Replacing a Toilet Seal

If you notice water seeping out onto the tile or linoleum from the bottom of the toilet bowl you would be wise to change the seal. If you leave it too long it can do a lot of damage if it gets under the linoleum or tile; also the floor can rot before you are aware of it, and then it gets expensive to fix.

Ladies, this is easy to do. If you have vise grips or a spanner that fits the hold down bolts, there are two, occasionally four. Sometime they are capped with a white cup, which is held on by putty or some other gunk. Pry that off and if necessary clean off the top of the bolt so you can get at it with a wrench or vise grips.

Study this for a moment till you’re confident this will work out, that you can get the bolts out, or the nuts off the top of the studs. Don’t worry about damaging them; get a new set, much nicer to put together.

The next step: Shut the water off the tank supply. This shutoff valve can be stubborn to close. After years of not being used, it hates to be moved. When you’re sure you have it shut off, flush the toilet; wait a moment. Make sure the water isn’t still trickling in.

Next: Take a towel and sop up all the water that’s left in the tank and the toilet bowl, so when you tip it forward no water, or very little will spill onto the floor.

By now you still haven’t disabled the toilet; if you figure you haven’t got something to do the job you can always turn the water back on.

You should have a new wax seal with a flange that drops down into the sewer pipe. Much better than the plain wax seals.

New hold down studs: two in a pack with nuts and washers. Should be all brass, which never rusts.

Now the next move: After the hold down bolts, or nuts has been removed, place a non,skid tub mat, or a rubber mat in front of the toilet for it to rest on it when you tip it forward. Now tip it forward, don’t lift it; it’s pretty heavy. Tip it all the way till the top front edge of the tank sits on the mat.

Oh my! What a mess. Before you start on that, a pair of cheap plastic gloves will keep your hands clean. A putty knife comes in handy for scraping away that gunk. Lift the old seal off the sewer pipe, but before you discard it, save a little of the old wax that’s clean; we need a bit of that later.

If there were studs (a short brass rod with a thread on both ends, and it’s still securely screwed into the floor on each side of the sewer pipe) just leave it there if the threads on the top are still good.

If there were bolts holding the toilet, you might be better off to screw new studs firmly into the holes the bolts came out off, because after the wax seal is in place and the toilet in place, it’s hard to line it up.

Now everything is clean, and the studs are in place, set the new seal in place; the studs have pushed up through the seal on each side of the sewer pipe.

Now to get the toilet bowl ready: clean around the outlet from the toilet very thoroughly, then take the wax we saved and rub it well around the outlet; if it doesn’t want to stick you might have a leaking seal later; you might have to work at it till it sticks real well. Then you’ll have a good seal. Water can find its way between the porcelain and the wax unless you do this; just a bit of added insurance.

Okay: now tip the toilet back; if you haven’t moved it, it should go back over the hold downs perfectly, move it around a bit if you have to, till the studs pop up through. Rock it back and forth till it settles to the floor. Drop the oblong washers over the studs, position them and put the nuts on, snug them lightly. Make sure the tank is square with the wall.

Reconnect the supply line, making sure the float arrangement in the tank hasn’t moved, or it might leak. If it does, shut the water off again, sop out the tank and undo the nut under the bottom of the tank that holds the float, lift the float assembly out and rub some of that wax on both sides of the fiber washer, then put it back and tighten securely. Reconnect the supply, turn it on and see what happens.

One more thing: keep tightening the hold down nuts, but don’t over tighten, till the toilet stops settling as the wax seal compresses. They do compress; many a toilet was never tightened properly and started to leak all too soon. Jonsig.