Preparing to Install a Toilet

Video Transcript

"Now we're going to go over installing the toilet. Some extra parts that we're going to be needing is a supply line, which is three-eighths compression on the lower end that hooks up to the angle valve, and then the seven-eighths nut, which will connect to the bottom of the fill valve of the toilet. The other things we're going to need is our hold-down bolt. What I like to do is take my bolt, and there's a little plastic ring that you slide down over the bolt, and then I take these little nuts, these little acorn castle nuts, and I screw it down so that the bolt is securely fastened to the floor flange ring. The reason I do that is because five years from now, when somebody needs to get in here, that bolt may come loose, and crud will gather around these threads. And you just turn it and turn it and turn it, and all you're going to do is turn that nut for that bolt. So by putting the extra nut on it and securing it to the ring, it holds it in place, so that no matter how much crud gets around this top not, you can still unscrew it and pull the toilet off. Here's the bolt that I've been talking about. And the floor flange remains loose, in case you need to turn it a little bit. But now these bolts are securely fastened to this ring, which will allow you to unscrew the next one that holds the toilet to the bolts. The next step is to take the wax ring and place it around the floor flange, like so. Now, what will happen is, when the toilet sits on this wax ring, it will squish down and it will squish out a little bit. The reason for the wax ring is so that when you flush the toilet, you don't have water coming out, around, and out onto your floor. It also helps to make the seal to keep the gases from coming up out of the sewer. The manufacturer suggests that we turn the toilet upside-down and place the wax ring on the outlet pipe or hole at the bottom of the toilet. I have just found, through my experience, it's easier to set the wax ring on the actual floor flange, and then set the toilet on top of it. Personal preference, you can do it either way. You can put it on the bottom of the toilet, or you can set it down here. Our next step will be to take the toilet, set it into place, bolt it down, and hook up the water supply."