Is the toilet horn always even with the bottom edge of toilet?

[CountryBumkin]

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I was looking at a photo Reach4 posted elsewhere (copied here) showing a cut away of a toilet and I had the revelation that "the horn of the toilet extends to the same level as the base of the toilet". What a great picture for explaining the obvious!

 

[Standardairconditioner]

Not always the case, as some older toilets will have deeper horns than the base.

Often you remove a toilet, set it somewhere, and you will see it wobble like a top because it is trying to balance on its horn.

A deeper horn means less grey water makes actual contact with the ring.

A correct assumption is that the horn's bottom will not be higher than the base.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

It would seem that the wax/waxless seal should not be needed to keep water from leaking out onto the floor. The seal would be needed to keep gasses from leaking. That implies that toilet leaking water at the base would seem to suffer from a problem in addition to a seal problem.

 

[Jadnashua]

The seal does two things: stops gasses from escaping into the room, and directs the discharge into the drain. On many designs, it never gets wetted unless there's a backup in the drain line, but some toilets tend to discharge at a very shallow angle, and there would be splashing to occur without a good seal. Toilets that don't turn the waste to nearly vertical tend to clog more often. On many toilets, you can see the path in the casting from the side. They tend to work best when the outlet is at or near vertical when it enters the drain and makes that last turn in a nice arc verses right-angles.