Blooze
Member
The toilet in our kid's bathroom was swinging side to side if you bumped it hard with a knee. I checked the bolts, only to find that there were no nuts on the toilet, just those plastic nut/cap holder jobbies. Took those off and went to put brass nuts on where one side tighted down fine, but the other told me very quick that the bolt felt broken. We decided to pull the toilet to replace the bolts. Lo and behold when the toiled was pulled there was no flange to be seen, just a pair of bolts used for wood floors inserted into the concrete slab with mollies. The mollie on the one side had fell apart and pulled out. The floor is ceramic tiled, with a square section left out around the cast iron pipe to a depth of about 1/4 - 3/8" from the top of the tile to the concrete slab. The drain pipe is about 1/8" below the floor surface and more to one side (front of the toilet). I've attached a drawing to maybe explain better.
For now I replaced the mollie and reinserted a new bolt. We put a flanged extra-thick wax ring down around the pipe, but at the front it had to sit partially up on the tile due to room. Reseated the toiled, it was up off the floor we guessed about 1/4-3/8" before compression of the wax, and tightened it down. Well, it doesn't move now, but the one bolt that was pulling out started again so I just stopped at that point. Doesn't seem to obviously leak yet, but the water valve was leaking a bit while I ran to HD to get a new supply line and it went under the toilet so the grout still looks a bit wet right past the edge of the bowl base. I'll need to get that dried out to be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does leak sometime.
We plan on replacing that toilet (and our other one which I will assume is mounted exactly like it) down the road and was wondering what would be the best way to fix this mess. I know virtually nothing about plumbing, but this was obviously not the way to go about things. Unfortunately we needed the toilet back in commission, so we just tried to put it back the way it was for now.
Thanks in advance for any help/advice!
For now I replaced the mollie and reinserted a new bolt. We put a flanged extra-thick wax ring down around the pipe, but at the front it had to sit partially up on the tile due to room. Reseated the toiled, it was up off the floor we guessed about 1/4-3/8" before compression of the wax, and tightened it down. Well, it doesn't move now, but the one bolt that was pulling out started again so I just stopped at that point. Doesn't seem to obviously leak yet, but the water valve was leaking a bit while I ran to HD to get a new supply line and it went under the toilet so the grout still looks a bit wet right past the edge of the bowl base. I'll need to get that dried out to be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does leak sometime.
We plan on replacing that toilet (and our other one which I will assume is mounted exactly like it) down the road and was wondering what would be the best way to fix this mess. I know virtually nothing about plumbing, but this was obviously not the way to go about things. Unfortunately we needed the toilet back in commission, so we just tried to put it back the way it was for now.
Thanks in advance for any help/advice!