Ask the Buiilder: Dealing with leaky toilet flange

New flooring installed over old can bury a toilet flange, as pictured here. Don't assume that your flooring contractor knows how to reseat a toilet after a job like this.

As a columnist, it's my job to save you money and time on every repair or improvement project you plan for your home.

While I try my best, I’m thwarted by at least two factors. First and foremost, there are thousands of contractors who do less than acceptable work. I hear about them from readers like you every single day.

The next problem is you. It's tough-love time. In every autopsy I do for homeowners who are victims of poor workmanship, I find a fatal mix of hope and misplaced trust.

It's natural for you to trust that the person you hire will do a good job. But hope is an emotion that should only be reserved for things you can't control, like the weather and winning lottery numbers. Don't ever hope the job goes well. Do your due diligence to ensure a happy ending.

Allow me to share two examples. The first one happened just last week. A young woman my wife and I know from church reached out to me. She was desperate for plumbing help after she noticed a sudden a leak in a ceiling in the lower level of her condo.

Knowing how to prioritize leaks, I asked if water was dripping constantly. No, she replied, "It's just a water spot that appeared that wasn't there a few days ago."

I knew it wasn't an emergency such as a pinhole leak in a water supply pipe, which would cause a stream of water or a constant drip. I texted her that I’d be there the next day.

Once I arrived at the condo and looked at the stain, it was time for questions. I asked: "What happened here in the past few days that was unusual? Have you had strangers in the house or contractors?"

She responded, "Oh, yes, just a few days ago a flooring contractor finished installing a new laminate floor upstairs."

We climbed the flight of steps and I walked over to the spot just above the water-stained ceiling below. I was standing inside a half bathroom. The young woman added: "The flooring contractor took off the toilet and put it back down after he installed the flooring. He said everything would be fine."

While the flooring contractor's intentions may have been good, he broke the all-important toilet gasket seal and buried the toilet flange with the new laminate flooring. Now, each time the toilet was flushed, water splashed around under the toilet, and some leaked out around the toilet flange. It then passed through the hole cut in the sub-flooring for the drain pipe. Gravity then deposited the water on the drywall fastened, for the time being, to the bottom of the floor joists.

This young woman only reached out to me because she couldn't get local plumbers to return her calls. How many hundreds of dollars of extra expense were caused by the flooring contractor's lack of understanding of how to properly reseat a toilet? (Just so you know, I’m going to fix the flooring contractor's mistake for free.)

Two years ago, a different homeowner hired me to figure out if something in the home was making his wife feel seriously ill. Three different doctors couldn't figure out the cause of her sickness. After talking with the husband on the phone for just 15 minutes, I told him I was positive she was being poisoned by methane gas.

I simply asked questions that the doctors might not have posed. As the phone call ended, I told the homeowner to open the windows in the house and keep them open until the repairs could be made. His wife started to feel better within hours.

In this case, too, a flooring contractor had made the same mistake. He installed a new marble floor on top of a ceramic tile floor inside a half bathroom. This contractor broke the seal between the toilet and the flange.

The homeowner paid me to specify how the repair was to be done and to be present when a plumber came out to reseat two toilets in the house. It ended up being an eight-hour consultation, as his home was 80 miles away.

I wrote about the young woman's problem in my most recent newsletter. A remodeling contractor based in Texas reached out to me after reading it to recount several similar horror stories. He finished by saying: "I caution my customers not to let the flooring guys mess with the plumbing. Really smart tile/flooring guys know better and state up front they do not remove/reinstall plumbing fixtures."

You can prevent bad workmanship, to a large degree, by investing the time to discover how jobs should be done. Yes, it takes work to do this. It's not easy. But by doing it, you remove hope from the equation. Don't forget that I offer phone coaching to let you know all the things that can go wrong with one of your upcoming jobs.

The husband of the sick wife wrote me a heartfelt note thanking me for putting an end to his wife's misery. Save a stamp and let's talk before you start your job!

Subscribe to Tim's free newsletter at AsktheBuilder.com. Tim offers phone coaching calls if you get stuck during a DIY job. Go here: go.askthebuilder.com/coaching.

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