We haven’t been able to use our basement powder room for quite some time as the toilet has been leaking. The leak also ruined the laminate floor in the room, which made the fix a bigger job than just fixing the toilet.
Since I like to do home improvement stuff in the winter months and since Jake’s now using the adjoining family room as his hangout place, now seemed like a good time to tackle this project. So, last night, I disconnected all of the plumbing and removed the flooring.
On the plus side, it’s now obvious why the toilet was leaking–the offset flange that was installed was pretty much half-assed. I mean, I’m no plumber, but even I can see that it wasn’t installed properly. Plus, when Jake removed the toilet, the wax gasket wasn’t even touching the bottom of the toilet. Sigh. This is why I don’t like hiring people to do work on the house.
Anyway, after a little research, I think I can fix the problem quite easily. I just need to fill in the cement they chipped out to install the offset flange and install a flange spacer to fill the void between the flange ring and the cement floor (since the flange was installed on top of the old flooring and really should not have been). This will set me back about a week since the cement will need to cure before I can screw the flange back in, but I’m not really in a hurry, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
Jake was really pissed about this and wanted to call the original plumber to complain about it, but since it’s not going to be difficult to fix, I’d rather just do it myself so I can ensure it’s done properly this time.
