Leak coming from Anchor Bolt

[jeffsinpdx]

My mother's old house had the bathroom floor rot out from a leaky toilet. I replaced the floor to the pre-existing height and replaced the toilet. The two things that concerned me during installation were:
1) The groove in the toilet flange on one side was extremely shallow to get a bolt to attach onto. &
2) When I put the wax ring on and set the toilet down, historically on every toilet I've done, the wax ring hit the floor and the toilet was sitting slightly above the floor and I had to put some weight on the toilet and compress the wax. This toilet went all the way and rested on the floor without much resistance (I think the toilet flange top was just about dead-even with the top of the subfloor).

When I went to screw down the anchor bolt on the side that had a shallow groove, it kept slipping out and I never was able to get the screw to attach, so the one side of the toilet isn't anchored down (but the other is anchored fairly tight).

Then when I flushed the toilet, I get waste water coming up through the hole where the anchor bolt is (and slightly out of the bottom of the toilet since I haven't siliconed a seal yet).

Any ideas if this is probably just needing to dremmel out that groove to get the bolt to catch and tighten? Or do you think this could have anything to do with the flange being down even with the subfloor? I do know the wax ring did swish and compress somewhat down there as I can see it coming into the anchor holes, but I'm still just concerned if that might be a problem. Also, is there an extention that just brings it up a half inch?

Thanks.

Jeff

 

[Plumber1]

Take the toilet up and reset it with a wax ring and a half.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Norcal1]

Do what you have to do to get that bolt to slide under the flange. Use a dremel or whatever to clear out what's underneath the flange...wood, lino, etc...

Or you could loosen up the screws that are holding the flange to the floor and then slide the bolt in place. That's what I normally do.

Buy an extra thick wax ring or stack a 2nd ring on top of the first, as already suggested, then use a knife to shave down half of the 2nd ring.

Good luck.

 

[jeffsinpdx]

Thanks. You actually gave me an idea. I went down under the house and noticed that the entire drain pipe wasn't bolted to anything (just free-standing). So I decided to jack it up an inch or so and put an oval washer on that one trouble side and was able to screw down the other side and it "sucked" the drain pipe up tight to the toilet. So I was able to stop the leak and all is well.

Thanks again guys.

Jeff