So I come home yesterday to find a bead of water around at the base of about half of my second floor toilet. Immediately I think the wax seal failed.
I go and pull off the toilet and come to find that under the toilet it is actually pretty dry and the wax seal is in good condition (not much indentations, looks solid, etc..). So now I'm thinking maybe one of my dogs was drinking out of the toilet, or maybe I just misfired earlier in the day or something (you know it happens!)
This was about at 10 pm, so the last thing I wanted to do was go to the store and buy a new wax seal. The current wax seal is one of the reinforced ones with wax and a rubber "insert", it was firmly in the PVC pipe so I just went ahead and put the toilet back on tightened everything down, did the paper towel test and no leaks around the base of the toilet. Was this a big no-no, to reuse the wax seal??
And now I'm paranoid that what if the toilet is leaking to the underside of the first floor ceiling? How would I know? Obviously the ceiling will stain eventually indicating there is a leak, but i'm more concrete about urine and feces being on the first floor ceiling and framing.
Anything I can do to put my mind at ease? I have had terrible luck when replacing wax seals before, so I am of the motto if it's not broke don't fix it, hence why I chose to reuse the existing ring instead of trying to remove it and install a new ring.
Thanks
I go and pull off the toilet and come to find that under the toilet it is actually pretty dry and the wax seal is in good condition (not much indentations, looks solid, etc..). So now I'm thinking maybe one of my dogs was drinking out of the toilet, or maybe I just misfired earlier in the day or something (you know it happens!)
This was about at 10 pm, so the last thing I wanted to do was go to the store and buy a new wax seal. The current wax seal is one of the reinforced ones with wax and a rubber "insert", it was firmly in the PVC pipe so I just went ahead and put the toilet back on tightened everything down, did the paper towel test and no leaks around the base of the toilet. Was this a big no-no, to reuse the wax seal??
And now I'm paranoid that what if the toilet is leaking to the underside of the first floor ceiling? How would I know? Obviously the ceiling will stain eventually indicating there is a leak, but i'm more concrete about urine and feces being on the first floor ceiling and framing.
Anything I can do to put my mind at ease? I have had terrible luck when replacing wax seals before, so I am of the motto if it's not broke don't fix it, hence why I chose to reuse the existing ring instead of trying to remove it and install a new ring.
Thanks