Thanks for giving me good ideas on my dirty project. I did it slightly in a different way.Our toilet had a high flange with old sticky/hardened wax, the residual of which caused slippage of the FluidMaster Better_Than_Wax blue ring (with the sponge intact). There was also hardly any room to manipulate with two hands. These are the additional steps that I took:1. I had to put a nut/washer on top of the bolt/blue_ring to stabilize it and prevent slippage when I put the toilet down. This helped a lot also when I tightened the additional bolt on the toilet since I did not worry about the bolts spinning while tightening.2. If you do not wipe out the old wax completely, it will cause slippage of the blue ring. Turpentine is what you need to clear the residual old wax. Turpentine worked better than rubbing alcohol and nail polish remover for me. In some parts that wax had hardened, I used my chiseling tool (similar to what doctors use to remove casts) to get it cleaned out first before turpentine..3. The bolts in a toilet are long so a TALL rachet/socket (7/16 or 1/2 inch) set will let you tighten or loosen the bolts easily.4. After tightening the bolts and checking for leaks, I used toilet shims to stabilize and level the toilet. The extra plastic shim(s) sticking out can be cut with a knife.5. Gloves are highly recommended.Good luck.
Update: I am not sure why anyone would thumbs down this. I have done this several times and it works great. If you are having problems with rocking, your flange is not secured to the floor correctly or is higher than 5/8 above the floor.
Damn! Where was this video last night? I have that exact same problem and already have the better than wax kit. Thankfully I hadn't thrown away the black gasket but I did spent a lot of time putting in some toilet base plates only for them to make the entire toilet too tall for my liking. I'll be pulling that sucker up tomorrow and trying this!
Great information. Just to confirm that this would work for my situation. Removed tile floor and some luan. Will be installing vinyl plank which is about 3/16". Currently the top of the flange is 5/16" above the subfloor. That give
Sorry, trigger finger. Need to edit. The gap between the bottom of the flange and the subfloor is 5/16". Would I be able to use a standard wax ring with this high a gap? Thank you.
Hey Just did this and it worked great. Sepersted the black seal from the kit. My flange was 3/4 of an inch above the floor and that left me with about an 8th of an inch to seal. The wax just did not work I tried 3 different layouts including the one with the plastic. I out this seal in and it worked first try. Also much less messy. Thanks for the tip Mike.
Can you do this with a regular plastic flange? There is a lip on the inside that gets covered usually by the rubber sleeve that slips in there in this case we wouldn’t be using that correct so would that be OK?
Awesome. I’ll try that out. I’m doing a basement and the plumber roughed in the drain and glued the flange on so that the subfloor went under neath it and to top it off the floors pretty unlevel so the front of my toilet is probably 3/4” high so this will bring it down to a manageable height Thanks!
i think my floor is shrinking, i have a 2 in. gap in the front of toilet base and about an inch in a 1/4 in back, house smells like an outhouse now, i think I need a new sub floor. i bought a foam ring about 6 months ago and i guess its been leaking since then and never noticed until 2 weeks ago, well when i went to put a new wax ring on i noticed the foam one was shredded😮
Hey, When I took off my wax ring and doesn't u anything. My toilet flushes great but when I use any ring for my toilet. It doesn't work that good. Can you tell me why? Thanks
Mike I'm having the opposite problem! I put new flooring and now it raised tbe toilet too high so when j go to put it through the flange bolts there's not enough bolt threads to grab it! What do i do!!
I agree with a couple of the comments on volume. It was fine for most of the video. Just what I believe was the most important part of the video. The ideal proper height of the flange when a doing a flooring job. You did mention 5/8 in the beginning. When elaborating about height and solution, you weren't speaking into the mic. About wobbly etc. Very Little info here on dealing with a flange 3/4" higher than finished floor. Maybe if you fine tuned the video with a flange the bottom of the john, WHICH WAS HELPFUL, and show the different levels of when john touches floor with the various types of seal's. WAX RINGS. I also question the foam stopping water long term. I have bought a couple of these and didn't like them at all. Usually as a contractor we find floor flanges that are too low. People just keep adding to the floor, Now I have case where all that was removed back to 3/4" sub floor and the flange is at least 3/4" higher than brand new floor. Trades people should always consider the next guy who has to do their job. In the end either the home owner or the carpenter will deal with the cost. A good builder/carpenter if he's subbing out the floor wouldn't let this happen. But the homeowner is often taken advantage of. Overall a good start to correcting problem. If you fined tuned and renamed with some thought, I think this would help your watches A LOT.
