the new toilet

The phone rang early this morning. It was the plumber, asking if we would be home today. As the broken toilet seriously adds to Mark's commute to work by forcing him to go downstairs to the other bathroom, we were excited that the plumber was going to show up about three days earlier than we had expected him to.

An hour or so later he did show up and I took him to the bathroom. He looked at the toilet and made a joke about how old it was. Then he kept looking. A frown appeared on his face. He started muttering under his breath and made a beeline for the pipe that was the water supply to the tank.

uh-oh.

His assistant, who had been lugging the new toilet parts into the house, popped into the bathroom. The plumber started discussing options with his lanky helper - it turns out that the old pipes used on our ancient toilet are a different size than what is used here in the modern age. We had two options: Mr. Plumber and his lanky assistant could rip up a bit of our floor and see if they could find out where the normal piping started and work from there, or Mr. Plumber could drive back to his shop for special tools, leaving my floor intact but also leaving the strange old piping to potentially cause future problems. Also, the clock was already ticking and contractors are expensive.

My dad, who I'm sure up to this point has been sorely disappointed that we did not either do this project ourselves or else call him to come and help us put in a new toilet, can put his mind at ease. I thought it would be a bit of a gamble trying to install a new toilet ourselves, considering that the old one was so old and weird and had so much potential for strange problems. Add that to the fact that neither of us has tried to fix something like this before, and you have a recipe for disaster. When the plumber frowned, I knew we had made the right choice.

So, we gave Mr. Plumber the go-ahead to (potentially) wreck our bathroom floor and replace the old weird piping, and crossed our fingers.

It turns out that, in addition to being friendly and enthusiastic about his job, he's also a good plumber. The pipe problem got sorted out, the floor was slightly dismantled but you'd never know by looking at it now, and the new toilet is all set up.

There's almost six inches of space between the back of the new toilet and the wall. The tank is also about three inches shorter than the old monster of a tank. Think about it: that three inches of height, added to the six inches of depth, equals a gazillion litres of difference in water usage. I'm pretty sure the new water tank could fit entirely inside the old one, and I'm glad we've upgraded to the tiny modern one. I'm excited about efficiency, y'all.

Also, the new toilet? Is antibacterial. It is the distant future!!