A question about plumbing

[SlickTony]

The toilet in the downstairs bathroom is leaking slowly around the base, and I'm pretty sure we're going to have to pull it and replace the seal. I do have How to Fix Damn Near Anything which means that theoretically I know to do this, but has anyone out there actually done it?

 

[EJFan]

i've done it but it's been a long time since then. is there indoor plumbing now?

the main thing, as i remember it, is to be very careful moving the toilet... don't want to chip anything. and be sure to get all that old wax crap out and off of both surfaces.

all in all it's a pretty simple process... when you go to get the new seal, just ask the dude at the home improvement store for any tips/suggestions and you should be ok.

 

[Bottomlover]

It's an easy but dirty job. The seals come in several different thicknesses, and you don't really know what you need until you get the toilet off and the old wax out. As I remember it, the seals are cheap and you can buy a few beforehand so you don't have to go out in the middle of the job.

 

[sanben]

still need help on this?

I'm a plumber and would be glad to offer advice on this. It may be more than the base leaking. It could be tank-to-bowl gasket, among other things.

 

[Nightbird]

Don't forget to turn the water off and drain all the water out of the toilet before you do anything.

 

[Guest]

 

[SlickTony]

No, not yet, I have to do taxes first. One dreadful thing at a time. It leaks less some times than at other times.

Thanks, I do know to turn the water off and empty the thing out first. What I'd like to know is, why are there seals of different sizes? Can't this kind of thing be standardized?

 

[qwezirider]

I've only done 3 or 4 of the darn things and honestly never noticed a difference in sizes. Maybe I just got damn lucky every time and got the right size. I just went to Home Depot or the like and grabbed one off the shelf not really paying attention to size.

Of course, a couple times the leak did turn out to be at the tank bolts, so I just got the added joy of replacing wax seals.

 

[Weird Harold]

What I'd like to know is, why are there seals of different sizes? Can't this kind of thing be standardized?

It is standardized -- for new installations.

The standards have changed over time so when you're rpeapiring an existing installation you have to deal with the standard in place when it was installed.

Different thicknesses of seals re also required because houses settle and shift over time and it's easier to ajust for the shift than it is to shift it back or completely redo the piping to bring the gap the seal fills back to "standard".

One thing to be aware of -- seals usually don't just fail for no reason. A leaking seal is the visible symptom of some other problem. It might be the house shifting or the pipes sagging, or it might be not be the seal at all. If your house is old enough to have iron pipes, it might be a rusted pipe causing your leak, or if it's PVC piping, it might have cracked.

It might be that replacing the seal will solve your problem, but unless you can figure out what caused it to leak in the first place, replacing the seal is just masking the real problem and you'll wind up with a new leak in a few months or a few years.

 

[SlickTony]

The house is about 20 years old.

 

[Weird Harold]

The house is about 20 years old.

Probably not iron pipes then.

Still with seal that hasn't leaked for as much as 20 years -- assuming no previous repairs or renovations -- something changed to cause it to leak.

You need to at least try to figure out what that something was so you can determine if it's a potential source of other, possibly more serious, problems.

 

[Guest]

 

[Weird Harold]

I have had this problem before when the bolts loosened and the toilet shifted.

But Why did the bolts loosen? Deteriotion of the subfloor, corrosion of the bolts, or a toilet not seated/shimmed properly that put too much stress on them?