Two toilet questions:

[James100]

Hi all,

Got very close to fitting my first toilet at the weekend, but could do with getting a couple of questions answered to get me over the finish line!

1. Is it OK to have the first couple of feet or so of your soil pipe travelling slightly uphill? In my previous toilet, the flow from the back of the toilet to the soil pipe looked pretty flat, but my new toilet's connection is very slightly lower, so the first part has to travel slightly uphill (it's only about 2cms lower). Is this OK, if the connections are watertight?

2. When connecting my cistern to the pan, the toilet came with two dome shaped plastic connections, that you pushed into the bottom of the cistern and screwed in place. I did it as tightly as I could, but there is still a slight leak from the bottom of those when the cistern is more than about half full. Is there something like silicone that I can put on that connection to make it watertight?

Any help for a novice would be much appreciated!

James

 

[dontknowitall]

1. No! I think official fall is something like 9mm per metre - can you cut the soil pipe a little?

2. Have you used a doughnut washer? (Big, thick washer thingy that fits over the outlet of the flush valve.)

 

[easyt]

I might have had a problem replacing mine with a newer one but as I was tiling the floor with 7mm ceramics I managed to gain about 11mm by laying adhesive a little thicker.

You can also get raiser plinths. [DLMURL="http://www.adaptationsupplies.com/80410/info.php?p=2"]AKW TOILET PLINTHS 50mm,75mm,100mm /BALENA 8000 AP/CLOS-O-MAT-PALMA[/DLMURL]

How much too low is it ?

 

[James100]

Dontknowitall - yes, a doughnut washer on the flush valve as you say, but the leak is coming from the 2 connection points between the cistern and pan. Could I use silicone tape for that, or is that just for screw threads?

Easy - it's very close, but probably 1-2cms lower than the previous toilet. The soil pipe coming into the cloakroom is sitting on the skirting board as it comes into the room, so I could lower this slightly by filing down the soil pipe's support, but presumably that will still create an upward flow, just that it's more spread out and not just at the beginning. Thanks for the tip on plinths, but would be a shame to have to ruin the look of the toilet by putting it up on stilts like that! Why can't they make the pipes all a standard height?!

 

[dontknowitall]

Before the water reaches the connection points it will be flowing from the outlet of the flush valve (on its way from the cistern to the pan). This is where you need to stop the leak with a doughnut. When you tighten the two connection butterfly nuts they squash this doughnut to make that connection water tight.

In theory at any rate!

If you silicone the butterfly nuts the next person to fix the WC won't thank you and the water will find its way out somewhere else!

 

[Gray0689]

The 2cm should be ok
And if the leak is from the 2 screw that attach the systern to pan yes use a bit of silicone under washers and tighten then clean off

 

[easyt]

Personally I would mot lower the pipe if it will create backfall. If that were the case I would use an offset pan connector so that the extra 1 or two cm lift is at the beginning.

If the leak is from the bolts I presume these pass right through the cistern and not attached to a metal plate beneath the cistern. If that is the case then silicone under the washers beneath the bolts on the inside would not be a problem for future maintenance, Silicone affecting the wing nuts would be.

 

[dontknowitall]

I forgot about those different bolts!!

 

[defendertd5]

james100

have you screwed the cistern to the wall? if so you may have distorted the doughnut washer and put unequal pressure on it causing aleak which will show up at the cistern connectors
i recently discovered this problem on a callout