I bring it home take off the old seat and get ready to bolt the new one in place. Uh-Oh!! It doesn't fit!!Not so fast!
The model of commode we have is one of those low-rise, one piece, silent flush jobs that were popular in the 70's.
We go to Home Depot and pick out a nice model. A padded one, of course, for the Lady of the House. I bring it home take off the old seat and get ready to bolt the new one in place. Uh-Oh!! It doesn't fit!!
Get this! The mounting bolts on a "standard" toilet seat are spaced 5-1/2 inches apart. The holes on this "vintage" piece of hardware are spaced 7 inces apart!
So we take it back to the store and explain that NOWHERE on the box does it mention the mounting stud spacing. We finally make the return and head off down the aisle to pick out another one.\
No such luck!
Every single toilet seat in the store had the "standard" 5-1/2 inch spacing. I checked. I brought my tape measure this time to be sure! Not one 7 inch seat to be found! So, I go over and tell my story to the woman in the "Kitchen & Bath" counter. Right off the bat she says, "You must have one of those one piece, low rise models that were popular back in the 70's." "Yep!", Says I. She whips out the special order book and turns, virtually, right to the page. She points her finger down on a picture and says, "That's what you need right there!" and spins the book around for me to see. "Aah! Nice one!", I say. Molded hard wood. Ivory colored. Brass hardware. 7 inch stud spacing. That's it!
"How much?", I ask. Are you ready for this?!
$98.50
Can you friggin' believe that!? A HUNDRED dollars for a stinkin' TOILET SEAT!?
I said, "I could buy a WHOLE NEW damn commode for that much!!" PLUS I would get a toilet seat with it FOR FREE!! JEEZ!!... "Bullshit!", I say and out the door we go!
I AIN'T PAYIN' $100 FOR NO DAMN TOILET SEAT!!
So I guess it's off to the plumbing shops today in search of a seat to fit this damn commode. Wish me luck!
You don't think the Romans are to blame for loo seat fixing gauges as well as railway track gauges do you? 
I called about 1/2 dozen plumbing supply houses in town. The best price I could get... from places who even knew what I was talking about... was $71.00! At this point, I think we're going to live with it until we get to the point where we're ready to redo the bathroom. As you can tell from the pictures, the floor needs to be replaced. The thing will have to be taken off its moorings at that juncture anyway. When we get that far, we'll consider replacing the whole thing.
Anybody want to buy a slightly used commode? 
Up to 600 bucks for a crapper seat! Now, that is ridiculous! They must be industrial strength. I read about it now and then.
How about a 750,000 dollar two-hole outhouse? We had that happen here in Washington State. If Senator William Proxmire from Wisconsin was still alive, he would have issued his "Golden Fleece" award on that one....
What ever happened to the days of the 'Ole Corncob?
Well, she's got a conversation piece now!
The fill valve is corroded and doesn't completely shut off. Water flows at a trickle virtually all the time. The flush valve sometimes gets stuck. You have to jiggle the handle to get it to work right. Under NORMAL circumstances, I could go to the local home improvement store and buy a kit to replace all the working parts of a "standard" shitter. This thing?! I don't even want to GUESS what it's going to cost!
Conversation piece? I've got your conversation piece! Every time I go to the head it starts a conversation. I just can't wait until we have our first dinner party and one of the guests asks for directions to the can... "Sorry about the leewarward tilt, there. It'll cost us a hundred clams to level the perch."
Sheesh!!
Sort of the same thing happened to me. I bought the entire toilet for $15.00 & took only the parts I needed.
Apparenty, the US Government is really into the "Shitter Movement."
I think they have too much time on their hands...
Toilets in the U.S. of A. must use 1.5 gallons of water or less for a flush. Older toilets, and ones from Canada, use 3 gallons. Yes, you can get in a whole shitload (pun intended) of trouble bringing one across the border if you get caught.
There are some tricks to getting a low-flow toilet to flush properly. First is plumbing. Make sure the pipes are clear and unobstructed. Any restriction in the flow makes it harder for the water to get up enough speed to sweep the waste down the sewer. Second, make sure the vent pipes are good. As the water goes down, the air in the pipe has to go somewhere. If the vent isn't good enough, you get an airlock (a shit-lock, rather) that literally pushes the water back. Next, there is a little foam float on the flusher inside the tank. When the water gets to a certain height, the flap will close. Adjust that by moving it up or down the chain until the flap stays open for the maximum amount of time. Finally, adjust the water fill so that it goes as high as you can get it... right up to the top of the standpipe... before it overflows. Just remember that there's a "critical point" where the highest part of the water inlet must be one inch (or more) above the highest water level. If you don't keep this critical point there's a chance that the water in the tank can siphon back into the supply lines. Some fill valves have a vacuum breaker built into them to prevent this. If you don't know you have one of them, you must keep the critical point level 1 inch above the water level.