It's not foam. It's neoprene. you can question whatever you want. They work. it's a heck of a lot better than wax. Wax blows out. Wax is melted by chemicals, etc. Oh, on that note, Clorox wipes do a great job of cleaning wax from toilet tools, etc. Anyway, back to the point. I'm not a professional CZcamsr. I don't monetize videos. I have no desire to grow a CZcams channel. I'm making an occasional video to try to help a few people and, more importantly to me, to document what I do for the homeowners I work for. I know the neoprene works. It's what I use in my own house. I have a raised foundation I've been under there many times to inspect there are no leaks at all on any of my toilets. If the toilet flange is just too high, then obviously some reworking is going to have to be done. The toilet in the video was on the absolute limit of what you can use this method to accomplish. good luck to all and if you don't want to take my advice, you don't have to. I'm not the law.
@@mikemorrison4860 RIght on, Mike Morrison. That's what you are-- a genuine article. Thanks for adding to the selection of straight-up, unselfish, helpful advice on CZcams.
@@mikemorrison4860Neoprene is a foam. it's synthetic rubber. it is produced as both open an closed cell foams in varying densities. The piece you used in this video is VERY different from neoprene wetsuit material for example.
Hi thanks for this. There weren’t many simple solutions I could find but this. Would this work if the flange is only 1/4 inch too high? You mentioned 5/8. If not, do you have a better solution? Thanks
If it's 1/4 inch higher than the floor level that's actually the perfect level for a standard installation. You don't need to do this. you just need the blue portion of the better than wax that comes in the box; without the spacer is typically good.
One more thing to consider is the actual diameter of the flange opening. Check out my other video entitled WHAT YOU CAN DO WHEN THE TOILET FLANGE OPENING IS TOO BIG
Probably not the best solution in your case. If the flange is very secure to the floor, you should have enough gap between the bottom of the toilet and the flange to use a different method. It is impossible for me to make an accurate assessment without seeing it in person. So, good luck with that. Honestly, if it was me, I would probably peel the layer off like you see me do in the video and stick it directly to the bottom of the blue part of the kit. The plastic piece is going to cause it to have too much between and not enough squish for the high side.
I'm having the same problem I think . Flange is warped and won't let the toilet sit flush, squishes wax ring flat. Guess I'm going to try this trick plus try several shims and caulk around it unless I can find the right Dremel tools to cut the flange out .
I dont get this at all. The issue is a too high flange so you need to lower the flange or raise the toilet to fix the issue so the wax seal isnt crushed to a pancake. Shim the toilet to stop rocking or set it in plaster ring to keep it level and at the right height. Adding a foam ring makes it worse.
Ideally, of course, you would lower the flange. However sometimes it's just not possible or a feasible option without very intrusive or extensive work. The thing about this method is if the flange is 100% solid to the floor, then when you tighten the bolts, the foam compresses to whatever configuration it has to and is a very good seal. You don't have to worry about the squeeze out that you get with the wax.
I having this exact problem. Mine is at least a half inch above the floor maybe more. It had wax and it was smashed super thin and they used a tone of silicone on the bottom of the toilet to secure it. I ripped out the linoleum and the toilet started leaking. I pulled and cleaned it. And took that back off as well because that hardware was basically disintegrating. I got a better then wax seal and with that their is a giant gap at the back of the toilet. So are you saying to use this riser and not use the actually blue seal?
Nick Arms , that's exactly what I am saying. The flange has to be completely bolted to the floor with no deflection for any of it to work right. So, if you pay close attention to everything I say, that's the first step.
Thanks! After two tries, worked great.
