Wax or Waxfree toilet seal??

[Mr_Robot]

Sorry only tried to post 3 photos but they got added twice each? The shot above that got added as full image shows the completely broken left side.

The other images which you have to click on to see are of views of the right side which is also broken but not completely through the side (not sure how well the photo captures this).

 

[Jamesplumbing06]

Wax ring and 2.5” stainless lag bolt. Set wax and toilet. Then run lag down thru sub floor.your then secured to floor and not some wobbly plastic flange. Any flange repair item will put you right back here in a couple more years. So your options are replace flange. Which your flange is glued to the next elbow. So you will have to cut past elbow and reattach with new coupling , elbow and flange. Or set toilet direct to sub floor. But I warning ya now. Any good and worthy “ flange repair” item will cause flange to raise to that thickness. This causes toilet to be unsteady. You might find a thinner flange repair but then your sacrificing the strength. Stainless bolts don’t corrode and it lasts for many many years because your attached to sub floor.

 

[SHEPLMBR]

Now you know why it was leaking

 

[Mr_Robot]

What j-plumbing06 said is way beyond my capabilities to tackle. I am not in construction nor much of a handyman. I have no idea what I am going to do now, who I can trust to fix this. I give up for now (possibly forever). Thank God I have a guest bathroom I can use in the meantime. At this point I'd like to know how to sanitarily seal that up so the bathroom can at least be used for the tub and the sink.

 

[Jamesplumbing06]

O sry I kinda dropped ya there. You still waiting? A lag bolt is just heavy duty screw. Can you twist a screw driver? I use a 20 volt dewalt. But describe this to anyone with experience and they can figure it out. Even just a handy man. Call local hardware store and ask who that guy uses. A pro should pull flange and replace with a normal full size flange. If they can’t do it then bench him and call him the south paw. Original condition is best. Bolting to floor is last resort customer can’t afford much else but I ain’t leaving it leaking option.

 

[fixitron]

You can get a metal repair ring that screws to the floor, assuming that the subfloor is not rotted around the flange.. The main purpose of the ring is to hold the toilet to the floor so it won't move. If the toilet does not slide or rock, in other words if it is tight to the floor, a wax seal will maintain its seal.
Most toilets are two-piece, tank and bowl, which you should be able to fit into a compact car.
If the toilet is getting slow to fill, most fill valves can be pulled apart to clean out that junk in the water. Sounds like a case for a whole-house water filter.
Several years ago I had a client with a leaky toilet. I replaced the wax ring twice and it still leaked, after ruling out the usual causes. Looking closer, I discovered that the PVC drain pipe had a horizontal crack in it, just below the flange connection. I used a FluidMaster waxless that actually goes down into the pipe. Have not had a leak since.

 

[jeffnc]

Something like the Toto Entrada costs about $150. and flushes 1.28 GPF very powerfully

Not only that, but the trapway is usually larger. Nothing as annoying as a too small trapway. Over 2" is best.

 

[Mr_Robot]

Thanks for continuing to help. A lot has happened since I last posted. I will attempt to summarize that here, maybe this will help some other poor schlub like me that comes up here with same problem.

I went back to both Loew's & Home Depot and tried to ask for suggestions. Most of what I got was a lot of conflicting or non-helpful advice, much of which did not even make sense, so I then went to a local ACE Hardware store. There at least you get someone who supposedly knows what they are talking about & can spend time with you. I explained my situation & showed the guy photos of my existing flange etc. He immediately went to the aisle and told me this was all that I needed:


http://ace.lvsprd1.gsipartners.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1272857




Now the versions of this product that they had came in a plastic bag with no instructions/picture like the one above which appears to show this fitting underneath the existing flange.

He told me it was best to put it underneath the flange but if I could not get underneath it to simply put it on top and screw it in using the existing screws already in the flange.

I asked him what about the size/diameter, would it work with all flanges & all toilets & he said yes no problem you just unscrew the pieces and move them together/apart and screw back together etc.

I tried first to get it underneath but that would not work, also I did not understand how even if I could get it underneath how the toilet bolts would then fit under there in the first place.

