Toilet installation

[Phisherman]

I'm installing a new toilet on a basement floor. I lined up the flange slots with the bowl holes and traced around the perimeter of the toilet. When dry-fitted It slightly rocks on the concrete floor. I can remove small amounts of the concrete with a Dremmel tool. Is there an easier way than trial-and-error to determine the high points? How is this usually done? I'm guessing that this rocking has to be eliminated before I can proceed with the install? TIA

[Pete C.]

I'm sure there are a lot of ways to level it, but personally I'd cut a gasket for it from a roll of sheet gasket material you can get at an auto parts store. If the out of level is slight as you indicate it should accommodate it. If there is really a high spot you will need to knock it down and an angle grinder with a masonry wheel will be 10,000X faster than a dremel.

[mike]

Go to the hardware store and ask for white toilet shims. Lowe's usually has them.

[mike]

For example:

[EXT]

To find the high spots use a straightedge on the floor and mark where it hits. Another method uses old fashioned carbon paper, carbon side down on the floor and lower the toilet and twist and jiggle it to leave marks on the high spots. It will take several attempts to find all the high spots. Also one can cover the entire toilet bottom with tape and lay some thinset mortar on the floor. Press the toilet into the thinset, and clean up what squeezes out. Let it set overnight before moving the toilet. Then do the final install with the seal and bolts. The tape will prevent the thinset from bonding the toilet permanently to the floor.

[RLM]

I would dry fit it leaving the wax ring off and a rag in the drain to keep sewer gas out. Mount bowl and put wooden wedges under edge of bowl and level the toilet. Put the nuts on the flange bolts finger tight. Get grout and pack it around the base of the bowl and around wedges. Let grout dry over night. Remove bowl, install wax ring, remove leveling wedges, remove rag in drain, reinstall bowl. Bolt down and grout in holes left where wedges were.

The grout forms a level base for the toilet.

[beecrofter]

Put a piece of saran wrap on the toilet base lest you cement it to the floor

[mike]

If I was looking to buy a house and I saw that somone had thinset/ mortar/grout under the toilet, I'd knock $1000 off the price of the house or look at another house.

[RLM]

You're right! I should proof read better. Thanks.

[EXT]

If I was looking to buy a house and I saw that somone had thinset/ mortar/grout under the toilet, I'd knock $1000 off the price of the house or look at another house.

When buying a house a $1000.00 is nothing, unless you live somewhere real cheap where it can make or break a deal. Read the original post, he is installing a basement toilet on top or rough concrete. I wouldn't want that either for myself. But, adding a layer of thinset under the toilet and cleaning up the edges would not look any worse than any other part of the concrete floor. The trick is to avoid bonding the toilet to the floor and doing a neat cleanup around the toilet. If you do that you would never know there was a thin leveling layer of thinset under the toilet.

[RLM]

I have ceramic tile floors that the toilets are set this way with the same color grout.

I would show you the door and tell you to look further down the road.

[mike]

Great. Gimme $1000.

[DerbyDad03]

re: would not look any worse than any other part of the concrete floor.

It sounds like you are assuming that the floor will be left unfinished, not something I am able to gleen from the OP.

When I was installing a toilet on a concrete slab, I found that it rocked. I used enough leveling compound to bring up the low spots and then feathered the edges out way from the toilet. A sheet of linoleum, extended under the toilet, covers all...

[Blattus Slafaly]

Set the toilet down, draw a line around the base. Remove the toilet and tile around the drain and extend beyond the edge of the base and level the tiles by taping them. After it's dry, put on the wax ring and toilet and bolt it down. Later on you can tile the rest of the floor.

[Phisherman]

I want to leave the floor as is--concrete sealed with sealed epoxy for easy cleaning. The floor is smooth, but there is a floor crack (1/8" wide) running right through the middle of the PVC toilet drain, causing the unevenness. I tried temporarily leveling the toilet with a roof shingle near the rear of the base (that worked). I'm leaning toward the toilet shims (if I can find these) since I don't have an easy way to grind the floor level.

[Claude Hopper]

You could also put i inch flat washers on each corner of the base and the bolts. Try one, it it still rocks try two.

[Colbyt]

I know I have purchased them at Lowes and I bet HD has them also. Any real plumbing supply house will have them.

Colbyt

[MLD]

Haven't read all the other posts but I can tell you what I did for a shower base that had gaps all around it causing it to rock a bit on a concrete floor. Got a couple of can of expandable foam, you know, the stuff used for insulating in odd places. Went around the base and sprayed the foam until it finally started oozing out from under the base. Let it harden over night and then trimmed to fit. Worked like a charm, the base is rock solid. In your case don't know what would happen if you ever wanted to lift the toilet off the floor. MLD

[Michael B]

An angle grinder can be such an excellent tool for so many things. I once had a similar situation, I used a cheap lipstick from the dollar store on the bottom, then ground down the high spots that were readily apparent.

[Red Green]

"EXT" wrote in news:48f38016$0$33687$ [e-mail]:

I often use waxed paper for "no-stick but shape" applications.