The blue pex goes to the toilet in our hall bathroom. I’m not sure if it’s leaking from the wax ring or the pex pipe. What say you?
The blue pex goes to the toilet in our hall bathroom. Im not sure if its leaking from the wax ring or the pex pipe.
The blue pex goes to the toilet in our hall bathroom. I’m not sure if it’s leaking from the wax ring or the pex pipe. What say you?
Toilet pipe and vent. I hate how it flips them.
>I hate how it flips them.
PrepHole strips EXIF metadata for your protection. Rotation information is contained in the EXIF data.
squirt a bottle of food coloring in your toilet. Also, sometimes wrapping some toilet paper or tissue around the pipe can show you whether or not it is slowly leaking
I should clarify that it’s not leaking upstairs from under the toilet. The only leaks I see are maybe from the bolts where the tank attaches to the base but they don’t leak all that much if any. The bathroom has tile floor if that matters.
also, is that pex actually stubbing up into the bathroom, or does it come up into a wall cavity and then change to copper or something at the stub out?
If it's the former, then just cut the pex under the house and replace it with pic related.
I’ve thought about looking at that connection too. It comes up from the basement and comes out the wall and attaches to the valve. I don’t know if it’s just bent or if there is a right angle.
Now I’m thinking it could be the toilet tank bolts and gasket. I’ve seen some water back there but not enough to warrant all the water down there
If the wax seal is leaking, then the water saturating the floor platform will absolutely reek of old shit & piss. Like an unmistakably horrible smell.
If it does not smell like liquid death, then it's most likely clean water, which would either be coming from the supply line or from the seal between the tank and bowl.
If that is the case and you've noticed that the toilet constantly runs or starts/stops filling all the time when not in use, then it's leaking from the seal between the tank and bowl.
If the toilet only runs when it's actually being flushed and not at any other time, and you're still getting a lot of (clean) water on the floor, then it's almost surely the supply line that is leaking.
I plan on replacing all the tank bolts and wax ring just in case. If the supply line from the basement is leaking, then how is it not flooding upstairs?
The only water I have seen is coming from the tank bolts. There is no smell.
>The only water I have seen is coming from the tank bolts.
bro, replace the fricking tank to bowl gasket. It takes like 10 minutes.
The normal amount of water to see seeping out of your toilet is "none".
I’m gonna replace the tank bowl gasket and wax ring
I also bought an air mover to point at the subfloor to start drying it out.
I had a similar issue. Turned out to be the boot on the roof vent pipe leaking. Water ran down the vent and puddled under the floor beneath the toilet.
Where would that be located? The boot?
the roof, he said
Sorry. I’m under a ton of stress
I’m hoping it’s a simple fix. I bought an air mover to point at the wet subfloor
If you can get into the attic find the vent stack(s) and look at the bottom side on a sunny day. If you see light in crack that's the rotted rubber. A temporary fix would be to smear RTV all over it and wrap a towel around the stack in the attic and cinch it tight with nylon ties. That got me through the winter and until I could get the boot replaced along with a fresh roof.
My guess at the odds is 95% chance wax ring, 4% pex, 1% chance something else.
Just post from a computer instead of your phone so you can fix the orientation. There is a reason people hate phoneposters.
Anyway to fix it on a phone?
Run pics through Metapho app and strip exif before posting.
Your wax ring is probably leaking. I had the exact same "not a leak but it is most and moldy" problem like you.
I think it came about when the previous owner tiled the bathroom and just said frick it and used two wax rings to make up for the new floor height.
When I got in there the metal band had completley rusted away.
1/3
2/3
fixed, took a day to do the new plumbing and replace the rotted wood.
moved the toilet 2inches further from the wall, but it works.
Was there any sign of water on the tile or was it all underneath the floor?
it was all under the floor.
The biggest clue to me was the toilet was loose. You could rock it a bit, rotate it slightly, ect. When the flange rusted away/fails the toilet starts moving.
Ok cool. I’m gonna replace the toilet tank bolts and gasket and the wax ring
Good luck fren, tell us how it goes when you're done.
I think I see the problem now. The black part on the wax ring doesn’t go down far enough into the pipe. What’s the fix?
The white PVC flange should be catching everything, the black part just helps.
What is under the black? nothing?