In summary, you need to fix things so that the water builds up some momentum as it goes down the hole and into the bowl so that it can swish out all the waste and then rocket right down the shit-pipe with the least amount of resistance. If you take a few minutes to doctor up your toilet you should never have to worry about having to flush twice.
I just went through all of that for the upstairs crapper. I went to replace the water valve in that one and ended up replacing the whole thing. The bolts were so corroded (50 years old) that I broke the porcelain trying to loosen them. I ended up tearing out the whole thing. There's ANOTHER story!
So I'm standing there with a wrench in one hand and a fractured piece of the toilet in the other. Water gushing all over the floor... "FUCK! Just plain FUCK!!", I grumbled.
I go outside and smoke that "cooling-off-cigarette" then come back in to take-up the old shitter. There are four bolts holding it to the floor, instead of the usual two. "Old toilets must have used four of them.", I'm thinking. The front two were actually lag bolts. The back two were half-and-half bolts. (Lags on the bottom and regular bolts on top with acorn nuts.) I get them all out and start rocking it back and forth. It's stuck down pretty good. "There's lots of caulking around the base.", I'm thinking. Finally, it breaks free.
What do I find? There are TWO wax rings, stacked one on top of the other and a shitload of caulking compound. I look down into the hole. There was no flange! Just a straight piece of cast iron pipe, sawed off flush with the floor! The two wax rings and caulking were there to seal the gap between the "horn" on the bottom of the commode and the floor!
I'm just about beside myself at this point! It's a lucky thing that the guy who works at the plumbing store was a master plumber before he got into retail. He goes over to the shelf and grabs a PVC flange that has a rubber gasket on the bottom. He said to stick it down the pipe so the gasket seals the pipe and the flange sits on the floor boards. Screw it down to the floor all around the perimeter through the six holes that are there for the purpose. The "closet bolts" go into the slots on the sides. (Turn/twist the flange to align the bolt holes before screwing it down.)
It was a shitty job :shit: (literally) but I finally got it done... BEFORE Menanie got home to see what I had done to HER bathroom! 
She though I did a good job making her powder room all nice for her! (That old crapper was looking pretty crusty! 
) I didn't tell her that I broke the old one until I knew that she was happy with the new one.
I'm sure glad there are only two bathrooms in this house!
Just don't ask me about the GARBAGE DISPOSAL!
What about that garbage disposal?
So I see you spare no expense in regards to toilet paper, why not splurge on the ass seat?
quote:
...why not splurge on the ass seat?
It's not a very well designed ass seat if you end up having to do that!
Agreed, drilling through that loo doesn't look feasible, especially as you'd have to make a watertight seal in at least one redundant hole.
Garbage disposals... Oyvey!
One of the first things I did when we moved in was to crawl around under the kitchen sink to see if everything's okay. I find that some idiot wired up the garbage disposal under the sink with a piece of 18 AWG lamp cord! That's a NO-NO!
So I hopped in the car and made off for the hardware store. I got a nice chunk of "14-3 SOW". (Waterproof, rubber-covered, 3-conductor 14 AWG cable.) I get half way through the job and I get hollered at for "tearing up HER kitchen"! I try to explain that the reason I'm doing this is because I don't want to come home one evening and find my woman laid out on the kitchen floor in cardiac arrest from electric shock. I get a begrudging acknowledgement and keep working.
Little did I know that the dishwasher was hooked to the same line as the disposal. I hooked the disposal up but, now the dishwasher doesn't work. More hollering ensues, as you can guess. Later on, I get it all working properly and give myself a well-deserved pat on the back. All the while I get these grumblings about how she couldn't work in the kitchen.
A week later, I'm sitting in the living room, watching TV and I hear this God-Awful noise coming out of the kitchen. I sprint out there to see her frozen in terror as the disposal is chewing up some foriegn object, making a hell of a racket. I reach under and shut it off. "Melanie! When the disposal makes awful noises, SHUT IT OFF!", I say.
