When you are ready to rejuvenate your bathroom, you will likely paint the walls a new color, maybe hang a new Roman shade over the window, install a new shower curtain, or upgrade to a glass shower door, and change your old toilet out for a newer design that uses less water. Changing the toilet is a simple thing to do and requires very few skills or tools.
When you shop for your new toilet, you will also need to pick up a new wax ring seal. The wax ring goes beneath the toilet to create a seal where the toilet connects to the sewer drain pipe. These seals do not come with the new toilet, but have to be purchased separately. The wax ring will be less than five dollars. Anytime you have to lift the toilet up, or you experience leaks around the toilet, you will need to change this seal.
There are water lines behind the toilet that provides the water to it. You will notice the valve handle that shuts the water flow off. Turn the valve to completely stop the water flow and flush the toilet so that as much water as possible will drain out of the tank and bowl. All of the water will not drain away so you need to have some dry absorbent towels handy to clean up the water that might escape when you lift the toilet to move it out.
On either side of the toilet, next to the floor, there are bolts that anchor the toilet to the floor. You need to loosen the nuts on these bolts so that you can lift the toilet up. The new toilet may come with new anchor bolts, and some of them do not, so do everything within your power not to break, or lose the current ones.
Once the anchor bolts are ready you can lift the toilet up and off of the anchors. Some people prefer to take the tank off of the toilet bowl before they attempt to lift the toilet out of place. Removing the tank makes the toilet less bulky and lighter.
Once the old toilet is out of the way you need to scrape away any remnants of the old wax seal. Use a dry cloth to dry the area where the new seal will be placed. Open the package of the new wax seal and push it into position on the bottom of the toilet bowl. Then carefully line the toilet bowl up over the carriage bolts sticking through the floor and place the bowl into position.
Start to tighten the carriage bolts up. You want to make them hand tight and then sit on the toilet bowl, or wiggle it so that the wax seal gets seated properly. Apply firm pressure to mash the wax seal into the proper position. Then finish tightening the bolts using a pair of pliers. If you over tighten these bolts, you will crack your toilet so be careful.
Connect the water tank to the back of the toilet and the water line to the connection. Then turn the water on and look for any leaks as the toilet tank fills. Flush to check and see if the wax seal is holding tight.
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