Replace toilet ring or whole drain?

(If this needs to be moved to the toilet forum, please go ahead. I thought it was just for "reviews" of toilets - lol! But now that I posted this message, I see otherwise...)

This is part of a larger project, that began as replacing/repairing tile and is now turning into complete bathroom renovation (all DIY). We found some water leakage under the shower pan and also around the base of the toilet. (I removed all the tile and existing shower pan by hand-chiseling. My husband finally suggested we buy a rotating hammer today to help with chiseling around these pipes).

The question I have: do we need to replace just the toilet flange (forgive me if my terminology is incorrect... ) , or the whole toilet drain? We have replaced the wax ring on this toilet twice in five years (once ourselves, once by a plumber), and it still leaks.

We have chiseled around the shower drain/trap and are trying to figure out what is leaking over there (oh, it's also not draining well - it *was*, but not now). But we really don't want to have to replace the toilet drain if possible.

I've attached pictures that will hopefully help with the assessment. Any advice is appreciated, as we cannot afford a plumber at this point... So thanks in advance!

First thing, take a putty knife or something similar and scrape all of the old wax off to see what the thing really looks like. Then you can get a better idea where you stand.

jadnashua said:

First thing, take a putty knife or something similar and scrape all of the old wax off to see what the thing really looks like. Then you can get a better idea where you stand.

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Ha! Just did that as you were typing. Here's the picture, which looks at first like there is no flange. HOWEVER, I think what happened was it is set in the concrete? Unless that really is just the pipe.

Regardless, the wax ring was literally sitting on the floor. Period. So, what to do now? Thanks!

Mariah,
Where in this world are you located?

Redwood said:

Mariah,
Where in this world are you located?

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Virginia... why?

ETA:
I now see tons of threads on this issue. However, I just don't understand how to even remove the rusted flange... My husband says there is one there b/c of the bolts, which have rusted to the point of crumbling. Would it be better do use a closet flange with some sort of extender down into the drain? Any advice would help... Thanks!

It looks like you have some work cut out for you...
That bath is in some pretty rough shape.

As for asking your location codes vary from location to location and I believe Virginia is an IPC state although there may be county codes too I'm not 100% sure...

It looks like we might be givving more advice than just the toilet...

Thanks, Redwood... We are definitely subject to code here. Inspections, permits abound everywhere. We have a permit for the shower work but not the toilet/plumbing work - that was just discovered yesterday/today. The shower is using existing plumbing (we hope). So what else is there to tackle now? From what we understand, these are the issues:

1) rebuild shower pan for new walk-in shower (we've ordered John Bridge's book and researched this to death after seeing what was under the existing shower pan).

2) the drain leading from the shower trap to the galvanized pipe under the shower floor will be covered with the new pan, as it was before. We're still trying to determine if that is leaking. But, it won't drain at this point (used to, but not now - not after I stuck the ShopVac in there to get some bit of tile out... oops). Gotta look into that.

3) replace toilet flange, but hopefully not the drain.

The house is 100 yrs old. The basement was finished around 1960. The bathroom appears to have been redone in the 80s. Someone with some code knowledge worked on the bathroom b/c the drain is located exactly where the code says it should be. After that, things go awry...

Do you see any other issues? TMost of it will have to be DIY, unfortunately. I was having fun painting, picking out tile, designing a walk-in shower, but I'm not having fun anymore - LOL!

So any advice/encouragement/tips are really appreciated. Thanks...!

(I've learned so much reading other posts while waiting on responses to this one)

I'm having a lot of difficulty seeing the flange or, if there even is one.

There should be a flange with a slot on each side that the closet bolts slide into...

Redwood said:

I'm having a lot of difficulty seeing the flange or, if there even is one.

There should be a flange with a slot on each side that the closet bolts slide into...

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Exactly my point above. My husband says there is one b/c there of the bolts. I can't see it when I get close. Of course, it's nasty and stinks and is yucky, and even with a mask, safety glassed, and rubberized gloves, I can only get so close and scrape off so much gunk. And I still can't see one. If it's there, it has totally rusted and disintegrated...

So how to fix it?

Just so you know what it looked like before (and why we had no idea the extent of the problems), here are two pics. The first one shows the toilet after we had a French drain added (hence no money left for plumbers) and the tile had been jackhammered up and cemented back even with the subfloor. I had just started priming and thought we would just replace the tiles that had been removed (the reason we waited was b/c the cement patch next to the toilet took days to dry - much longer than the rest of the bathroom area). The second one is of the shower stall after I started painting, before we decided to enlarge the shower.

