Toilet Installation Philippines Style

 

One of our bathroom toilets recently required replacement. The water tank had split from top to bottom. That particular bathroom gets very hot during the day and the heat soaks into everything, including the toilet. I had filled the outside well water tank that evening after sundown, so the water was already relatively cool. It was only a few minutes after I flushed the toilet that we heard a loud crack. I rushed into the bathroom to see what had happened and there was water all over the floor. The temp difference between the water tank and the well water could not have been more than 30 degrees or so, but that was enough. Ten years of that minute stress had added up and had finally broken the camel's back.

The new toilet we purchased cost 5,000PHP at a local hardware store and we were very lucky to get it with depleted stocks due to quarantines and shutdowns.

I had no idea what I would find when I pulled up the old unit so I went ahead and purchased an ABS flange just in case:

ABS flange

If you look on either side of the base of your toilet you will notice two bolts. Likely all that is holding those bolts (and your toilet) in place is the flimsy plastic flange as shown above.

When our house was built the installers did not use flanges. Instead, they cemented the toilets in place. Due to this I ended up using a rubber mallet to break up the base of the toilet, as it was locked tight to the cement.

Once I was able to remove the old unit I found that the flange did not fit the pipe, so I decided to reinstall the toilet just as had been done before.

First, I set the toilet in place and traced around it with pencil (as a guide for the new cement).

Then I laid the unit on its side and installed the wax ring.

wax ring with flange

Next, I had my wife apply the cement to the floor, because she is better with cement than I am:

I then set the unit upright over the cement and pressed it into place:

completed install

I slapped on a new flex hose and my wife grouted the base. I used teflon tape on the connection threads. Using the tape is best for the connection to the toilet because those threads are plastic. Pipe dope would form a permanent seal that might make it impossible to remove the flex hose without damaging the plastic toilet intake. Silicone is bad for threaded connections because it creates a lot of debris that clogs up the system.

All-in-all this install took about two hours and cost just a little more than 5,000PHP (~$100).