Toilet Repair - Not Yet

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, during one of his night bathroom trips, Grant stumbled. Somehow he grabbed the toilet seat. He was fine. The toilet seat was not: broken hinges. With our current supply chain still functioning, (one wonders what Our Dear Leader’s tariffs will do to that), he ordered a new one to be delivered that afternoon.

Monday morning , I had a Windermere Garden Club board meeting, followed by an afternoon appointment with Julie, the outgoing Membership chair of Bloom and Grow Garden Society, whom I am replacing next year. I had just enough time between the two to stop by the house for lunch and to ask how the seat replacement was going.

Medium. Grant was able to get one bolt unscrewed. The other was firmly in place, spinning with its anchor when he tried to remove it. He was watching videos about what to do. 

When I returned just before dinner time, many videos had been watched, much turning of the screw (bolt) had happened, no progress had been made. Why are home repairs such a pain?

Tuesday morning, I’d planned to go to the Meet and Make at Windermere Library to sit and knit with the other old ladies and 1 young woman. It’s been months since I worked on the mittens I began last fall, and I wanted to kickstart myself to get them finished. Overnight, I’d been ruminating about the dang toilet seat bolt and its spinning anchor. Granted had gotten caught up in all the videos about stripped-out heads. That wasn’t our problem.

I suggested he put some vinegar on it with the hope the acid would eat enough of the corrosion to let the bolt break free. Nope. Next suggestion: put a screwdriver in the slot and relatively gently hit it with a hammer with the same goal of breaking the corrosion. Again nope. We are getting frustrated, I can see no knitting was going to happen. I am unhappy. I agree to watch his videos which have nothing to do with our problem: the bolt head is not jimmied. Our bolt is corroded so the anchor spins rather than releasing the bolt. We must cut the bolt head off so we can remove the seat hinge. Grant finally agrees.

Unbelievably, we still have our mini-hacksaw. I’m shocked I hadn’t pitched it when we moved. And, miracles of miracles, the back half of the blade hadn’t been used. Grant turned the blade around, and we took turns sawing. Done. I lifted off the seat and whacked the anchors down into the toilet.

Now all we have to do is plop in the new anchors and bolt on the bidet plus new seat with the supplied bolts. The anchors will not fit in the holes. Nota bene: this is a Kohler one-piece toilet, and we had bought a Kohler seat with its hardware. After much ado, then texting with Patten, I folded the anchor per the kit’s instructions and forced it, using a screwdriver and a hammer. Ditto for 2nd one.

Place the bidet and new seat, insert the bolts, and attach. Except the bolts are too short to reach the threaded part of the anchor. Perhaps it is because of the bidet adding more height. NO, THEY ARE TOO SHORT TO ATTACH JUST THE SEAT. WTF? This means a trip to Ace Hardware to buy longer bolts (2 lengths, just in case). Of course they don’t have ones with the big heads we need, but we can make do with adding washers. We have now spent the entire day on this project. I eat dinner and go to my watercolor class to finish my macaw painting. Grant falls asleep.

Wednesday morning Grant optimistically inserts the longer screws we bought. They don’t grab the anchors and tighten. I try. The same results. We try the shorter of the bolts we bought. No tightening. We try the old bolts without the seat and bidet. They grab. We try new bolts. They don’t. We keep trying different combinations. Finally, I figure out that the bolts have to grab and immediately pull up the anchor to lodge against toilet bowl to keep from spinning. Our new bolts are just a little too long. Perhaps, if we lift the seat against the bolt as we screw it in, the anchor will grab. Could be, but working in the little area, leaning over the toilet, we were not able to do it. My shoulders are not happy.

We gave up. Marjorie arrived Wednesday afternoon for a visit through Friday. We carefully used our not-attached toilet seat and will start again Saturday. 

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