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Seal A Toilet Base To The Floor With Plaster Of Paris

  
  
  

loose toiletIf you’ve ever had a loose toilet from the base of the toilet bowl to the floor, you know you’ll have to break out the tools. If you are lucky, you may be able to tighten the bolts that hold the bowl to the floor, but this is more of a rarity. Chances are, you will need to re-set the toilet and that means replacing the wax ring and bolts.

Here is some information on how to replace the wax ring and toilet bolts. After you have removed the toilet and installed the wax ring and bolts, you will have a somewhat unsightly area where the toilet bowl meets the floor. A lot of homeowners install a bead of caulking along this area which makes for a nice appearance. Caulking will tend to smear if you apply too much, and if you have ceramic tile and grout as your flooring, the caulking can get caught in the grout and is very difficult to remove.

You might try plaster of Paris. I know, most of us haven’t used is since grade school, but for filling in the gap between a toilet bowl and the floor, it’s flawless. Plaster of paris dries quickly so you have to work fast. Mix up a batch and lay some down on the floor along the area where the toilet will sit. Then place the toilet down and secure the bolts. Use a wet sponge and wipe away the excess plaster of paris. You can wring out the sponge in a bucket of water as you go. You will be left with a seamless installation that will make it difficult to tell where the toilet ends and the plaster of paris begins.

Comments

I worked with neighbor, plumbing contractor, as a kid and we set every toilet in a bed of plaster. The procedure was to pencil mark the base of the bowl on the floor and pour the plaster along the mark. Turn the the bowl over and set the wax ring on the bottom outlet. Lower the bowl down onto the floor flange bolts and on top of the plaster at the same time. Use a level and push down, evenly, using the level long and crossways, snug up the bolts hand tight. When the plaster firms up, cut and smooth around the edge of the bowl and clean up (if there is a tile floor involved be sure to scrub out all of the plaster from the grout joints or you'll leave a visible ring of plaster on the floor around the toilet). If, twenty years, later the bowl has to come up the plaster fall away clean.  
Posted @ Saturday, March 02, 2013 2:55 PM by peter vita
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