toilet flange not level with floor. please advise!

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daemoniscinxi

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Hello,

My wife and I just bought our first house and we were told by the inspector that there was a leak under the toilet (the previous owners had just replaced the wax seals). So we took the toilet off and found that there was only a closet flange screwed into the plywood with no seal between the 3" pipe and the ring:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69424450@N07/7540303394/

The metal closet flange was bent, which could have been why it was leaking or because there is a gap between the ring and the pipe as you can see in the picture. Rather than just replacing the metal ring with another, I thought I would try to make something that would be a bit more safe, so I bought a 3" inside fit flange. I had to use a dremel to clean out a bit of old product that had dripped down the pipe that was preventing me from inserting the flange, but after smoothing it I was able to insert the flange. However, as you can see from the pictures below, the pipe coming from the floor is not perpendicular to the floor and also is raised off the floor slightly, causing the flange to not lay flush on the floor:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69424450@N07/7540301390/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69424450@N07/7540299272
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69424450@N07/7540296628
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69424450@N07/7540293138/

Does this slight slant matter, or will the wax seal take care of this? Should I use a reinforced wax seal or a standard one? Should I cut off 1/2 inch from the pipe so that the flange lays somewhat level with the floor (even if at a slight angle)?

Thank you for your time!
 
The slight angle will be OK but the flange needs to be lowered. Cut the pipe to lower the flange so it sets on top of the floor. Just be sure to screw it down. A standard wax seal will be fine.

John
 
Correct me if I am wrong, But it looks like a standard plastic flange being put in a cast iron 90.
 
The pipe is a 3" PVC pipe that runs parallel under the floor before angling up to almost perpendicular to the floor. There was old silicon product that was around the mouth of the pipe that was preventing me from putting an outside fit flange on. I used a dremel to remove the approx 5mm of product that was around the circumference of the opening of the pipe.
 
PVC pipe is white, ABS pipe is black. That really looks like a the hub of a 90 sticking out the floor. Again, I could be totally wrong.
 
It is a black pipe. Sorry, I did not know the difference between PVC and ABS plastic pipes. So it could be ABS; I'm not sure.
 

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