New toilet install

[Honorary Bloke]

Hey there Bob ... how do you connect them in the states? Now I'm interested ... hope I don't end up with your litlle pass time!

All right, I'll go first. If the explanation isn't clear, I'll try to get some pics.

First the dunny: The waste pipe sticks up from the floor maybe 50mm or less. (Depends on the predicted finished floor height.) The pipe is topped by a ring which is metal and has keyholed bolt slots on the left and right side. These are to accept the toilet bolts which will secure the toilet to the floor.

Now the toilet: typical arrangement but on the bottom side there is a ceramic hole with a lip (which will insert into the pipe in the floor). This lip is an integral part of the fired toilet, not a mechanical connector. On the left and right sides of the toilet are bolt holes which will align with the bolt holes in the metal ring atop the waste pipe. All clear so far?

Now, to fit the toilet, one puts a wax ring (about 25 mm thick and the same diameter as the metal ring) onto the metal ring. The wax ring may have a small rubber lip extending down into the waste pipe to insure a proper fit, but not always. The toilet bolts are inserted through the bolt holes in the metal ring and extend upward (usually you use the wax to hold them in place). The toilet is lowered onto the wax ring, with the toilet bolts extending upward through the bolt holes on the sides of the toilet. The toilet is pushed downward to spread the wax around the waste pipe opening and create a tight seal.

Nuts are run on the toilet bolts and snugged to hold the toilet firmly to the floor. The bolts are then cut off nearly flush with the nut and capped by a ceramic or plastic bolt cap to hide them. A bead of silicone is generally put around the outside at the bottom to keep water from running under the toilet. We often leave a small gap in the silicone at the back so that any water leak from the toilet will become visible as water flowing out from under the toilet.

The toilet is not "set" into anything, just sits on the floor. Can be on wood, tile, vinyl, etc. No mortar bed or silicone bed or anything like that. The bolts hold it snugly to the floor so there is no need for a bed of any sort.

Hope this made sense. If not, I can get pics I'm sure. (But not of mine. I won't pull up the toilet just to assuage curiosity. )

[OBBob]

Gees there are a lot of comments that could be posted on this!! But we'll just leave it alone ... noteing that for some reason Americans appear to need a much more robust sewerage system than us!!

Only kidding ... sounds not that far off our system except we use PVC and rubber fittings an the outlet can go out the floor or the wall.

[Bloss]

Dunno what bricks has been smokin', but all instructions for pan fixing I have seen have for many years offered screw fixing using silicon or mortar bed fixing and few would be done using mortar. See attached.

If you do us mortar it is directly onto the substrate (concrete slab or compressed sheet) and tiles are laid up to the pan. When screw fixing is used the tiles are laid on the pan area first then the pan is fixed using silicon onto the tiles.

The story about heat, air cracking etc from silicon is rubbish as has been mentioned.

The main thing I have found useful is to use soft spacers to level the pan (and gain a little height if need be) on what are often uneven floors and to make sure the silicon is applied as per instructions (using white or colour-matched silicon specified as being for bathroom use, which also generally has anti-mould properties).

Also be sure to use correct screw material - solid brass, the plastic coated ones or even good gal ones - not bright steel or just the thinly coated zinc or cadmium ones, as they will rust.

Geez - your pan should be in place by now . . .

[silentC]

We put all the loos in the new house down with silicone. I don't like it, having always used mortar up until now. They all feel too low to the ground to me

But I got talked into it by my old man, who did all the plumbing. His argument was that if the pan collar ever needs replacing, it's easy to get the pan off the floor. You'll never get a pan off a mortar bed without breaking it. Personally, I think it's just lazy. It's the first thing I look at when I go into someone's loo. It might be a dying tradition but plenty of people are still doing it. Especially in the 'quality' houses up here.

The old man reckons his boss when he was an apprentice used to put the pan screws through the holes, then wrap a bit of lead around the thread. Then he'd set the pan on a mortar bed. Later when it had dried, he'd come back and cinch the screws down. Probably overkill but that was a time when people liked to do things properly instead of quickly and cheaply.

[Bloss]

Height is an issue, but few plumbers bother checking on needs of the family for height. As I said both silicone & mortar are OK by manufacturers and I have used spacers - compressed sheet etc in both cases to gain extra height.

If it is well-installed it is well installed - they can be badly installed using mortar or silicone. I expect fewer tradies would have as much experience now with mortar use as they would with silicone so that might mean more trouble with the mortar.

It would be interesting to know if pans have increased in height over the years - I suspect not, but they should have given that average heights for males and females have gone up quite a bit each generation in the last 90 years.

My parents had a 45mm mortar bed under their pan and it was a great height for us males - my Mum who was all of 5'2" almost swung her legs clear of the floor and was less impressed!