I don’t know for sure where the majority of viewers of this website are located but I can tell you that if you’re in the New York City area and you’ve ever tried to remove a toilet bowl, chances are the flange (toilet) bolts aren’t coming off. That’s just the way it is in the plumbing world, so what do you do when faced with having to remove a toilet and the bolts spin endlessly in either direction. Well the only good choice to is cut them off and I would caution you not to go and grab your super heavy duty electric or battery powered reciprocating saw to do it. A good old traditional hack saw will do the trick or even better a Lenox close quarter mini saw like the one I’m using in the video. If I have the room I’ll always try to saw them off between the brass nut and friction washer, but that’s not always possible because of the tight quarters in most bathrooms here in N.Y. City. Unless I’m replacing the bowl I have to be real careful about damaging the porcelain with my hacksaw.So when I don’t have the room I’ll always make a vertical cut right thru the center of the bolt thru the nut down to the friction washer.
You can use a full size hacksaw to do this, but I gotta tell you I’m partial to my mini hack saw for just about every small cutting cutting task I perform. Now in the real world the bolt won’t be in a vise and in some cases it could proceed to rotate or spin around. When this happens I’ll just grab the nut with my leather-man tool or pliers until I get my saw blade started. Once the blade starts to make it’s way down it will make it’s own path and you can release the bolt. Now that you’ve made it down to the friction washer grab a “chopping” screwdriver, place it in the cut a tap a few times with your hammer and you should be good to go.
Use some caution here, you want to attack it from the side and not hit it like a madman. Keep in mind the bowl is porcelain and it doesn’t take much to crack it. If your cut is all the way down to the friction washer you shouldn’t have any issues at all. If you have questions or didn’t understand something you can always reach me at info@bobsplumbingvideos.com. Thanks for dropping by and I’ll see you in the my video. HAPPY PLUMBING!
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