#1 problem
One night two weeks ago, I shuffled to the master bathroom for a midnight tinkle. I finished my business, flushed, and noticed that the toilet also went tinkle. It turns out that the gasket that sealed the tank to the bowl was completely dry-rotted and only had a few flushes worth of life left by the time we moved in.
I wasn’t too distressed since I already had the house’s toilets in my replacement bullseye. If there’s one piece of your home that should NOT be ye olde, it’s the toilets. The crapper in question was “vintage” (code for filthy, discolored and barely functional) and had a big ol’ badonkadonk:
Almost every plumber’s preferred toilet brand is Toto. Their toilets are purported to be extremely reliable, and the Drake model is a mainstay in plumbing circles. You might think that toilet technology would have been perfected by now, but leave it to Japanese engineers to develop a toilet that seems like it could flush a horse with only 1.28 gallons of water. Witness the Drake 2:
I prefer it to the normal Drake for its svelte tank profile and miserly water usage. It’s not a budget option at $350 with the soft-close seat, but I’m reasonably confident that I’ll never have to replace it.
Installing a toilet isn’t nearly as shitty (literally or figuratively) a job as you might expect; I finished in a couple hours. The black shims are necessary due to our old-house slanty floors. I’ve also got to cut down the bolts and install the cover caps, but otherwise the master toilet is officially back in action.
The Ordinary House 
Nicely done! Some of those old toilet are quite unique looking… Unfortunately, so are some of the parts! And the water bill – a water bill shouldn’t have that many zeroes in it…
Thanks! This was the 1948 toilet. Wait until the post about the 1918 cast iron beauty in the guest bathroom. I swear it takes the thing a full five minutes to replenish the tank after a flush!
Can’t wait!
Now, does the tank take that long to fill because it’s got one of those “quiet fill” valves, or because it’s just that big?
Any chance you still have the original toilet? That was an American Standard F4054. I need a tank and would be willing to buy. BTW I have seen that whole toilet fetch over 1 grand.
My apologies for the delay. Unfortunately I don’t have the toilet. I didn’t realize they could go for so much money.
I personally think you should have kept it because today’s toilets clog easily. And a good restore of that toilet would make it not “nasty”.
Geepers I have that exact same toilet in my master bathroom! Works great, clean, never had a problem with it but if someone wants to give me $1000 for it I will happily sell it to them!