How to Install a Water Saving Toilet | Ask This Old House
Ask This Old House plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey replaces an old toilet with a “Water Sense” solution.
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Time: 2 hours
Cost: $250
Skill Level: Moderate
Tools List for Installing a Water Saving Toilet:
Open ended adjustable wrench
Putty knife
Mini hacksaw
Shopping List:
Dual-flush toilet
Bucket
Sponge
Gloves
Closet bolts, closet nuts, and closet washers
Wax ring
Toilet caps
Caulking
Steps:
1. Shut the water off at the toilet. The shut off valve should be to the left of the toilet.
2. Flush the toilet to drain out as much water as possible. The rest can be removed with a sponge and a bucket.
3. Break the water connection from the hose to the toilet tank. It usually can be loosened with hands alone.
4. Use the open ended adjustable wrench to loosen the closet bolts on both sides of the toilet. Remove the nut and the washer.
5. Use the grips under the toilet to carefully lift the toilet straight up off the bolts.
6. Wearing gloves, remove the wax around the flange using a putty knife.
7. Check to ensure the closet flange is intact. Replace if it is broken.
8. Assemble the new toilet using brass tank bolts and the tank to bowl gasket, both of which should be included with the toilet.
9. Attach the new toilet seat to the bowl.
10. Insert new closet bolts into the flange.
11. Add a new wax ring to the flange.
12. Carefully put the new toilet back on the flange and push to set into the wax ring.
13. Add the toilet cap base to the closet bolts on both sides.
14. Put the washer and nut back on the closet bolts. Secure them on both sides with the open-ended adjustable wrench. Take turns securing each side and do not overtighten to prevent damaging the toilet.
15. Use the mini hacksaw to carefully cut the closet bolts close to the nut.
16. Add the toilet cap to the closet bolt. It should snap right into the cap base.
17. Hand tighten the water connection back to the toilet.
18. Turn the water back on.
19. Use caulking around the bottom of the toilet.
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Homeowners have a virtual truckload of questions for us on smaller projects, and we’re ready to answer. Ask This Old House solves the steady stream of home improvement problems faced by our viewers—and we make house calls! Ask This Old House features some familiar faces from This Old House, including Kevin O’Connor, general contractor Tom Silva, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, and landscape contractor Roger Cook.
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How to Install a Water Saving Toilet | Ask This Old House
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First
So did you give her a new toilet flushing handle or just a toilet that matches the new handle?
The dislike from the water company
I love watching these type of videos thh
Save even more water by digging a hole out back
Save even more water. If it's yellow let it mellow.
I'm so glad you did this video, I'm having the same issues. I have replaced the flapper valve and seat but still getting a leaky toilet. I believe its the flush valve base to toilet still leaking by….. rather than replace just that, I'm doing what you guys are going to do and replace the toilet with a more water conservative version…… thanks for the great video, I always enjoy watching your DIY. "One video I would love to see is installing corrugated sheet metal under an existing deck" that's my next project
Plumbers are saying with the 1.6 gal flush toilets, solids are being left behind in the pipes causing clogging.
Alternate video title:
"How to install a toilet that won't flush."
Haha. I upload a video about how i install toilet few days ago too 😉 also high efficiency
How to install a waterless toilet, so you can leave skid marks in your bowl!
Richard with my bowels I need extra water, can you show us how to install an extra tank above the normal tank? Something around a 10 gallon flush. Wife's bitching at all the skid marks in my bowl now.
You should be embarrassed by having a toilet lid being so dirty ☹️
everyone always wondered about my lil hacksaw
Dual flush is good but you still need more to flush those solids all the way to the street
TOH toilet obsession again? They must have 20 videos about them now. Show some electrical work or some DIY level construction work or so.
It seems to be easier for me to put just the toilet in then put the tank in everything goes smoother for me what is your reason of doing the tank and toilet together
who carries food colouring around in the front jean pocket? I always carry it in my vest pocket
only flush on #2 unless there is an odor
Next video do a waterless toilet for saving more water
she just got rid of one of the last big flush toilets…lol
How was her coffee?