Upon looking inside, I find a chewed up dish rag! I pulled it out and tried to get the thing going again but to no avail. If you know about the insides of disposers, there are two little "blade thingies" inside there that swing around on hinges and chop up the food. Both of them are torn partially off their hinges and are hitting the outside of the housing. As they spin around, the grind against the metal and make the worst racket you ever heard. Needless to say, the thing is toast.
I figure I'll let her stew on it for a while. A week or so without a disposer should be "punishment" enough, eh? All the while she declares that it's a "convenience" she doesn't really need.
Right on cue, I get the call... "Aren't you going to replace the disposer?!"
We go to the store and pick out a new one. I start to put it in.
Modern disposers are on "quick-lock" mounts. All you have to do is give them a 1/2 twist and they drop right out. Twist the new one on and you're in business, right?
Nope!
The old one was a Sears Kenmore brand. The new one is an In-Sink-Erator. The ring around the drain hole is stamped with the name of the company. Of course, it would be easier just to let the old mounting collar stay there. Who CARES what it says, right?! Nope! It HAS to say, "In-Sink-Erator". A 20 minute job turns into a one hour job because of the darned label... which is going to be covered up with garbage 1/2 the time anyway!
I get it all put in and working OK and guess WHO is standing there, asking if I'm done tearing up HER kitchen!?
...WOMEN!!
I edited my post to read "has to be"....
There is gotta be something on it somewhere.....JOHN!!!! HELP!!!
http://www.procomfortusa.com/seat.htm
The engineering of SoftClose incorporates TOTO's high standard of quality and consumer ease. Top tightening mounting bolts ensure easy installation. And of course, all seats are precision designed to fit regular or elongated bowls.
Ergonomic Design
The Warmlet’s unique seat design fits the contours of the human body to ensure maximum comfort and enjoyment.
These are 249 bucks....On sale for 199 bucks.
Slipping into 
mode now.
Here is an interesting toilet seat design. A lot of thought went into it, but it doesn't seem to have taken into account the "re-shaping of the buttocks so a cleaner job will be possible when the sitter takes a dump", just other points. You can read about it here. I'm not sure it's all that it's cracked up to be. (pun intended, of course)
I've actually sat on this next one at a friend's house...and hated it. Here is the link. "Comfort" was not found.
Finally here is a bizarre "ergonomic" ass seat. This link also has other odd products like a staircase that folds into a wall.
Here are some cool seat cover designs:
David, it looks like that last model just might DO that!
One thing I might pay $100.00 for is a seat that doesn't make your ass fall asleep and go numb after you've been sitting on it for more than a couple minutes!
Be careful of the bolts. They can work loose. I read about some guy in New York who had the seat "shift" while he was sitting on it, and he got his "Manliness" device smashed between the bottom of the seat and the bowl. That news even made the Seattle paper.
Who he was trying to sue, I don't know...and I don't know if he was successful. Maybe some of you New Yorkers can enlighten us about this unfortunate tragedy.
Jeeze, I'll bet that hurt...
Randy, I saw some custom toilet seats on the "Information Highway" that were advertized in price for almost 1,200 bucks! Can you believe that?
I thought the military was bad...
------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
It all started with the ROMANS!
Only this is no hoax nor urban legend. It's all documented in blocks of marble and limestone:
<<The Puzzling Channels in Ancient Latrines
Hershel Shanks
It seemed like a minor detail, but the narrow cuts on some Jerusalem stones revealed the Roman world's personal hygiene practices>>
This lavishly photographed report in Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2002 (vol 28 N05) reveals existing and reconstructed
Roman latrines (seating up to 64 in a row!) and explains in closeup
photos and diagrams the intricacies of seating, 'flushing', wiping and washing up.
Strange but true!
The pins/hinges that held the slings (I only called them "blade thingies" for lack of the correct nomenclature... thanks for the telling me the right name.) were partially rusted. One of them didn't even swivel properly in the first place. The rag, in combination with the rest of the junk that was down in there just bent them all to hell. After that, they scored a ring around the inside of the grind chamber.
It was better to just replace the thing. Besides, would YOU want to tear apart a disposer that is, God knows, HOW many years old and which is full of, God knows, WHAT kind of caked-on junk? Not ME!
Besides, I had to get on with other projects like fixing up the bathroom. THAT's a story for another day... and another thread... IF y'all want to hear it.