On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 13:58:39 -0500, He And I are One
wrote:

The building is was built ~ 1970ish and pretty sturdy. The toilet issue
for me is pretty important.

The toilet is old and shows it. And I am thinking I better replace it
rather than come home and find that the tank broke and water flooded
my floor and the one beheath
OR
its rotting underneath and the longer I take to know the worse the
problem.

I don't remember what you said in your OP, but what makes you think
this toilet is about to fail on you? I have a toilet that dates from
the 1930s in my house, works like a champ, but does use 5 gallons to
flush. I'm not worried about this thing. I also had two Eljer
toilets that dated from 1963, and I only got rid of them because one
no longer would flush right (I even broke it apart, but never found
any blockage, very strange), and the other I just got sick of
constantly replacing the gasket between the tank and the bowl (it kept
leaking, and my plumber who was there for a different job advised me
to replace it, which I did myself (I pay plumbers for jobs requiring
real plumbing)).

Toilets really don't suddenly fail, and typically what fails are the
auxiliary parts, not the porcelain parts.

My suspicion is that your toilet is perfectly fine, but it looks old,
and that makes you anxious. I would bet you that you can replace it
just fine by yourself. Go he http://www.toiletology.com/