There is a gap between the black part of the wax ring and the white pvc pipe. Every time we flush water runs down and kinda goes under and in between and soaking into the floor
It should look like pic related.
another pic, if that helps.
I think what has happened is that someone modified the flange because it didn’t fit the pipe. There is a gap between the flange and pipe.
Look up "wax free toilet seal" and get one sized for your waste pipe. There are several versions, you may want the one that extends down into the pipe quite a ways.
Stay away from the ones that are just a puffy silicone pillow, though. In my experience, they don't compress enough to let the toilet really sit firmly, at least not without tightening the floor bolts way past what I'm usually comfortable with.
The advantage of a wax-less seal, also, is that you can reuse it if you need to pull the toilet for some reason.
BTW, that flange may have been glued over the outside of the existing waste pipe. If done correctly, it shouldn't be leaking at that joint, even though there's a ledge there to catch (literal) crap.
I think they’ve chipped away at it to make it fit. I was planning on getting some expanding foam to spray in the gap and then trim it.
>I was planning on getting some expanding foam to spray in the gap
Don't do that, expanding foam is basically just a sponge. If you're going to fill seal the gap, use silicone caulk.
I’m glad I read this. I was about to go to lowes
So the pipe is a smaller diameter than the flange? or is the pipe just a tad too short to reach the flange?
>is the pipe just a tad too short to reach the flange
What it looks like to me is the bottom part of the flange that's supposed to slip over the pipe is broken off. That's why the opening in the bottom of the flange looks jagged and irregular.
I can see two scenarios that would lead to this. First is the pipe snapped off from the flange and fell down a bit creating the gap.
Second is someone replaced the floor in that bathroom with something thicker. They snapped off the flange, then just reattached the flange afterwards instead of getting a new one.
Whatever they did is that they half assed it or rushed it. I don’t know what the floor was like before but there is tile now.
I’m going to try to fill that gap with silicone I feel like if I try to replace it, it’ll just frick it up more
The second scenario sounds likely. Good news tho, just go buy another flange and connect it.
You might not even need to cut any pipe to extend it.
use the purple pvc glue and that fricker is inseparable.
The black part is not important to the function of the wax ring. It is a guide to help the installer seat the wax ring in the floor flange when they are setting the toilet down.
I should also add that even of you have a plastic flange that does not rust away you may still have a failed wax ring, and/or two rings stacked like I did.
It's a BS fix to finish a tile job fast.
Take the toilet off, it is simple and there are a million videos on it. There's also extended plastic/wax rings, extended flanges, ect. to fix this easily.
That’s pretty much how mine looks but mine isn’t that bad. I also have tile floor in the bathroom.
The pex is under pressure, any leak (even a tiny one) would be spraying water out under pressure. It's not the pex. I concur with the others who said you have either a bad tank to bowl seal or bad tank bolt gaskets causing a slow leak that's seeping around the flange.
I'd pull the whole toilet, make sure there's no rot damage to the floor and that the flange is OK. New wax ring, new seals all the way around, new flapper. Prob new flange bolts too just to make it all nice and neat. Should be less than $30 in parts. Also double check your shutoff and the connection hose to make sure they aren't leaking.
Test it afterwards by eating $50 worth of Taco Bell and turboshitting in it. Check for enchilada water underneath.
Do I put the wax ring on the toilet first and then seat it or can I put the wax ring on the flange first?
Smush onto shitter first.
I put it on the toilet first so I know it is centered
Got the toilet installed. I think I filled the gap between the black part of the wax ring and the top of the toilet pipe.
I didn’t think to measure so the first toilet I bought was too long. The tank wouldn’t sit flush on the bowl. So I bought another one and it seemed to fit with a little adjustment. Had a couple of leaks but I think I got them taken care of.
I’m terrified that it’s gonna start leaking again somewhere.
>new toilet: $100+
>PCV flange, glue, and hack saw: $30
Doing it half assed, priceless
What do you mean?
The flange you put it on was broken and the drain pipe was not connected to it. Instead of buying a new flange, which would have reached the drain pipe, you just got a different, more expensive toilet put on top.
I didn’t want to change out the flange because I was worried that I couldn’t find one the same size. There is a ton of silicone in the gap between the flange and pipe.
I could NOT get the tank bolts off of the old toilet and I think I heard a crack when I was moving it. I didn’t want to risk reusing it.