Stephen Kurzban wrote in
:


Caulk it!

The caulk adds quite a bit of structural integrity to the
installation, which keeps the toilet from rocking until the
wax seal expires. This is ESPECIALLY true if you will have
no idea who will be living there, since the above becomes
especially relevant if the occupants weight is well over
average.

Good point. I think I will.

As to consequences, they are a fact of life - if the seal
goes, hopefully the smell will clue someone in or the leak
will seep through the caulking. If not, either toilet
movement as the floor rots away, or finding your tenant and
your toilet on a lower floor would be a sure sign of a
problem s... . Seriously though, inspection once or twice
a year during summer months from inside the basement will be
sufficient to limit damages if the seal does begin leaking.

As to the inspection hole, do you really think after a few
years you will remember/bother to check? Even if you did,
there would be other signs of a problem too, rendering that
hole simply a (very, very minor) breach of the structural
integrity of the toilet mounting. IOW, only make an
inspection hole if it gives you piece of mind.

To modify my idea of the inspection hole, I could forget the stopper and
use the screen cover, but also add some "litmus" paper of some sort over
the top of the screen. Then it would make it even easier to check, Just
eyeball for a change in the paper. Such inspection holes will eventually
become standard across the world for any toilets above a non-living space,
and be known as "dando holes", in honor of this post.

Best,

Stephen Kurzban

* presuming the flange is properly secured and the toilet
properly mounted to it

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dando wrote:

Replacing flooring in my bathroom, so eventually I will have to make
this choice.

As I see it, the pros to caulking are extra assurance of sealing in
sewer gases, and cleanliness around the floor (if junior goes hog
wild with the pee pee for instance, it doesn't find a nice hard to
reach home under the toilet.) Yuck.

Negative is if the toilet leaks under the base, how would you know
it? Yuck.

So could a solution in my case, assuming the floor is level, be to
drill a hole in the subfloor somewhere in the area that will be
covered by the toilet, so that any leak will be noticed dripping into
the brickfloored old cellar? (I could even use a hole with a rubber
stopper that I could remember to check periodically?

What do you think?

More toilet and subfloor questions to follow no doubt.

Thanks all.