Thumbs up👍
Thanks for giving me good ideas on my dirty project. I did it slightly in a different way.Our toilet had a high flange with old sticky/hardened wax, the residual of which caused slippage of the FluidMaster Better_Than_Wax blue ring (with the sponge intact). There was also hardly any room to manipulate with two hands. These are the additional steps that I took:1. I had to put a nut/washer on top of the bolt/blue_ring to stabilize it and prevent slippage when I put the toilet down. This helped a lot also when I tightened the additional bolt on the toilet since I did not worry about the bolts spinning while tightening.2. If you do not wipe out the old wax completely, it will cause slippage of the blue ring. Turpentine is what you need to clear the residual old wax. Turpentine worked better than rubbing alcohol and nail polish remover for me. In some parts that wax had hardened, I used my chiseling tool (similar to what doctors use to remove casts) to get it cleaned out first before turpentine..3. The bolts in a toilet are long so a TALL rachet/socket (7/16 or 1/2 inch) set will let you tighten or loosen the bolts easily.4. After tightening the bolts and checking for leaks, I used toilet shims to stabilize and level the toilet. The extra plastic shim(s) sticking out can be cut with a knife.5. Gloves are highly recommended.Good luck.
Update: I am not sure why anyone would thumbs down this. I have done this several times and it works great. If you are having problems with rocking, your flange is not secured to the floor correctly or is higher than 5/8 above the floor.
You could post the cure to cancer and it would receive thumbs down😉 some people are just that miserable I guess 🤔
@@av8ionUSMC So true...
What's the name of this seal?
because this isn't the right way to fix the problem. That's not how that product is meant to be used.
Just shim the toilet or replace the flange.
THANK YOU! High flanges are harder to deal with than low. I dislike squishing the wax so thin this seems better.
Thanks. Great video
Excellent video 👍
Damn! Where was this video last night? I have that exact same problem and already have the better than wax kit. Thankfully I hadn't thrown away the black gasket but I did spent a lot of time putting in some toilet base plates only for them to make the entire toilet too tall for my liking. I'll be pulling that sucker up tomorrow and trying this!
Great information. Just to confirm that this would work for my situation. Removed tile floor and some luan. Will be installing vinyl plank which is about 3/16". Currently the top of the flange is 5/16" above the subfloor. That give
Sorry, trigger finger. Need to edit. The gap between the bottom of the flange and the subfloor is 5/16". Would I be able to use a standard wax ring with this high a gap? Thank you.
Hey Just did this and it worked great. Sepersted the black seal from the kit. My flange was 3/4 of an inch above the floor and that left me with about an 8th of an inch to seal. The wax just did not work I tried 3 different layouts including the one with the plastic. I out this seal in and it worked first try. Also much less messy. Thanks for the tip Mike.
Your toilet didn't wobble around any ?
Or.... you could just shim the toilet.
@@rodneysnextchapter615 you still need to shim it.
@@squirts1 yeah 3/4 of an inch shim is a lot and requires more work. But yeah that works too.
good job
How does this stop the high flange from causing the toilet to rock? So you just put on this piece and nothing elser over the flange? Thanks.
Can you do this with a regular plastic flange? There is a lip on the inside that gets covered usually by the rubber sleeve that slips in there in this case we wouldn’t be using that correct so would that be OK?
Can we find that gasket at home depot or lowes?
Awesome. I’ll try that out. I’m doing a basement and the plumber roughed in the drain and glued the flange on so that the subfloor went under neath it and to top it off the floors pretty unlevel so the front of my toilet is probably 3/4” high so this will bring it down to a manageable height Thanks!
The flange should rest on the floor, not level with it or below it.
i think my floor is shrinking, i have a 2 in. gap in the front of toilet base and about an inch in a 1/4 in back, house smells like an outhouse now, i think I need a new sub floor. i bought a foam ring about 6 months ago and i guess its been leaking since then and never noticed until 2 weeks ago, well when i went to put a new wax ring on i noticed the foam one was shredded😮
Hey, When I took off my wax ring and doesn't u anything. My toilet flushes great but when I use any ring for my toilet. It doesn't work that good. Can you tell me why? Thanks
Mike I'm having the opposite problem! I put new flooring and now it raised tbe toilet too high so when j go to put it through the flange bolts there's not enough bolt threads to grab it! What do i do!!
Buy new bolts. They get hack sawed off during installation.
Where you get this foam flenge ???
