"NASTY job" Topic

I just finished with one of the nastiest jobs that you can do around the house-replacing the wax seal at the base of the toilet.Thing had been leaking for awhile,fortunately the flooring was still in decent shape,just a little damp,but not soft.UGH!I just thought that I would vent alittle on the forum,wondering what other's least favorite jobs around the house are.

Yea, that is really gross to work with. Only had to do it once…. One of the few house repairs that my dad "showed" me how to do :)

Back when I was living at home.

I've replaced dozens of those. That's not too terribly nasty. Now, having to clean up after an idiot tenant flooded the downstairs toilet due to her using a quarter of a bog roll with each dump is a completely different story.

Wyatt

The first winter that I ever lived on my own, I was renting a basement apartment with two floors (two apartments each floor) above me. During a big cold snap the sewer line in the street froze and I awoke one morning to the sounds of my kitchen sink and bathtub gurgling.

Gurgling up the contents of all the upstairs apartments toilets every time anyone flushed…

…I had six inches worth in my tub by the time the pipes thawed again that afternoon.

For a few years my Dad and I owned some rental houses, and I've got stories-I spent one Christmas Eve with a backhoe digging up a sewer line that was blocked. It was the coldest winter here in years-30 below or more with windchill-we broke a tooth on the backhoe and finally had to give up because the ground was so hard-never managed to do more than dent the ground.

Anyway, the nastiest cleaning I ever had to do was cleaning out a wasteline after a renter flushed a sanitary napkin down the toilet and then followed it with the stuff you are supposed to use a toilet for. Do that job once or twice and you become very careful about what you try to flush down a toilet.

Dennis

All this talk just reinforces the reason to call a plumber to handle all this shi…I mean stuff.

D.

I'd rather replace a wax seal than have to clean the filter on our septic pump. Which reminds me I need to do that before snow flies. Drat.

Mark

Had a mobile home that the drain line was reduced from a 4" to a 3" right at the edge of a concrete slab which covered the tank. Unfortunately, the thing plugged up every few weeks into the spare bathroom tub about an inch. Then I'd have to crawl under the house, pull the clean out cap, dodge the torrent of raw sewage draining out just to rod the line clean. After about a year of this, finally got my dad to help me jack hammer the slab up and re-plumb the line into the septic tank.

THAT was nasty…replacin the toilet isn't that bad.

Um,I'll quit complaining now….

It's great doing something like that yourself – if you're not a trades person already, it's a nice feeling of accomplishment, don't you think? I've replaced a couple of toilet seals – normally not so bad a job, really. However…

Our main bathroom is directly above the small (but full) bathroom in our basement – the latter is the one used when we have games. Last year, my daughter came running up exclaiming that the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom had caved in!

What had happened was the flange of the upstairs bathroom was cracked. It looked as if the previous owner had redone the upstairs bathroom (and done a not bad job) and just reattched the toilet to the broken flange because when I went downstairs and removed the panel ceiling above the bathtub, there was about three inches of sewage all over the 8 by 4 panel. Eventually, it had just given away.

I was lucky enough that all of this mess had tumbled mostly into the bathtub, but I still gagged and puked several times while cleaning it up.

I'm surprised we never ever smelled this before it caved in.

I don't do welding or major soldering and the upstairs bathroom pipe was lead, so I had a plumber come in and fix things.

Bottom line is before replaceing your seal, make G-Dang sure the flange is still functional. Otherwise, even if it's imperceptible, you'll end up with a "rockling toilet" and eventually consequences like the above!

Yup!

Raw effluent is fun stuff.
Been a Plumber for the past 15 years.

I concur on all the above advice especialy the advice on the flange seal and function.

Grunt

Three Rules:
1) Payday is Friday.
2) Sh*$ rolls down hill.
3) Don't stick your fingers in your mouth.

Yeah,I would never consider doing a major pipe myself,but rather call a plumber.Little things,though,I would always do.Like a few weeks ago,the little lever for my tub drain wouldnt work,and though I had no idea what lay behind the metal plate,I pulled out my trusty screwdriver,and it turned out to be an easy fix.

Probably too late to for you, but here are a couple of wax seal tips:

- Use a cheap plastic sheet rock spatula to scrape off the old seal (since the wax is a bitch to clean up)
- Have several plastic shipping bags available to "grab" the chunks of wax off of the spatula

- Unless it doesn't look like the bolts have been cut, BUY NEW BOLTS
- Ignore the driections to put the seal on the toilet, and put it directly on the waste pipe. This also helps keep the bots aligned
- Get One of those wax seals with the plastic "flange" on the bottom, they are much easier to work with.
- If you are heaving a probleb getting the bolts through the holes in the tiolet, tie string around the bolts, and thread them through the holes in th toilet. If you have a helper, they can pullk the string taut, otherwise, tie th string behind your neck (or hold it in your teeth)
- Do not over tighten the bolts!