Just my luck, the government criminal terrorist with a badge would do it. I'm sure a firearm I never knew I owned would be found in my lifeless hand and there would be no sign of my recording device and the government owned recording device would have a mysterious malfunction rendering it useless. My luck always seems to run like that.
TDD
A few weeks ago, I would have answered as several have that most people could easily do this themselves (especially if you take an extra 2 minutes to separate the tank from the bowl).
That was until I (reasonably young, fit and mechanical) spent 2 days dealing with the aftermath of pulling up a toilet to snake a drain. Brass bolts pulled through the rotted iron flange when reinstalling, flange broke when bolts were moved, was too close to the concrete slab for a steel repair ring, too high for a slip in pvc flange. Finally put anchors in the slab. 40 year old soldered shutoff valve leaked when reopened and had to be replaced (too damaged to just replace innards). 5 other minor things that I'm forgetting...
No, this still shouldn't have taken me two days, but I wasn't in a position to drop everything else to do this all at once, and was expecting a 2 hour job when I started. Luckily, we have two bathrooms...
So, just keep in mind that the potential for "surprises" is there...
My reading of what the OP wrote is that the plumber meant that it was their policy to do the smoke test, and that when doing a smoke test they are required by law to inform the FD, not that they are required to do the test. The second part sounds fairly reasonable. The first sounds like he didn't want the job. But then maybe he's done this before and had to deal with customers claiming he didn't fix the problem when it was actually somewhere else...
My first reply to the OP was that he should simply ask another plumbing company how much they would charge to replace a toilet floor seal.
In other words - don't mention anything about a sewer gas odor. That should alleviate any tendency for the plumbers to raise the issue of a smoke test.
You are right about not costing more than about $100 to replace the wax ring. But there is sometimes additional cost for cutting or drilling out the corroded bolts & nuts, cutting away the floor to replace the rusted out pipe flange, fixing the floor where it's rotted away over a the years because of a leak, etc.
of
Wow, there's a phrase I haven't heard in years. Thanks for making me feel old.
nate
shouldn't be embedded, but you pretty much need a 4.5" angle grinder to get them off unless the previous occupant was anal retentive and used stainless and anti-seize... and even so, I've seen wax ring kits w/ nylocs... WTF? how the hell do you remove a nyloc from a t-bolt?
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.