Remodeling The Bathroom

When you first decide that you’re going to remodel your bathroom, it’s usually after a period where you’ve decided that simply recovering or replacing bathroom components isn’t quite enough. When you think that it will be best to go all the way and make some major changes, you need to think about all the things that the depth of renovation entails.

You might need to remove or move a tub and even get right inside a wall. Plumbing might need to be shifted around as well. Remember that most bathroom makeovers will change the plumbing and that means that you will need to access the walls or even the wiring inside them. Relax though, because it is not as complicated or hard as it sounds.

Let’s start with one of the most common jobs that the homeowner wants to change in the bathroom and that’s usually the toilet. Don’t be too worried about this one—modern toilets are all pretty much the same and they don’t vary a great deal from model to model. They may operate a little differently but their function and process are about the same for all models. That’s a good thing if you’re thinking about changing the one you’ve got now since they won’t be all that tricky to install, just heavy.

A modern toilet has only one or two major components—a two piece toilet has the bowl and the tank and the one piece toilet combines the two into a single unit. In either one, all the flushing units are inside the tank. The toilet itself is attached the floor in the bathroom by what’s called a floor flange which is really nothing more than the mouth of the waste pipe. Generally there are two bolts that hold the toilet to the flange and with that there is usually a soft gasket to keep the connection from leaking. Other than that, there’s really only the water line that connects to the wall and just under the tank. Even this connection is simple—the more modern of them are a compression type fitting that screws on.

So, most times, the job is all about moving the old toilet out and replacing it with the new one. Of course that job becomes more complicated if you want to change the location of the toilet. To do that, you’ve got to move the drain pipe and the water source pipe. Because the drain and the flange are in the floor, you will more than likely need to remove and then replace some of the flooring as well. Remember that if the water line needs to be moved you’ll be tearing into a wall, but the experts suggest that these jobs may sound daunting but they are well within the level of the do-it-yourselfer.

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