Ask Me Help Desk - Leak near toilet seal

Having looked at how a toilet is mounted,{ and having installed 5 or more} it is hard for me to understand how a toilet can leak water at the base, but yet it seems to happen{ have seen it several times with different toilets}. All toilets bowls ( the ceramic part) are made with a "horn" (extension of the outlet opening) that extends down into the flange, which, in turn, extends down into the soil pipe, so it would seem that the wax-ring'seal" should be unnecessary, yet, it seems that if the seal is damaged, the toilet will leak water in that area
The reasoning is that it should be like emptying a small (diameter)glass of something into a big(diameter) glass by inverting the small glass directly above and extending slightly into the big one. there is nothing that should make the water go anywhere but straight down, unless the soil pipe is either temporarily or permanently clogged. If it were permanently clogged, I would have a much worse problem { which is just a little water showing up on the ceiling below} than I have( and would know about it)! A temporary "clog" might be caused by other flows of waste water through the same soil pipe at the time that the "problem" toilet is flushed. i.e. more total water than the pipe can handle at that instant. Like just as you try to pour that little glass of water into the big glass, somebody else pours another small glass into the same big glass(splashing your water off to the side). If the soil pipe were temporarily already full of water at the instant that the toilet is flushed, then the horn, flange, etc, would all fill up with water and some could leak off to the side and a tight seal would be required to keep it from going astray.

Joe...

I don't see a question attached to all you wrote..

How can we help?

MARK

Quote:

If the soil pipe were temporarily already full of water at the instant that the toilet is flushed, then the horn, flange, etc, would all fill up with water and some could leak off to the side

I think you answered your own concerns. A wax seal will not contain liquid if it backs up past the flange. Some water's bound to escape. Cheers, Tom

Weren't you asking what could cause water to seep out from umder the bowl? If I was mistaken then repost your question. Regards, Tom

This is a reply to Tom: who attempted to reply to my question about a water leak from somewhere near the base of my toilet.
, from reading other question/answers on the "Ask me help desk" it seems that it is generally believed that [U]any gap in the the wax seal will cause a wter to come out. My problem is that that belief defies logic and every-day observation about the flow of water. . I believe that the soil pipe should be sized so that no back up will occur under normal circumstances.
Consider the following: Say you want to get some water into the trap under your kitchen sink. If you put it in with a fire hose, the flow rate will be so large that the drain pipe will not handle it and water will spill out into the sink, the same may happen if you try to fill it with a garden hose( but only if you have an unusually high flow rate from the hose, on the other hand, if yiu use an acquarium pump, with the discharge tube inserted into into the drain opening, your sink will stay dry, ; the issue in these examples is the relationship between the capacity of the drain and the flow rate of what is supplying the water: if the capacity of the drain is at least as great as the flow rate of the source of the water, there is no back up so the only thing that gets wet is the inside of the drain! Switching back now to the toilet case. I would expect the soil pipe to be sized to have a capacity at least as great as the maximum discharge rate of the "horn" of the toilet boal. . So there should be no back up to put any water pressure against the inside of the wax seal, therefore no water should leak out (even if the seal is defective). In my case, there is reason to believe that the wax seal is defective, but no reason to believe that the soilpipe cannot handle the flow . It's a standard 4 inch iron soil pipe and a 3-4 inch horn(I don't remember,[ but there must be a standard], and the soil pipe (or any part of the run to the septic tank cannot be clogged, of else there would be a LOT more water! And there is no other water being discharged into the siol pipe that could use up some of its capacity. [ there are just two of us living in the house], so it's easy to know what the drain loading is!but, although I don't think that your "answer" is well thought out, it seems to be consistent with the received wisdom, so I should not dump on you Tom, instead, I thank you for your effort, regards, Joe

JF: Toilet will leak at the base when on of the following occurs :

1: Toilet is not aligned correctly over the drain opening
2. When wax ring is compressed during installation and as a result it protrudes into drain opening. There, water hits it and directs it to the side
3. When drain is partially clogged. Water backs up and seeps out along side of the base

Also, you may have hair-line crack in the bowl. Water slowly drips out and accumulates at around the base. Moreover, you may have leak from either angles stop, water supply and/or tank. Again, water drips down on the floor and accumulates around the perimeter of the base.

Check all these out, see what you found out. Get back to us & let us know how you did...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milo Dolezal

JF: Toilet will leak at the base when on of the following occurs :

1: Toilet is not aligned correctly over the drain opening
2. When wax ring is compressed during installation and as a result it protrudes into drain opening. There, water hits it and directs it to the side
3. When drain is partially clogged. Water backs up and seeps out along side of the base

Also, you may have hair-line crack in the bowl. Water slowly drips out and accumulates at around the base. Moreover, you may have leak from either angles stop, water supply and/or tank. Again, water drips down on the floor and accumulates around the perimeter of the base.

Check all these out, see what you found out. Get back to us & let us know how you did.....

Milo,; first ; thank you for taking the trouble to respond to my problem. Here is my response: first; I am SURE that there is no other leak, but now to your other points: the "horn" of the bowl extends down below the base of the toilet, so it seems impossible to install it with any mis alignment( the horn MUST go into the matching groove in the flange) , but yes, if the wax seal were compressed, it MIGHT protrude into the flow area, although this is a only REMOTE possibility because if you look at a profile view of all the parts, you will see that the wax seal sits ABOVE the bottom of the horn, i.e. the horn extends down though the seal, so the seal would have to de deformed FIRST down AND THEN toward the inside; have you ever { when removing a toilet} seen a wax seal that has been mushed not just outward )toward the flooring) but all the way up( looking a the toilet upside down) and over the edge of the horn? Milo, if there is any way that you have to read the reply that I sent to Tom this morning, I would recommend that you do it, it states my thinking very clearly( I think) best regards Joe

We surrender to your superior plumbing knowledge, Joe. There's nothing more we can tell you. We thank you for your input. Regards, Tom

When my washing machine emties I started hearing a glug glug sound in my bathtub drain and after about 2 minutes the water empting in the drain starts to come up the bath tub drain and around the bottom of my toilet at floor level. I have no problem flushing the toilet and this never happens at that time, only when my washer empties. I can hear water running down pipe under my toilet and water finally will leave the tub. I used some drain cleaner and followed with very hot water. The drain at the tub seems OK unless I run water for 10minutes or more and then it starts to glug glug??