Three easy steps to repair a wax seal on your leaky toilet

Symptom: There is water on the floor around the base of my toilet or water leakage under the base of my toilet when I flush.

This happens when the wax ring seal is lost. Replacing the wax ring under the toilet should fix this problem.

The first thing to do is to disable this repair the water source and remove all the water in your toilet tank and bowl. A good maintenance tip is to have a shutoff valve installed before the water supply line from the toilet tank. This is very common in most homes. If there is no shut-off water will be turned out to make this repair. Many times an inline valve will be installed where the water enters the house. Water may be off here, or on the street where the water meter is installed. A proper maintenance procedure is to install a stop valve in the right front of the house where the water enters the street. It is also very useful for making plumbing repairs.

Then, once all the water is out of the toilet tank and bowl and the water is off and disconnect the water supply line to the toilet tank. Next Remove the nuts from the bolts that hold the toilet to the floor so that you can lift the bowl on the floor and away from the floor flange (top of the sewer). Inspect the flange deterioration or damage. Pipe flanges rusting iron in time and may need to be repaired or replaced. There are several options for repairing a flange cast. Put a new steel ring on top of the flange cast iron, chipping the rusted flange and replace it with a new cast iron flange, or inserting a PVC (plastic) with a flange gasket expansion are some of the options to repair a damaged or deteriorated cast iron flange. repair techniques for PVC flanges include using a portion of the "half-moon" metal or PVC spacer. All of these can be purchased at your local home improvement store.

The last step, once you have inspected and / or repaired the floor flange is to install the wax ring that you bought at local hardware store. The ring of wax is applied to the bottom of the toilet bowl. Set the flange bolts toilet and carefully set the toilet onto the bolts on the wax ring. Install the nuts on the bolts being careful not to over tighten. Replace the water supply line and open the valve. Check for leaks. Once the tank is full, test hunting to make sure you have a good seal to the flange. Your repair is complete!

Tools needed: a pliers, wrench, hammer.