So, it wasn't a total creepy place or anything - it was quite nice for a basement bath. And we want to make it much nicer...

Sorry for three posts in a row... My husband examined it closely and cannot make out a flange either. He says it looks like the bolts were embedded into the cement. The toilet was attached with the bolts but one of them rotted/disintegrated when I was removing the remaining tiles (after he moved the toilet earlier this evening).

He chipped away a small piece at the top, and it's concrete.

ETA: He went back with a flashlight and said that it's concrete about an inch or so down, then the pipe starts. Seems like someone either added concrete right up to the pipe with no flange, or added concrete over a flange when building the toilet up.

I really hope the fix for this isn't too difficult, but I'm having my doubts...

I suggest you have a plumber deal with this. I would have been possible for the toilet to be installed without a flange. Certainly not acceptable under modern codes. The time to fix it and make it right is now. Sure, you could hack it again and maybe it would work, and maybe not. If not, then you'd have to destroy the floor to fix it. Cast iron set in concrete is a bit out of most DIY territory.

I did a search and found a thread with the same problem: no flange. (ETA: And I found this which seems very "iffY" - and slightly different problem.)

My husband and I took at look at that thread, and are we correct in that the solution would be the same - using one of the below flanges? I vote for cast iron, my husband votes for the PVC. Since he's the one sending me to HD while he's at work, we'll see which one we get. (BTW, Oatey also makes the PVC one in cast-iron - does that change your opinion, Redwood, or not?)

Redwood, how do you seal the cast-iron one on the left? Thanks...

flange

1. the bolts seem to be drilled into the concrete without a flange.
2. There are a few ways to install a flange and the best one depends on your ability and dedication.
3. The shower drain is a 2" line connected to a 1 1/2" pipe. That will ALWAYS cause a problem.
4. The leak could have been at the drain, but since I do not see any sign of a "safety pan" under the tiles, it was more likely from cracked grout lines.

hj said:

1. the bolts seem to be drilled into the concrete without a flange.
2. There are a few ways to install a flange and the best one depends on your ability and dedication.
3. The shower drain is a 2" line connected to a 1 1/2" pipe. That will ALWAYS cause a problem.
4. The leak could have been at the drain, but since I do not see any sign of a "safety pan" under the tiles, it was more likely from cracked grout lines.

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Thanks so much for your reply... Regarding #4, there actually was a PVC liner under the other pan, which I removed before these pics were taken. And it was wet when I pulled it up (see pic below). Regarding #2, my husband and I think we can handle the flange install (we've not done much plumbing but have built a 12x16 shed from scratch and owned/lived on a 30-yr-old sailboat for a year, which in and of itself had alot of issues that we had to repair/maintain). We're definitely novices on this current job, though, and all the advice here on this forum is really awesome... Thanks again.

hj said:

3. The shower drain is a 2" line connected to a 1 1/2" pipe. That will ALWAYS cause a problem.

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Hmm... Can we leave the 1 1/2" pipe? If we MUST replace it, we will. But leaving it would be our preference - obviously! One concern we noticed and that we wanted some feedback on: the drain is lower than the connection from the trap to the 1 1/2" pipe. Seems to us that the shower drain should be higher?

Here's My Theory

Theory: Toilet connection used to be floor drain. 2" thick concrete poured to build up floor and pipe was not extended. 2" concrete just soaking up water from toilet all these many years.. Just look at color of concrete...

You really need to have the concrete broken up and both drains properly installed. You can save money (since you have rotary hammer) and chip out the concrete yourself and expose what plumbing exists. Then bring in plumber to hookup (or revisit this site if you are determined DIYer)

Do it right now because if what you can see is this bad, just imagine what could be lurking under concrete.....

P.S. make sure to stiuff big rags or towels down pipe to keep in sewer gas and keep out concrete chips and debris....

P.S.S. one quick check to see if floor drain, it may have trap under floor in which case you should see standing water. If you see inside of 90 deg elbow its probably not a floor drain....but no guarantees on any of this....

I'll second what was said above, rent an electric jack hammer and take out some of that concrete..

Is 1-1/2" under concrete legal?

A basic principal of plumbing is that a drain should never be reduced in size as it travels away from the fixture. This will always be a potential for a clog. I would strongly suggest you have a plumber do this work.

I spent this morning chiseling away around the toilet drain. Then I grabbed our neighbor who is a retired plumber and had him come look at everything. His solution was similar to the advice to get one of the above-mentioned flanges. OR, just reset the anchors for the toilet is hydraulic cement and use two wax rings, with no flange. Any ideas on that?

Not sure why the flange seems important, but it does. We're willing to bypass it if it's not vital...