Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Today's Lesson

Today's lesson is on the subject of Home Renovation, or Home Repair, whichever you find yourself doing.  When installing a toilet, you are obligated to cut off the bolts that secure the toilet to the flange.  The instructions tend to say to use a hacksaw.  If you find yourself using an angle grinder, and if you have an angle grinder or have ever wanted to have one, you will find yourself using an angle grinder for this purpose, get ready to spend some time prepping before you cut.  Like many things in life, doing this task right will take much longer than you are imagining.

There will be sparks when grinder meets bolt.  This is an incontrovertible fact yet it may be overlooked.  Do not overlook this fact. It is incontrovertible.

Cover the toilet and the nearest wall with barriers of some sort.  Painter's tape will do fine for the curvy parts.  Heavy paper or cardboard is adequate for the walls, floor, and large parts of the toilet.  Estimate where the sparks will go and cover the porcelain thoroughly.  Then measure the distance from your bolt to where the barricades end, then double the distance and cover that area.  Then increase the amount of the covered area by half again and cover that area.

Check for gaps in the covering and cover any gaps with tape.  Check again.

Carefully decide at what level the bolts need to be cut off.  Mark the bolts.  The correct place to cut will be hard to see once the grinder is running.  Mark the bolts well.  Cut off the bolts.  Use eye and ear protection.  Use exhaust fans if you are near a smoke detector.  The smell of burning metal is a by-product of grinding metal.  This fact is also incontrovertible yet sometimes overlooked.

If you have learned from this lesson, you will now spend about 15 minutes removing your mostly-tape barricade.  Your toilet will look wonderful.  Do not ask how I learned this lesson.  It Is Just Known.  Now excuse me while I spend the next hour buffing some porcelain.  That is not a euphemism.

1 comment:

  1. What a hoot!! Wish I had seen this earlier! That is an extremely accurate accounting of how to install a new toilet.

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