Rant - Licensed plumber doesn't mean squat

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Chris59

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Quick introduction. I'm a new home owner. Just moved into a place that's less than 3 years old.
Hardly lived in by the previous owner as they had temporary housing elsewhere. Zero plumbing experience till I had to start working on the house.

Looked at replacing the smaller toilet that's in place with a new elongated one. First up in my adventures is that it's using a 10-inch tough-in. This limited the choices I had and I had to even special order it from one of the online sites, for roughly 2x the price. Bathroom isn't exactly small as it's 8' x 5'. So, I don't think any plumbing codes would have kept them from using a 12" rough-in.

Done, ordered toilet and it came a few weeks ago but I just didn't have time to start work on it yet.
Went about replacing it today and got a big surprise when I popped off the toilet today. The front of the flange is at least 1/2 inch higher than the back. Whomever did the job decide to hack it to work and built up a layer of some white hard putty that was 2-3 inches in front of the flange and had set the toilet down on it to stablize it. I don't think it fully worked because the wax in the back half was completely gone and had never sealed (nor did we see it on the underside of the old toilet). I'm surprised the toilet did not leak. But, maybe we didn't notice the leak yet and it had been leaking something because the closet bolts had green mold/algae on it growing.

This is on top of the pvc pipes that we had to replace in the kitchen sink because it was leaking all over the place at every place up to and including the P-trap.

Considering I live on long island where the town/villages required approved contractors for work to only be performed (plumbing, electrical, etc) -- it's all a goddamn scam.
 

Terry

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If the toilet was roughed at 10", it's because the framers didn't lay out the joists correctly. The flange should have been installed level though.

During a new home construction for permit process, they require a water test with at least ten feet of head.
That should have been handled when the plumbing inspection took place.
If you are talking the slip joint PVC connections from the sink to the wall, those could have been bumped by anyone. Water in a cabinet should always be correctly quickly.
 

WJcandee

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Well, I wish you had come here first, then your rant would be shorter. Sounds like whomever did the plumbing (and it doesn't mean it's a licensed plumber; contractors on Long Island work around this all the time) did mess up the level of your flange, but not necessarily the position. Ten inches, as Terry points out, is usually the default if the framers put the joists in the wrong place.

And the glob of paster of paris isn't unusual either. Plumbers on Long Island seem to have a tradition of "setting" a toilet in the stuff. It isn't required by code, it is rarely done elsewhere, but they do it here. Indeed, the idiot at my local Ace berated me one day because he said I wasn't installing the toilet correctly if I didn't "set it" in that glop, regardless of what Toto's instructions said. Uh-huh.

Had you come here first, you could have been directed to a Toto Drake for about $220 which would have had a ten-inch rough in version available, and given that it's one of the best basic toilets out there, it wouldn't have been an issue for you. Or, if you wanted something more schwanky, Toto has a number of skirted toilets that use what they call the Unifit adapter so that they can be installed perfectly on a 10", 12" or 14" rough-in.

If you want the name of an excellent plumbing company on Long Island for future reference, send me a message and I will give you a reference that we have used -- they aren't cheap, but they do consistently-excellent work.

Have a look at the new Korky waxless seal, which can help cure some ills, although a crooked flange may not be one of them.
 
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Reach4

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At 12:06 in, this Set-Rite video explains how you might use their product to handle your flange tilt situation.
 
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