bashley
New Member
Howdy all - and thanks for being here and providing such great help!
In replacing our upstairs toilet we found that the cast iron flange was rusted and wrecked. From reading some of the threads in this forum, I think I have the proper solution, but I would love to hear whether I'm right or just completely out of my mind (my wife has her own opinions on that).
I'm thinking that I need to have a real plumber come out and remove the old cast iron flange. It seems to me that it might be best if I just had them put a new one on. I guess I'd prefer to go with cast iron again if possible.
Now, the only other problem is that some time ago some previous DIYer decided to raise the bathroom floor. So, the floor is actually (from the bottom up) joists, subfloor, tile, some sort of masonry or concrete filler, more tile. I'm thinking the best thing to do would be to pull up the floor all the way down to the joists, or the original subfloor if that's still in good condition, and fill back up using plywood or OSB, then lay my tile on top (making sure that the bottom of the closet flange is resting on the tile).
But, it seems that someone in the past thought that it wasn't necessary to have a subfloor available to fasten the closet flange to. They just packed it with masonry and/or some sort of hard putty like substance. Is that something that could work so that I don't have to tear up the floor? It doesn't seem right, but someone did it at least once before.
So, anyway, if you can see the attached photo, I have chiseled out around the closet bend and flange. Does any of what I'm thinking and doing make sense?
In replacing our upstairs toilet we found that the cast iron flange was rusted and wrecked. From reading some of the threads in this forum, I think I have the proper solution, but I would love to hear whether I'm right or just completely out of my mind (my wife has her own opinions on that).
I'm thinking that I need to have a real plumber come out and remove the old cast iron flange. It seems to me that it might be best if I just had them put a new one on. I guess I'd prefer to go with cast iron again if possible.
Now, the only other problem is that some time ago some previous DIYer decided to raise the bathroom floor. So, the floor is actually (from the bottom up) joists, subfloor, tile, some sort of masonry or concrete filler, more tile. I'm thinking the best thing to do would be to pull up the floor all the way down to the joists, or the original subfloor if that's still in good condition, and fill back up using plywood or OSB, then lay my tile on top (making sure that the bottom of the closet flange is resting on the tile).
But, it seems that someone in the past thought that it wasn't necessary to have a subfloor available to fasten the closet flange to. They just packed it with masonry and/or some sort of hard putty like substance. Is that something that could work so that I don't have to tear up the floor? It doesn't seem right, but someone did it at least once before.
So, anyway, if you can see the attached photo, I have chiseled out around the closet bend and flange. Does any of what I'm thinking and doing make sense?