2 Min Fix: Tighten a Toilet to the Floor!

December 28, 2012 by

Ah, just when I thought we were done with plumbing for the year… a wild leaky toilet appears!

While cleaning the computer room’s bathroom, I noticed a thin border of water between the toilet’s base and the floor.  My first reaction, of course, was to completely flip out and assume the worst – new toilet, new floor, new bathroom?!?!?

(Yes, the toilet seat doesn’t center on the bowl.  Yes, I would love to re-do this entire bathroom.)

BUT… the solution was simple: the toilet just needed to be tightened to the floor!  A gap nearly 1/4” in height existed between potty and floor.

Let’s get this potty on the floor.  (Let the potty hit the floor… let the potty hit the floor… )

Step 1: Pop the caps off both of the bolts that hold the potty to the floor. This deserves its own step thanks to the thick seal of crusty crap holding the caps on, which I chiseled off with a screwdriver. I knew I was in trouble the second I saw this : the nut wasn’t even on the bolt anymore, it was trapped loose inside the cap.

Step 2: Put the nut on the bolt if it isn’t already, and use a wrench (or a wrench-like tool) to turn the nut clockwise, bringing it down towards the toilet. Apply this to both sides equally – do a few turns on the left, then a few on the right, then go back to the left, etc.

Step 3: Put the caps back on. In this case, the toilet is now too low for the caps and I’ll have to come back and saw the bolts to be a little shorter, but you might be luckier than I was.  Either way, this is a minor problem compared with a water leak.

Step 4: Check for leaks 24-48 hours later I like to use some TP for this step, as it’ll absorb anything it finds.

Phew, leak fixed!

Total cost: $0.
Time spent: a couple minutes
Crises averted? YES

Filed Under: Repairs Tagged With: , ,

Patching a Large Drywall Hole

February 25, 2012 by

We ordered our range hood Monday! It’ll arrive this coming Thursday, so I gotta get to work on this wall situation!

First up: wall repair and priming. I primed the wall (and the ceiling) first, and then got to work on patching the big hole over the range. The old wall mounted microwave had burninated some holes in the wall (at least, that’s what I imagine happened):

And because killing a fly with a grenade is the only way I do things, I cut around all the damage to make a big empty box and reveal two studs onto which I would later mount a new chunk of drywall.

 

This was easy to repair – all I had to do was cut a rectangle of new dry wall to match the size of the hole and nail it to the studs. Screws didn’t work (pardon the large hole above the nail, lol). I then applied some crazy wall repair mesh tape to cover where the edges meet, and then slathered on a load of spackle.

 

Walls and ceiling freshly primed, rectangular hole repaired and drying!

(No, the kitchen was not magically this clean when I finished. This is after about an hour of cleaning up the mess that painting and drywall repair made. :P)

And in other news, we’ve evacuated the dining room furniture into the living room, which is surprisingly cozy!

This was done in preparation for removing the old carpet from the dining room platform. Everything we do or remove before our contractor starts work on our kitchen sometime in April saves us $$, so we do as much as we can ourselves! Besides, demolition is fun! :)

Filed Under: Repairs Tagged With: ,