Best Of

1. Heavy drop cloth or moving blanket
2. Empty tank and bowl
3. Slice old nuts off closet bolts
4. Pull Bowl & take outside.
5. Clean underneath
6. Check flange for breaks, holes
7. Install New BRASS Closet (Johnny bolts) bolts . Center of pipe east & west. Use an extra wax ring & pinch some off. Mold the wax around base of New bolts to stand them.up like soldiers.
8. Carefully place New bowl over bolts & stand up & make sure bowl is not skewed.
9. Use a fat pencil & outline the bowl on floor.
10. Pull bowl & set on heavy blanket
11. Use a Deep Seal Wax Ring over flange
12. Mix a Large can of Plaster of Paris to a pudding like thickness. If you have the grout that you used for the floor mix that in to.
13. Have a large bucket w Clean water ready & a Large sponge.
14. Place Plaster all around the outside of the wax ring & the pencil mark outline.
15. Set bowl over bolts in to Plaster & put full body weight w knees.
16. Make sure it's straight.
17. Quickly throw the washers & nuts on bolts, handtight .
18. Work fast & cut all excess plastic away & dump in garbage.
19. Run the damp sponge all the way around the base & fill in any gaps
20. Keep rinsing sponge & getting all.plaster off.
21. Tighten nuts very gingerly with crescent wrench.

Hard parts over.....Use a nice hard, chrome played Tank supply with a Ridgid Bender for a Truly neat & professional look. Use a flex otherwise.

Dont forget a toilet seat! Mad Dog

While I am not a huge sharkbite fan I had a leaky solder joint on a new water heater install at my house many years ago, cut it out and replaced it with a sharkbite since I wanted it done quick and had the fitting. Told myself I would change it out when the sharkbite started leaking, it lasted longer than the tankless water heater it was hooked to.

I say the odds are greater by far that you will have a failure trying to sweat a pipe as a beginner as compared to a SharkBite installation.

I put a few 3/4" SharkBites into my system as a temporary situation, but now I am leaving there just to see how they do. Not one drip yet after 5 years.

This is totally anecdotal, but also anecdotal is all the fear mongering you will likely see in later posts in this thread against SharkBite fittings.

But I would wager that even for most plumbers they would see more sweat fitting failures than SharkBite failures.

Confirmation bias is a thing

I mean compression fittings have been around for like 100 years.

There are places where Sharkbits are not just a good temporary fix (if the pipes are prepared well — square cuts and no burrs — they are a good bit better than temporary) but a perfectly valid permanent fitting.

I've use them, for instance, in settings where I am doing domestic water — and am MUCH too close to highly flammable wood to even consider heat, never mind a torch.

Sharkbites are a temporary, emergency fix, but this is America...you do what you want except gas work or anything that could contaminate your local drinking water Supply..Don't worry, if it blows out it blows out.Only water Mad Dog