So I switched gears and mounted it on top of the broken flange. I was able to use 2 of the existing flange screws to tighten it down but the piece has another 2 holes as well so I decided to drill into the floor and anchor it there as well to keep it solid as possible.

I then luckily decided to make sure the toilet would fit over it b4 putting a wax ring over it and then putting the toilet on top of all that.

What I found was that the toilet would not fit over the kit above. I even tried completely removing the kit's screws that shape/hold it together so I could move the halves in as much as possible east to west direction since the issue appeared to be that the external diameter of the kit hung over the external diameter of the flange and the underside of the toilet has a ridge or whatever there that was hitting the outside of the kit making it impossible to have it sit around it. Even if putting the pieces together as much as possible it still hung over the ends like 1/4 of an inch on one side in north/south direction and I could only have the toilet sit either down on the front or down on the back.

I then did a lot of research both on web in general and youtube in particular over the course of I guess 2 weeks with whatever spare time I had.

Based on that I decided my only do-it-yourself options were either of these 2 options:

(1) https://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Flange-Repair-Kit-Flanges/dp/B078HGCYY



OR

(2) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KBBAN5K/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20





I opted to try #1 above first and it arrived about a week ago. Yesterday/today were going to be my days to see if I could get that to fit/work but got derailed by a snowstorm yesterday and had to leave my car abandoned on the side of the road and walk home for about 7 miles. Today I was able to retrieve the car but am too exhausted to even think about lifting a finger to fight with this toilet again.

My next days off to try to look at this will be next Tuesday, assuming I am not too sick to even try it then (I feel awful now after my 6 hour odyssey through snow/sleet/freezing rain yesterday) and have to work friggin' three 12 hour shifts in a row Sat/Sun/Mon (probably too much information but that is what I am stuck in right now, about to just crawl into bed now actually to see if I can fight off what feels like a fever and some kind of flu/cold).

If the option #1 does not work (either the toilet doesn't fit over it or if it does fit but continues to leak or is not stable enough) I will then try #2.

If that does not work then I have to try to get a "professional" - hopefully not as bad as the 1st plumber who screwed all this up 2 years ago which I posted about in another thread - to try to remove/cut out the existing flange, hopefully not damage the existing pipe, add a new flange, reseat the toilet etc, all to the tune of probably aroun $1000, OR say screw it, try to find some kind of flange/pipe plug to seal it up, throw out the toilet, and put something over that mess like a big flowerpot so I can at least use that bathroom again for the shower & the sink.

 

[WyrTwister]

I had a thread about 2 years ago concerning a leaky toilet and my experiences with a sloppy-good-for-nothing plumber here:

https://www.plumbingforums.com/thre...ne-wrong-would-you-redo-this.8765/#post-75596

After that experience I knew the toilet needed to be pulled out again, both wax rings old & new removed (see my thread above for explanation) and replaced, but since the leak had stopped (and my complete lack of time & the needed motivation to fix all this myself the right way) I just left it alone.

But now it has started leaking again underneath the same way, and I cannot tighten the bolts down any further for fear of cracking the toilet itself. So I need to tackle this now after all. Will have quite a mess underneath thx to the plumber to clean up..sigh...

As part of this I would like to know your learned opinion - after cleaning out all the old wax should I use a wax ring this time, or instead try a "WaxFree" one? I still have an unused wax ring I was going to use at the time myself b4 I opted mistakenly to let a "professional" do the job (again see my thread above for how that worked out) and also I bought a "WaxFree" one today thinking maybe that would work better & be less messy. Any opinions on one vs the other?


Also something else that had crossed my mind is that the toilet is not flushing/filling that great anymore and I need to replace the fill valve as well, which I last did about 5-10 years ago, which is ez to do. I wonder if maybe with all this other hassle/mess in having to pull the old one off and clean it up then try to reseal that maybe I should just by a new toilet and start from scratch. This toilet is 25 years old. Should I bother trying to fix it (which is minor I hope) or just get a new one, what would you do?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fernco-Wax-Free-Toilet-Seal-for-3-5-in-Drain-Pipe-FTS-4CF/203349073

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fluidmaster-Fill-Valve-and-Flapper-Repair-Kit-400CRP14/100393036

Wyr
God bless