How to Install a Toilet - Do It Yourself, Home Improvement, DIY Home Repair

Items Needed

There are many items that you will need when you are installing a toilet, but the most important one from a visual point of view is the right toilet. There are some toilets that are too large for bathrooms and some toilets that are too small. You also need to consider the functional elements of the toilet including the size of the people that will be using it most often. When it comes right down to it, toilet selection is crucial. Once you have the toilet, you will also need to make sure you purchase:

1Toilet flange

2Wax bowl ring

3Caulking material (to seal it all together and piping compound for use in the procedure.)

It also helps to check in ahead of time and make sure that things like bolts and keepers come with the flange and the toilet respectively because if they do not you should make sure you purchase them.

Installation Procedure

Start by removing everything from its packaging and inspecting it to make sure that everything is present. There is nothing worse than having to stop a DIY project in the middle because the parts are not all there. Once you have the products inspected, you can set everything in place without anything attached just to make sure that it all goes together as planned. These are both preliminary steps, but they do help your confidence if you do them before actually installing anything.

The first thing you need to do in the actual installation procedure is put the flange into place or clean the wax out of the old flange if you are just replacing the toilet. This is done through the use of flange bolts to secure its position and then keepers to hold everything in place more firmly.

With that done, you should then upend the bowl and attach the wax ring to the bowl. The wax ring is one of the oldest methods of toilet installation but since it is such an effective product it has not really changed that much over the years. In addition to this wax ring, you should line the rim of your toilet base with a rubbery substance in order to prevent it from sliding on the floor (some toilet bases already come with this material, so it might not be necessary to actually do it in your case).

Once the wax ring has been properly positioned, you can place the bowl right side up on top of the flange, gently pushing down in order to get the wax ring to adhere to the flange. Push down gently until you get the unit in place and then sit on it for a few minutes just to make sure that everything has a chance to stick together. Then, you can attach the screws into the flange as needed, being very careful about your tightening procedure. Flanges are very delicate and can break if you tightening it with a lot of force. If you break the flange, you will have to redo everything from the start so make sure you follow the tightening procedure carefully.

With the bowl installed to the floor correctly, it is now time to attach the tank. The tank is usually built to be inserted directly into the bowl by being set on top of it at which point all you have to do is put the screws in and tighten them with the nuts and washers on the other end of each screw. At the end of the tightening procedure, you need to make sure that the tank is completely level. Tighten screws as needed to level it off completely, because a non-level tank can be a nightmare in the future.

Once you have installed the actual tank, the overall toilet installation procedure is complete. All you have to do now is to take the inlet area of the toilet and connect it to the water supply of your bathroom and you can actually use the toilet. However, another thing you should consider is that holding the toilet to the floor is your primary concern and for that reason adding a layer of caulk to the bottom of the toilet will allow it to stick to the ground better. The only other thing to consider here is that you should avoid caulking the rear area of the toilet because you want water to leak out the back rather than through the floor if a leak ever springs inside the toilet.

After the caulking is complete, you should be presented with a fully-installed toilet.

Comments (3)

|2008-11-10 08:32:02 Tom Ridglen - No Caulk Rear of Toilet?

I am confused by you saying to not caulk the rear of the toilet. Where would the water drain if I don't caulk?
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|2008-11-16 08:46:18 Tomas - Toilet Fit?

You didn't mention a very important part. Will the new toilet fit? So Here is that info:
Make sure that your new toilet will fit in place of the old one. Measure from the wall behind the toilet to the center of one of the closet bolts (the bolts that hold the toilet down). Do this before you remove the old toilet so you can buy your new one and have it on hand before you start. If the toilet has four closet bolts, measure to the center of one of the rear ones. Also, measure from the center of the mounting holes to the back of the new toilet you are considering. Compare these two measurements. If the base of the new toilet is shorter than the distance between the rear bolt holes and the wall, it should fit. In small bathrooms where space is tight, also measure from the sides of the flange bolts to side walls or other objects to assure side to side clearance. You don't want to find after you start that you can't wedge your new toilet into place because it is trying to occupy some o...
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|2009-09-15 16:01:35 Mike G. - Caulk in rear of toilet

You don't want to caulk the entire base of the toilet because if there is a leak, you'll want to know about it before major damage occurs. Leaving it uncaulked in the back will give you a warning.

Really, caulking the base is optional. It's really just to prevent water from an overflow from getting underneath the toilet.
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