Can I cover floor drain in 2nd fl bathroom? It's pretty useless.

[WendyMA]

I am replacing a toilet in a 2nd floor bathroom. The catch is, there is a floor drain directly in front of the base of the toilet (more or less between your feet if you're sitting.) The drain is about 21-22 inches from the wall, so the base of most new toilets will extend to cover the drain. I want to know if I can just get a normal toilet and set it over the drain.

Some more details:
- Wood floor, and wood ceiling below.
- The floor does not pitch toward the drain.
- Therefore, when the floor is wet, it just rolls toward the lowest part of the room (100 year old house) and drips down through the ceiling below. This has only happened once and on a small scale and there was no real damage. I get that it's not ideal, but the point is, the drain did not help since no water went to it.
- I have searched far and wide and found only 2 toilets that have small enough bases to fit behind the drain. (The old toilet with its tiny base is no longer made.) The toilets that fit are weirdly modern things (blocky German toilet and a Toto that everyone complains requires a lot of brushing if you know what I mean.) I'd prefer a more normal looking toilet.
- The drain appears to have been unused by the previous owner since it was caked in mouse and/or pet hair when I removed the cover to examine it. I don't think she was periodically pouring water down it or anything. It looks long ignored.
- However, it appears functional. There is water visible in the trap (hope I have terminology right). Does that mean there's probably a trap primer? Is there a way to tell?
- I'm a first time homeowner and have no plumbing experience or knowledge, except what I've read on these forums.

So basically, it's a functional but useless drain, and preserving it means going out of my way to accommodate it with a toilet I don't like. But I'm worried about what will happen if I just cover it up - will it dry out? Or something else bad? Is there a "legitimate" way to plug it? Is it a terrible idea to cover it up?

Please advise! I really need a new toilet. Thanks awesome plumbers who read these!!!
- Wendy

PS I'm also open to other toilets you know of that will fit the small space. (Base can only extend to about 21-22 inches from the wall.) I've done a pretty exhaustive search and come up with Duravit Durastyle and Toto Aquia.

 

[Jadnashua]

If you see water in it, and it's not been actively used to drain things, it probably does have a trap primer in it. A fairly common way to accomplish that is to tap off of the toilet refill, and run some into the drain each time the toilet is flushed. There's no requirement to maintain the drain, but I'm not sure of the best way to cap it. If it actually does have a trap primer, it probably wouldn't hurt to have the toilet partially cover it. With a modern, low-flow toilet, you might not be able to get away with tapping the toilet refill valve as a trap primer since they MUCH more carefully balance the tank/bowl water ratios, and if some of it was going elsewhere, you'd either waste a bunch, or the toilet wouldn't properly refill, and then wouldn't flush properly.

Pull the top off the tank, and or look for a small pipe coming off of either the vanity or the toilet. If you find one, that is probably the trap primer (my guess, is you do have one, since there's water in the trap).

 

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[Kreemoweet]

It seems questionable to me that the thing is actually a "drain". Drains don't have covers. More likely it a
drum trap. Whether it is in active use we don't know. OP should run water in all the bath fixtures with the
cover open to see if there's any activity. Also, hundred-year-old drum traps tend to be made of lead: and
that means lead that has been corroding for a century and may well be on the verge of having a hole in it.
The best thing to do would be to open up the area between floor and ceiling and replace any ancient
lead with more modern plumbing.