Yikes, Cut Joist/Toilet flange

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Molo

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Hello All.

I cut this hole in the floor today when I realized the floor was sloping under the toilet, and it was all rotted. The toilet had been leaking, and the floor joist was cut in front of the drain-pipe with no other support built for it!

Questions are:
1. The cast iron flange still appears to be solid, should I leave it or replace it?

2. If it needs replacing, what material should I use, and how should I do it? It is a lead and oakum joint set-up.

http://www.ufpi.com/literature/acqfastener-216.pdf
 

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Terry

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The cast may be fine.

The wood looks pretty bad.
It looks like "hanger" time.

I'm surprised the toilet hadn't just fallen in the hole.
I guess the cast was holding it up.
 

Molo

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floor to flange

Hello all,

As you can see from the photos, I need to replace the floor. My question is, does it matter if the cast iron flange is above or level with the finiched floor? What is the ideal? It looks like the floor level might come in level with the flange.

TIA,
Molo
 

Lee Polowczuk

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i am not a plumber...but let me tell you my two most recent experiences:

I had an attic (maids?) toilet area. Took out the old toilet and had an unstable subfloor. put in a new subfloor roughly the size of the area you have. Inserted a pvc flange-- it was 3 inch that fit into the 4 inch cast pipe.. the extending 3 inch pipe had some rubber ribs that really made the fixture snug. Installed a Cadet 3 with flange screwed into new subfloor. I will have to take this toilet out and reset the flange when I decide to finish the attic floor.

Second instance--- moved a toilet. As i was taking out the old toilet--probably a mid 80's vintage, i noticed it had a pvc flange. I was going to cut it out and plug the hole. I turns out that the flange was properly glued to a 3 inch pipe that was probably 12-14 inches long. the pipe had what appeared to be wax ring material smeared around it...i guess to provide lubrication into the 4 inch cast. I plugged this whole with the proper rubber plug.

it seems that you need to do something similar to the thing i did in instance number 1.

Moving the toilet is another story... anyway... i have had a lot of success due to the help of people on this board and another board.
 
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Gary Swart

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The flange is supposed to set on top of the finished floor and be screwed through the flooring and into the sub-floor.
 

Molo

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The finished floor height comes in at level with the top of the tolet flange... What now?

TIA,
Molo
 

Molo

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Flange Support?

I have a concern;
There will be no subfloor under the flange, do the flanges need support from the subfloor?

TIA,
Molo
 

Jadnashua

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In theory, yes. If the piping is plastic, certainly. The cast iron is pretty dam stiff and strong, but it the lead joints are well made, it's pretty strong just by itself. Consider that your toilet is sitting on the floor, but is held down by the flange bolts. If it isn't strong enough to hold the toilet in place, you've got problems. That's why it is supposed to be anchored well. You might be able to put some 2x material under there and catch both the flange and the subflooring with some screws. If you did one on each side, that would anchor it. This is probably overkill, but your labor is time, not money.
 

Gary Swart

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Molo, Jim has the best answer for your situation. You do want support under there, but it doesn't have to be a solid sub floor. Figure out how you can use some 2x scraps and joist hangers to box under the toilet and you'll be fine.
 

Molo

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improved subfloor framing

Here is the improved subfloor framing, Please let me know if I should do something different with the framing. I have to get in to the crawl space and install a piece of 2 x 8 under the back wall (where the toilet supply line comes out of). I can't believe the before photo... this is all that was there when I took the rotted sloping subfloor out!

Molo
 

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GrumpyPlumber

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That thing is framed like ya read about...just one problem..
Is that PT lumber for the joists?
I'm NOT a builder, just a plumber, but I think PT's not supposed to be used indoors due to the chemicals.
 

Molo

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Good points,
Yes, I have to screw the Cast Iron flange to the boards, and yes it is pressure treated. I wasn't aware of that restriction, and it makes sense. Although there are areas (The Bahamas is one) where presssure treated is required, it may not be accepted here in New York State because of the chemicals. I'll have to check the code.

Molo
 

Geniescience

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i thought so too; i liked it. In a small space, it is the right kind of overdoing it, not too much and not useless.

BTW, since it is so strong, and since the pieces are short, the warping that PTL does when drying out indoors won't be as bad as otherwise.

but i'm not a wood frame person, and not an expert.

david
 

Molo

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Didn't think of the PTL warping issue either, good point David. I used 13 joist hangers in this system. Funny thing is, I thought they were all neccesary. Another piece of 2 x 8 with two more hangers may be going in along the back.

Molo
 

Alternety

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One point you should maybe be aware of regarding the treated wood. The currently available brown stuff will attack galvanized steel in the presence of moisture. They make extra heavy coated steel for use with this wood (or stainless). Maybe you could give the new work a while to dry out a bit rather than trap the moisture in there. If it is new wood it is probably pretty wet from the treatment. I would not worry about inside use. Most places require any wood in contact with concrete to be treated. So any inside framing against your foundation is treated wood.

The old treated wood (green) which did not do this, was removed from the market because of a bunch of noise from people that were having a reflexive reaction similar to having a new nuclear power plant built. I never saw any test results that made me believe the arsenic content made it unsafe. But it is gone.

I wonder how many decks and other structures exposed to weather or damp (which is where you use this stuff) will eventually fall down. It has the potential to be another one of those product/building technique crises. It took a long time for the manufacturers to try to spread the information about this characteristic. And I suspect the majority of people still do not know about it or pay attention to it. Even a lot of builders.

I have seen this happening in some wood placed in my foundation wall to hold floor joists. The builder cleverly drilled the fastening bolts THROUGH the wall and water was coming in. There was serious corrosion on the hangers in a short period of time, but it was not really a critical load point. I knew the arsenic wood was being withdrawn so I stocked up on enough to build the house. I ran a bit short and had to use the non-arsenic brown stuff.
 

Frenchie

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It's true. The new pressure-treated (ACQ) eats electrogalvanized for breakfast. Seems the active indredient is copper, so electrolysis kicks in the minute anything gets wet.

Manufacturers are recommending hot-dipped galvanized at a minimum. Grace has a self-adhesive membrane you can wrap the wood in, to keep it from touching the metal - not too sure how that's suppposed to protect the fasteners, though.

The better deck builders are switching to all-stainless fasteners (pricey).

There's also, apparently, an even newer sort of treatment, MCQ, that doesn't corrode fasteners quite so much.

For more info...

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34514

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37068

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34964

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32843

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31516

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/fastener.htm


Warning: feel free to lurk over there, but don't post; it's a pro-only site, and some guys get really rude about it.
 
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