Toilet Flange Question

[West104]

Hello all. My building manager has told me my toilet is leaking into the bathroom below. The building is about 18 years old. Upon his inspection this is how he describes the problem. I have a 12 inch toilet on a 10 inch rough in. The toilet is clearly hitting the back of the wall with 2 layers of 5/8th sheet rock. The bolts securing the toilet have been moved to the extreme forward position on the flange. I measure the bolts at 11 inches. So basically the bolts have been pushed forward an inch on the flange. When the toilet is secured to the floor bolts part of the toilet horn misses the drain opening and hits the floor. Question: Is it possible to push the bolts that far forward on the flange. If the toilet horn is sitting on the floor wouldn't this fall under a building code violation or a health code violation? Based on how a flange is designed it looks like the bolts could be moved forward or backward. But when you move them back and forth the distance between them decreases. Would there be that much play in the holes of the toilet to accomodate this distance variation? Thanks for your input. I'm now having a licensed plumber look at the problem but wanted to share this with the professionals and get their insight.

 

[e-plumber]

"I have a 12 inch toilet on a 10 inch rough in."

The way I see it the problem could be corrected quite easily by installing the right size toilet for the rough-in measurement.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jimbo]

Some toilet flanges have slotted holes for the bolts. This allows the bolt location to be rotated so that the alignment of the flange with the bolt locations parallel to the back wall is not so critical. SO, if the bolts are moved in those slots, it would usually result in the bolt pattern being "cockeye" and the toilet might be crooked. However they managed to squeeeze the toilet onto the bolts, the misalignment of the horn into the drain will cause a leak and will NEVER be right. The simple and ONLY solution to this is for them to install a 10" rough toilet. Boggles the mind that this was not done to begin with, or that they at this point are even considering anything else. My bill for just talking about this already exceeds the cost of a new toilet!

 

[West104]

Thanks

Jimbo and E Plumber. Thanks for the insight. The only other thing is that the wall is off. An engineers I've spoken with have told me the standard roughin is 12 inches and he thinks the wall is off. I live in a high rise apartment and other people in my line are having a similar problem with leaking toilets. I'm really not going to know the full story until the plumber pulls the toilet. Then I'll find the true rough in. I'm more concered with building code violations and health code violations to be quite honest. I've been in the building 10 years and never had a problem before. I would have thought if it was not installed properly then it should have leaked from the start but I guess I'm wrong. Thanks for your help.