I’m currently thinking no caulk is best because it allows you to notice if the wax ring is leaking. In fact, this is exactly what happened to me recently. I flushed and noticed water coming out from the sides of the toilet.
What do the fedinauts think?
From the article:
However, leaks are usually noticed from the floor below the toilet when looking up. Leaks under the tub are often found in the same way. In apartments, it is common for the tenant below to be the one who first notices a problem. So this argument for not caulking is somewhat flawed.
This seems like a terrible reason to caulk. The first obvious major flaw with this thinking is that it assumes you have a lower floor??? I only have 1 floor and then it’s concrete below. I can’t notice it from the bottom. Also, if you’re in an apartment, wouldn’t it still be better for the owner to notice the leak from the toilet, instead of waiting for it to get so bad the the person from the bottom notices??
Caulk prevents water from seeping under the toilet.
OK. This I guess makes sense, for certain people, I guess. If your shower or sink is right next to your toilet, I could see water from the outside going in. But in my case, my toilet is not near sinks or showers. So I’m a lot more worried about water from the inside going out.
Caulking around the toilet is good for pest prevention
I guess I can understand this point. Small bugs could hide under the toilet.
Caulk looks better
Disagree.
and helps prevent unpleasant odors
Why would there be odors? The wax ring and the toilet should be making a good seal, no? If there are odors, doesn’t that mean the seal is failing? Wouldn’t that be a sign you should investigate further? Not hide the issue?
Plumbing codes require caulking a toilet to the floor
Because I said so isn’t a good reason…
Pro caulk:
- could prevent bugs from hiding under the toilet
- could prevent water from going under the toilet
Con caulk:
- hides wax ring failures
- hides poor installation
Seems like the cons carry waaaayyy more weight than the pros.
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Keep it simple and let the wax ring do it’s job. If the wax ring is not doing it’s job, you want to know.
Omg, i do bathrooms for a living. Caulk looks good for a while and then it gets gross. And if you ever have to remove the toilet for any reason, you have to deal with all of that. Just leave it alone, it looks fine.
I was always told if you caulk to leave the back open so leaks and smells can be noticed. So, it’s mostly for looks. Some local codes might require it though, so check if your local code was amended.
I have seen aquarium sealant (pure silicone, the clear stuff that smells like vinegar) be used around the flange to seal up any gap between the flooring and the closet flange which prevents leaks from wetting the subflooring and causing it to rot out.
If you have an uneven floor (bad tiles/old house etc) and you don’t trust shims to hold forever, you can also seat the toilet on plaster of Paris; just leave the back open so leaks can’t build up but again this is only necessary in unusual cases.
TLDR; if you don’t prefer the look and it’s not a code requirement and you are confident that you can achieve a solid mount, you can skip it.
This is what I’ve been taught as well.
Plumber of 12 years here, mostly in North America but also did a year in western Europe. Caulk or no caulk is situational.
In residential situations (houses or apartments) I prefer to do the no caulk method. When homeowners see water, they generally realise there is a problem and they call a plumber before the floor rots out; if the toilet is caulked, the standing water can do a shit ton of damage before it gets noticed. Also, silicone / caulk gets nasty looking very quickly without regular cleaning. I only ever installed wall-hung toilets in Europe, and we caulked the bowls but they generally never leak so it’s less of an issue.
In commercial situations, like public bathrooms, I’ll caulk the bowl, leaving a small gap at the very back so that a leak can potentially be detected. These types of installations are almost always on some type of concrete and tile floor, so damage to the floor is much less likely to occur. Also, those toilets take muuuch more abuse than one in a residential home, so the layer of caulk helps secure the toilet from displacement. Additionally, most public bathrooms are cleaned on a (hopefully) regular basis, so the caulking tends to stay a little less nasty looking.
We don’t use “wax rings” here. Leak from the sewer connection is virtually impossible. I’ve been doing plumbing for 15 years and I’ve never seen or heard it happen.
The toilet is attached to the floor with adhesive and then it’s made pretty by caulking the seam. In some apartment buildings they want a little gap left into the adhesive and caulking to let out any water that might get under there when washing the space but this is rare and is almost never done.
Yeah here in the EU, new, they are mostly hanging toilets with a sewer connection via rubber sealed PP pipes.
Then you caulk the top and sides and not the bottom (which is more open) so that any leaks leak onto the back tiles and are immediately noticeable and not into the subfloor (which here in Belgium is usually screed + brick/concrete)
Also extra benefit is that there is no toilet connection with the tile to clean around, you can just mop directly under it and any kids “missing” will be easily cleanable.
Yeah, I think having a hole directly under the toilet is an American thing.
Well even that’s not untypical. The standard way to do this is to just have a 110mm sewer pipe sticking from the floor. You then cut it to a floor level and install the toilet on top of it. The difference is that in the US they use this “wax seal” which is a complete mystery for me. Here we just take an adapter that’s pushed to the inside of the sewer pipe and then the toilet is lowered on top of that one. Water would need to climb uphill past the seals in order to leak.
A few years ago I replaced all of the toilets and my house simply because they were blue and 40 years old and just kinda crappy.
I live in America and I use a rubber seal since if you need to remove and reposition the toilet you can reuse the rubber seal instead of having to clean potentially poop and other bacteria laden wax out of a hole and replace it with another wax donut.
The waxed donuts were three to five dollars a piece and the rubber seals were ten.
Intestine material to see how USA has the hole in the bottum with WAX. TIL I have always (EU) had the hole in the back and it has a rubber push seal
I’m sorry, but where do people use a “wax seal” that apparently just starts leaking willy nilly? What year is it where you live?
A toilet that is installed improperly and is on unlevell ground and wobbles or if the screws get even a little loose and the toilet wobbles every time you sit down, then it will end up with the leaky wax seal.
I agree this is not really “willy nilly”, There is a clear sign of something wrong with the wobble. But a lot of people just aren’t taught this stuff throughout their lives so they don’t know that that’s a problem. So then you end up with people sitting on a wobbly toilet for years and then the wax seal moves and starts to leak.
Uncaulked is the way to go. If you do maintenance and keep everything around it clean. At least where I’m currently living in the U.S. that seems to be the standard. I have seen other countries where the toilet and shower are all together and they just shower and spray down next to the toilet. I don’t know about caulking there.
I have also seen the caulk around that leave the back open as well. That probably also works. Check code is most important, but I personally prefer no caulk look
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I recently found out my wax ring for my toilet was leaking. I noticed because water started leaking out from the base of the toilet. When I lifted the toilet, I found the wax ring almost entirely intact. The entire ring was very black.
That’s why I made this post. Because I have leaky wax rings.
I bought this house 5 years ago. 🤷 IDK why things started failing now.
Nice caulk
However, leaks are usually noticed from the floor below the toilet when looking up. Leaks under the tub are often found in the same way. In apartments, it is common for the tenant below to be the one who first notices a problem.
Ugh, been there
Caulk around the front for looks and stability. Leave the back open to notice leaks immediately.
I generally dont like to because if you have kids, especially boys, it will stain and turn yellow.
Yeah, probably want to leave at least some space for the water to leave. Caulking is better to prevent water from entering since if you prevent it from leaving it’ll just fill up with water.
The seal might be water tight, but thats not the same as air tight. So you could get odors without leaks.
