Toto Ultramax ii and flange height...

[cc66]

Well the other day when I picked up my Legato toilets. I also picked up a ultramax ii for my sisters master bathroom.

I went to install her ultramax ii today and her flange is installed on top of the finished tile floor.

I did a test fit of the toilet without a wax seal and the toilet is about 1/8 to 5/16 of an inch off the floor all the way around.

Wil I need to cut out the old glued in pvc flange and install a new flange that is recessed in the tile where it's about a 1/4 of an inch about the finished tile floor.

If I need to replace and recess the flange, what is the best way to cut out old flange from the pvc pipe? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Terry]

That must be a very thick flange.
Removal will depande on how yours was installed. It may be a hub flange, or it may be a spigot flange.
With the spigot flange, you can drill them out using a rambit.
Is this on slab? or over an accessible crawl?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[cc66]

Terry,
The bathroom is on the second floor of her home and I do not have access from below to the flange. Her are a few pics of the flange.

 

[WJcandee]

Dude, the flange is SUPPOSED to be on top of the finished floor. The people whose contractors mount it on the subfloor and then tile around it are doing it that way for their own convenience, not to meet code.

Are you SURE that it is the flange that is standing the toilet off the floor? We have seen it before where people basically are letting their mind trick them and all they really need to do is shim the thing, because they are expecting that it won't work because the flange is "amazingly" (holy crap!!) on top of the finished floor. (Which means it was done to code.)

That's why Terry is making his "thick flange" comment, meaning "tall". Properly-positioned, the spigot on the bottom of your toilet should go inside the circumferance of the flange and the hollow section of the underside of the toilet should be more than sufficient to accomodate the height of the flange. Before you go digging out the floor and flange in your sister's house, do yourself a favor and measure out the hollow area as well as the height of the top of the flange above the floor (i.e. thickness of the flange) and make sure that you aren't imagining things.

EDIT: From those photos, there is virtually no way that the flange is an issue, but measure it yourself and prove me wrong. To me, that's a properly-installed flange.

 

[Terry]

I don't know why that flange isn't working.
It looks like the bowl should sit over that and touch the floor.
I would use a single wax without horn.

 

[cc66]

Dude, the flange is SUPPOSED to be on top of the finished floor. The people whose contractors mount it on the subfloor and then tile around it are doing it that way for their own convenience, not to meet code.

Are you SURE that it is the flange that is standing the toilet off the floor? We have seen it before where people basically are letting their mind trick them and all they really need to do is shim the thing, because they are expecting that it won't work because the flange is "amazingly" (holy crap!!) on top of the finished floor. (Which means it was done to code.)

That's why Terry is making his "thick flange" comment, meaning "tall". Properly-positioned, the spigot on the bottom of your toilet should go inside the circumferance of the flange and the hollow section of the underside of the toilet should be more than sufficient to accomodate the height of the flange. Before you go digging out the floor and flange in your sister's house, do yourself a favor and measure out the hollow area as well as the height of the top of the flange above the floor (i.e. thickness of the flange) and make sure that you aren't imagining things.

EDIT: From those photos, there is virtually no way that the flange is an issue, but measure it yourself and prove me wrong. To me, that's a properly-installed flange.

Dude, thanks for your post.

Yes I know that a proper installed flange should be on top of the finished floor and that the spigot goes inside of the flange.

Top of flange to top of tile floor measures 1/2" all the way around which is not to high for the toilet to sit properly on the flange and floor.

Thanks again for your post.

 

[Terry]

The Sioux Chief closet flange with stainless metal ring sits lower.

 

[cc66]

I don't know why that flange isn't working.
It looks like the bowl should sit over that and touch the floor.
I would use a single wax without horn.

Terry, thanks for the post. I just found the problem. I looked on the bottom side of the toilet base and there is a to small chunk of excess material from when the toilet was made. I chipped it away and now the toilet sits directly on top of the flange and floor with little space between the flange top and bottom of the toilet.

Thanks Terry.

 

[WJcandee]

cc66, I'm so glad you found the issue! Sorry if my insights were sorta basic, but the forum gets folks with a wide range of knowledge, from pros with years of experience to folks who just took the lid off their toilet for the first time.

Anyway, good find! And I'm glad you didn't have to mess with the floor.

Also, your experience now goes into the forum's collective bag of tricks and it's something I will think to mention the next time someone comes to us with a similar issue.

PS You did ask about how to cut that pipe. An inside-pipe-cutter is a relatively-inexpensive attachment and works well in situations like the one you were anticipating having to address. That's if you actually want to cut the pipe. It's more-typical to cut the flange with a Sawzall and then chip/pry it off. There's also a nifty tool called the Flange Off that you can get online for like $99. It consists of a guide that goes in the hole and a round cutting head that cuts precisely between the pipe and the outmost skin of the flange, then just spins it off when it cuts it free; it's designed for an outside fit flange on a 3" pipe. It's designed to go on the end of a drill (they recommend that you use one that plugs in the wall). It leaves you with an undamaged pipe (hopefully) ready to slide the new flange on. About $99 at a major online retailer. Then there's the Pipe Parana (a perhaps-intentional misspelling of Piranha). That comes in different sizes and isn't just for flanges, but is exactly the same concept. It's also a good deal more expensive than the Flange-Off.

PPS Sometimes it's hard to find a wax ring without the spigot in it, but with the limited distance between flange top and bottom of toilet in your case, you're most likely to be much happier with the ring without the flange, as Terry says. Oh, and as to my circumferance comment, when I reread it, I said, "Well, Duh." What I was trying to express was that the bottom of the spigot is ideally below the top lip of the flange, so that the discharge comes out past that point. This of course ends up not being the case in probably more than half of the installations in the US, but it's not a bad thing to have that be the case, in the same way that ideally you want the smallest amount of space between flange and toilet bottom to be filled by the wax.

 

[Jadnashua]

A good plumber usually won't use an all-plastic toilet flange...one with a SS ring is much preferred when dealing with plastic pipe. The all-plastic ones tend to crack, especially if you over-tighten the closet bolts. Do not use them to seat the toilet in the wax...use your weight to compress the wax. They only need to be snug, then with some caulk around the toilet, it will be locked in place much better than trying to make the porcelain toilet tight against the tile which tends to be slippery.