A trip to the basement yesterday revealed some water on the floor. It was dripping from around the drain pipe for my main bathroom's toilet. (It's a ranch.) The sub-floor was wet; an area about 1.5 feet by 3 feet. It was pretty well soaked. There was no water in the bathroom anywhere near the toilet. I pulled up the toilet to find a broken flange ring. (see attached images.) The piece you see sticking up was flat when I lifted the toilet. It pulled up as I was trying to remove the bolt (but I could see it was broken). The flange ring looks like it was blue in its glory days. It's wrapped around the outside of a white PVC pipe. It's pretty well broken, probably 1/5 of its circumference. Lots of little pieces. I just bought the house in May. But as far as I know it's the original flange from the house which was built in 1987. The sub-floor seems okay. It was fairly wet, but doesn't seem to be rotted and is drying out. I'm not sure how long the leak was ongoing. If I had to guess, I'd say a couple of days to a week or two. But unfortunately I had not been in the basement for a few weeks, so it could have been as long as 2 months. Likely not longer than that.

What are my options for repair? I'm fairly handy, but I'll call a professional plumber if that's the best recommendation.

I should mention that I have a bad lower back that acts up once or twice a year. When it's acting up and is in spasm, my sitting onto the toilet is not always the gentlest of actions. Often times I have to kind of drop on to it fairly hard, and I 'm a decent sized guy. My back has not acted up at all while I've been in this house. So I don't think that that was directly responsible for the broken flange. But I do want to make sure the solution I implement will result in a good anchoring of the toilet. As long as I'm doing all this, I'm going to replace the toilet with an ADA model. I'm hoping that will help when my back is acting up. I was planning to replace it anyway since its had some other problems.

I have a secondary question with the bad back thing in mind: When replacing the wax ring, is a urethane reinforced wax ring a good idea compared to a standard wax ring? Any potential problems with them? I read an article that recommended them for homes that have a handicapped user of the toilet. And I figured for the extra couple of bucks, it might be worth it.

Let me know if you need any additional information to provide a recommendation. Thanks for your time and assistance.

Hi Lanman...

You want to cut that old metal ring off the old flange using a pair of aviation snips (see image) and then you want to go to a local plumbing supply store and purchase a BIVALVE TYPE S.S. REPAIR RING... see images. In the pictures below I show the CLAM REPAIR RING... some go by other names. The point is that it is a hinged repair ring and it sets into the groove in the plastic flange for a perfect repair... even better than the original as it is stainless steel! You will see the grrove once you cut out the old ring.

Cut out the old ring and install the new repair ring. Purchase some zinc-plated or other rust resistant screws and screw the flange in lined up for the closet bolts.

Install the johnnie bolts (I like 5/16" best) and install the URETHANE REINFORCED wax gasket and set the toilet.

Back to you...

MARK


PS: May be a good idea to install a couple GRAB BARS to help lower yourself down... if not for now, may be that you can use them in the future! Regards!

Thanks Mark. I'll run out Monday (plumbing store is closed this weekend) and see if I can find a repair ring like that. If not, I did find it online.

Any tips on removing the old screws? The heads are badly corroded. Is it best to snip the ring off around them as best as possible and then try to extract them? Once I get the replacement ring, I can see if hacking the old screws off at the sub-floor level is an option such that I can align the new ring so the new screws do not sit over the old. With luck, that will be an option.

As for the grab bars, I have thought about doing that. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks again for taking the time to assist me with your advice!

Hi Lanman:

Hey! Glad to help!

If a larger screwdriver won't work then yeah, cut the metal ring off up to the screws and then remove the ring. Then, use a hammer to pull up on the heads and YANK those screws right out of there... ;)

Good luck!

MARK

Thanks for the tip Mark! I'm going to wait a few days before trying this to make sure the sub-floor dries out completely. It's still a little wet. My new toilet won't be in for two weeks anyhow. I had to special order it. That's what I get for buying a quality toilet and not getting a $70 in stock piece of junk ;)

I hope you have a prosperous 2010.

Best Regards.

Hello. There
My name is jerry OK I was trying to replace the Replacing a toilet seat
When I was trying to do that I brock a pice of the hard part of the torlet
On the side where the water flows inside the bol. When I flush it the water licks out on the side of the torlet.
I was trying to how to untighten a screw. When I brock a pice of the torlet the round part off need to now how to fix

Hello. There 02/07/11
My name is jerry OK I was trying to replace the Replacing a toilet seat
When I was trying to do that I brock a pice of the hard part of the torlet
On the side where the water flows inside the bol. When I flush it the water licks out on the side of the torlet.
I was trying to how to untighten a screw. When I brock a pice of the torlet the round part off need to now how to fix it

Can't be fixed. It's sort of like trying to fix a piece of glass. You can try some clear silicone but probably won't work.