Out With the Old — In With the New
February 17, 2008 – 5:25 pm
I had put up with the discomfort of a round bowl for far too long. It was time for an upgrade. Kara and I checked out the small selection of bowls at Lowe’s and decided upon the Kohler™ Cimarron™ Comfort Height™ — The Complete Solution™ — toilet.
Checking in at a whopping $265 pre-tax I was hoping it gave the current user a massage. No such luck. I chose the bowl based on two parameters: power of flush and bowl shape. The Cimarron had both a high performance flushing system and an elongated bowl. Sweet.
I’m always scared to take old things out of a house for fear of how they were installed. Luckily, removing the old toilet wasn’t very hard. The worst part was sopping up the old toilet water before removing it from its hole. After it was out I took a screw driver and dug out most of the old wax which was used to seal the gasket.
The new tank was significantly longer, which I found out after getting it upstairs. I measured the longest part of the tank to be sure it would fit. Pfwhew. Just barely! I attached the new wax upside-down cake (the wax gasket) to the underside of the bowl. One of the tips I read suggested putting drinking straws over the bolts to which the toilet attaches to make it easier to guide the bowl into place. Worked like a charm. Kara and I lowered the toilet over the bolts and pressed evenly to ensure a watertight seal from the wax gasket. Using a 1/2 in. wrench I tightened the nuts.
The next part made me so happy. Our old toilet had the tank-to-bowl bolts going from the inside of the tank through the bottom of the bowl. The Cimarron had a sweet little mounting bracket on the bottom of the tank to which the bolts fastened and then went through the bowl. Awesome!
I connected the water hose, turned it on, and voilá! The tank filled, equalized with the bowl, and whooooooooooooooooooooooosh! What a flush! I’m confident this thing could flush a bucket of golf balls like its competitor claimed to be able to do.
No leaks yet…we’ll see.
| Remove Old Toilet: | 1:30 |
| Install New Toilet: | 2:45 |
| Cleanup: | 0:30 |
| Total: | 4:45 |
Cimarron Toilet: $265
Labor: 4 hours and 45 minutes
Not Having Your Junk Hit the Front of the Bowl: Priceless
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5 Responses to “Out With the Old — In With the New”
This is a prime example of why I no longer subject anyone to any blogging efforts I might pursue.
By Jack
on Feb 17, 2008
You’re just lucky I didn’t include action shots!
By Jeremy
on Feb 17, 2008
Ha! You suck. Buying a non-name-brand toilet… what were you thinking?
It’s gonna overflow and flood your house because it’s not a Kohler™!
By Mark
on Feb 17, 2008
Must be a Mac thing. Kohler™ is trademarked on my machine.
By Jeremy
on Feb 17, 2008
haha.. you said “junk”
By evan
on Feb 19, 2008