Bowl Sitting High

[micahfrance]

I recently removed the original toilet in a vanity of my house built in 1966. I replaced the old toilet with a Toto Drake. The flange is cast iron and is on top of the original linoleum floor used in the bathroom. The new vinyl floor is the same thickness as the remnant of linoleum left under the flange. The flange seemed rather thick compared to some newer flange's I've seen. When I put the new bowl on top of the flange it did not sit flush with the floor. (I noticed another poster here had the same issue with a Toto) I double checked to make sure that the bowl was sitting properly on the flange and I still had the problem

A plumber friend of mine said that the bowl needed to be shimmed level, but it seemed like a little more than shimming since it needed about 1/4 inch of height all around the base. I decided to use some spare vinyl tile flooring I to provide the extra height. I cut it in the shape of the bowl's footprint and then put it on the floor. To get the proper height I had to add two layers of vinyl flooring, and a third layer in areas where the floor had settled lower.

I haven't caulked the bottom of the toilet yet because I wanted to check for leaks and to see if this set-up was crazy or okay (plumber friend said it was okay, but I'd like a second opinion just to be safe). The toilet has been running fine for almost a week now; no leaks.

Is this set-up okay for long-term use of the toilet? If not, are there any better ways of handle the problem of the bowl sitting high off the floor (maybe I should get a tile floor)? I'm going to encounter the same thing in June when we replace the other toilet in the house so I'd like to make sure we do this the right way.

http://www.terrylove.com/pdf/cst744s_footprint.pdf

[jadnashua]

My thought is that unless the vinal is cushioned, it should be okay. The toilet needs to be solid and not rock. If the stuff you put under there is a little undercut so there is room for a bead of caulk, I think you should be okay. Otherwise, it would be tough to make it look good. Is the bottom of the flange flush with the top of the finished flooring? If it is, and the toilet doesn't fit, how high (thick) is it? Just curious as to why it doesn't fit.

[micahfrance]

Thanks for the advice. The vinyl is not padded and the toilet is secure and level. I cut the spare vinyl floor just a bit wider than the base so that the bottom was wider than the top (I wanted to avoid an inverted pyramid), so I may have some issues with making it look good. But this bathroom is where I do many things for the first time (don't look at that first attempt at hanging drywall or miter cutting moulding!) so the look of the toilet probably goes with everything else in there.

I wish I had measured the flange thickness before I put the bowl on top. It was at least half an inch thick and it had a slight gap between the bottom of the flange and the floor. The old toilet sat just fine on the flange, but the new Toto has a shallower foot than the original toilet, an old American Standard.