[glr66]

Laid new bath subfloor, 3/4 inch plywood followed by 1/2 backer board, thinset and porcelin tile, however toilet flange too high. It is a brass flange with 3" extension soldered to 3" solid copper waste pipe. Tried to lower flange by heating the pipe to loosen solder with no luck so tried to heat pipe and remove old flange. Ended up breaking the brass flange and now the flange is even higher than before. At this point I don't know what to do. Should I continue to work to remove the old flange - if so what do you recommend doing as heating it isn't working. If not then how do I make this work, the flange is now about 1 inch off the tiled surface making the toilet really wobble.

[ballengerb1]

Is it soldered in or is that oakum and a lead pour? Can you post a picture? That must have been some old floor if it was thicker than 3/4 sub, 1/2 backer, thinset and tile.

[glr66]

Sorry not sure what oakum is - it certainly looks like lead solder to me and when heated it did start to run. The old subfloor was 1/2" plywood with over 2" of a thick poured mortar set in chicken wire over the plywood. Home built in 1962.

[letmetellu]

There is a tool that can be used to cut off a piece of pipe from the inside. I am not sure if this would help you because if you were just trying to cut off one inch I think you would be still cutting into the flange itself.

This tool, for a three inch might be a little expensive, somewhere in the forty-fifty dollar range.

You might be able to do the same job with a electric grinder wheel with a thin blade. If you were to use this nethod stuff some old rags or paper into the pipe below where you will by grinding so to catch anything that might break off the grinder blade.

[massplumber2008]

Hi Glr66...

Heat the old flange off and toss it as it sounds like it is broken at this point. Then you will want to go to a local plumbing supply company and pick up a new brass closet flange. Pick up some plumber's sandcloth, some 50/50 solder, some flux and a flux brush, and a MAPPGAS cylinder and torch head (see image).

When you come back you will want to cut the copper pipe using a DREMEL TOOL with a metal cutting wheel so it is about 1 to 1.5" below the floor. Dry fit the flange and see how it works. If the flange fits so it ends up sitting on the finish floor you can take the flange off and clean the copper pipe (1.5" deep) and the inside of the flange. Once all is cleaned super well you will want to FLUX the pipe and the inner flange and set the flange in place so that the closet bolts will line up properly when you install the toilet.

Now, all you should need to do is to solder this flange into place. The only way to do this will be to use your MAPPGAS torch and heat the flange and the pipe from the INSIDE of the copper pipe. The mappgass torch is the only torch available residentially that can pull this off.

Once heated well, you can start to solder in between the flange and the pipe... solder will flow and fill the joint if you do all this right.

Let it all cool and then secure the flange to the floor and then you can install the closet bolts, the wax ring and install the toilet... :)

Be sure to keep a fire extinguisher handy just in case you overheat something.

Finally, if this seems beyond your ability, get a plumber out and see what he thinks about this... hopefully, he can pull it off. I have done this maybe 10-12 times over the years and it wasn't really that difficult... just a bit tricky getting the nice straight cut using the dremel tool!

If all else fails, you may need to cut into the pipe from underneath and install a Copper x PVC SHIELDED clamp (see image) to transition over to PVC plastic pipe and a new PVC closet flange.

Let us know what you think... OK?

MARK