In the beginning the water level way to high and going into the overflow
When Richard said "there's a test you can do…" and reached for his pants I swear he was going to unzip his pants and start peeing in the toilet 😐
I'm shocked at how many people give negative feedback!!! Too many know-it-alls out there. TOH is a great source of knowledge for home owners. I love this show and have reaped the benefits from the ideas they pass on to the average homeowner.
kohler toilets are not Styrofoam lined .. there tanks sweat in summer … allover the floor and the dual flush assembly is very expensive to replace and takes 2 weeks to order from ONLY kohler
3:57 – Was he actually caulking anything? Looks pretty staged.
Can barely watch this without throwing up
Green is for pee, the other is for poo.
Easy does it.
I had a 1950s toilet in my house. I was amazed by the sheer volume of water that it brought down with each flush. You'd think it would never clog, but clog it did, all the time… and the volume of water would make a clog overflow and spew shitty TP all over the floor.
Now we've got one of those Asian style bidet toilet seats (attached to a regular modern toilet) and we will never go back. You are so clean afterwards and probably has a bit less environmental impact than TP. Most importantly we don't spend hundreds per year on toilet paper.
Thats why you dont use those blue pucks in your toilet they eat at the flapper seal
The information is very useful.
Would be interesting to see Richard explain and install a composting toilet.
Shout out to Crystal Geyser water at 1:30
She has never heard of water saving toilets that use 1.6 gallons or less , in the year 2018 ??
That is a great, vintage bathroom. It is a shame they replaced the matching color toilet.
Why not place a 2 litter bottle in the tank to take up space ta-da your toilet uses less water
I am so glad to see him wearing gloves now. In older episodes he would touch the sewage with bare hands!
I hate low flow toilets…
That's was a beautiful old rare classic toilet! All they ad to do was install a 1.6GPF Flapper in it!! ; (
What a serious waste of a great old toilet that still would have flushed on 1.6GPF
What I would do instead of replacing this with crappy low flow. Put new flumaster parts and ajustment the fill value for less water if I want to save water!
This is one that I don't like. That bathroom was 100% original from 1959 and has a very rare forward trap toilet that matches the other yellow fixtures. This old toilet is made by "Standard" and is actually what American Standard used to be before they changed in the 60s. It would've been better to just keep the old original toilet and rebuild the tank. And even now it would outlast the new one. The new toilet looks like crap as well.
You can also use a 32 oz cup and use it to flush into the bathroom sink. 32 oz will do the job.
"Hepatitis C? ,Never heard of her"
really put the dumb broad to work in this video at 3:45
Also means, stuck douche
This is an old American standard toilet from late 1960s
That is a horrible thing to do. That toilet used more water because it is also used for clearing the pipes. Also, that new toilet does not match at all. You are destroying history.
Keeping the old toilet is better for the environment than replacing it.
Thats a rare toilet with the trap in the front instead of the back…
I like water conservation. But not the Water$sense commodes. See this, my writeup from some while ago. https://high-efficiency-toilet.blogspot.com/
richard finally using gloves?
Hopefully she saved that old toilet so she can put it back in once she realizes how poorly the new water saver works.
That was a perfectly good toilet
How to install a water softener
Richard is the man with the plan!
Now the water bill is lower
How about a new bathroom while you are at it. Yuck.
Hope he left a couple good plungers. Low volume toilets don't work well.
A modern kitchen with a dated bathroom like that?
The Flange looks like it's seen better days and needs replacing
Really disappointed Richard didn't have a cutaway of the water jugs in his demonstration. I feel like something was lost without cutaways.
The real problem here is the way she hangs her toilet paper
Video just skips him replacing the water supply line and cleaning up the old wax.
what does not make sense it that your going to have to use even more water because your going to have to use flush the low flow toilet 15 times to flush something that the old toilet would have flushed with just one flush so the total amount of water used to flush the same amount of waste is going to end up being even more also completely ruins the awesome vintage bathroom
Why does he wear gloves? I watch a plumber on YT and he doesn't like that style toilet Rich is using. It's a Kohler and that metal plate between the tank and bowl corrodes according to him. This plumber recommends the Gerber Viper instead. And the Gerber, in addition, to not using a steel plate, has only two bolts between the tank and bowl to worry about.
Good