job accumulated over a week period into several hours of work. Long story short, Bruce said, "Next time we hire someone." The joys of owning a home.