I agree with a couple of the comments on volume. It was fine for most of the video. Just what I believe was the most important part of the video. The ideal proper height of the flange when a doing a flooring job. You did mention 5/8 in the beginning. When elaborating about height and solution, you weren't speaking into the mic. About wobbly etc. Very Little info here on dealing with a flange 3/4" higher than finished floor. Maybe if you fine tuned the video with a flange the bottom of the john, WHICH WAS HELPFUL, and show the different levels of when john touches floor with the various types of seal's. WAX RINGS. I also question the foam stopping water long term. I have bought a couple of these and didn't like them at all. Usually as a contractor we find floor flanges that are too low. People just keep adding to the floor, Now I have case where all that was removed back to 3/4" sub floor and the flange is at least 3/4" higher than brand new floor. Trades people should always consider the next guy who has to do their job. In the end either the home owner or the carpenter will deal with the cost. A good builder/carpenter if he's subbing out the floor wouldn't let this happen. But the homeowner is often taken advantage of. Overall a good start to correcting problem. If you fined tuned and renamed with some thought, I think this would help your watches A LOT.
It's not foam. It's neoprene. you can question whatever you want. They work. it's a heck of a lot better than wax. Wax blows out. Wax is melted by chemicals, etc. Oh, on that note, Clorox wipes do a great job of cleaning wax from toilet tools, etc.
Anyway, back to the point. I'm not a professional CZcamsr. I don't monetize videos. I have no desire to grow a CZcams channel. I'm making an occasional video to try to help a few people and, more importantly to me, to document what I do for the homeowners I work for. I know the neoprene works. It's what I use in my own house. I have a raised foundation I've been under there many times to inspect there are no leaks at all on any of my toilets. If the toilet flange is just too high, then obviously some reworking is going to have to be done. The toilet in the video was on the absolute limit of what you can use this method to accomplish.
good luck to all and if you don't want to take my advice, you don't have to. I'm not the law.
@@mikemorrison4860 RIght on, Mike Morrison. That's what you are-- a genuine article. Thanks for adding to the selection of straight-up, unselfish, helpful advice on CZcams.
@@mikemorrison4860Neoprene is a foam. it's synthetic rubber. it is produced as both open an closed cell foams in varying densities. The piece you used in this video is VERY different from neoprene wetsuit material for example.
Hi thanks for this. There weren’t many simple solutions I could find but this. Would this work if the flange is only 1/4 inch too high? You mentioned 5/8. If not, do you have a better solution? Thanks
If it's 1/4 inch higher than the floor level that's actually the perfect level for a standard installation. You don't need to do this. you just need the blue portion of the better than wax that comes in the box; without the spacer is typically good.
Sorry to clarify it’s 1/4 more than the needed so the flange is 1/2 inch higher than the floor. Thanks mike
Then, proceed with the method shown in the video
@@mikemorrison4860 Thank you so much. Last question. So I put the toilet with the foam directly over the flange? Nothing else? No wax ring? Thanks
One more thing to consider is the actual diameter of the flange opening. Check out my other video entitled WHAT YOU CAN DO WHEN THE TOILET FLANGE OPENING IS TOO BIG
Will this work on a flange that is out of level with one side 3/8 above floor and other side flush with floor?
Probably not the best solution in your case. If the flange is very secure to the floor, you should have enough gap between the bottom of the toilet and the flange to use a different method. It is impossible for me to make an accurate assessment without seeing it in person. So, good luck with that. Honestly, if it was me, I would probably peel the layer off like you see me do in the video and stick it directly to the bottom of the blue part of the kit. The plastic piece is going to cause it to have too much between and not enough squish for the high side.
I'm having the same problem I think .
Flange is warped and won't let the toilet sit flush, squishes wax ring flat.
Guess I'm going to try this trick plus try several shims and caulk around it unless I can find the right Dremel tools to cut the flange out .
Had this problem as well, flange a high on one side. The foam gasket and some shimming worked
Easy fix get a wax ring without a horn there made for that. Home depot and lowes and everybody else sells them
The point is after it squishes down you have about a quarter inch of wax holding the whole thing. You can do whatever you want I prefer the neoprene.
I dont get this at all. The issue is a too high flange so you need to lower the flange or raise the toilet to fix the issue so the wax seal isnt crushed to a pancake. Shim the toilet to stop rocking or set it in plaster ring to keep it level and at the right height. Adding a foam ring makes it worse.
Ideally, of course, you would lower the flange. However sometimes it's just not possible or a feasible option without very intrusive or extensive work. The thing about this method is if the flange is 100% solid to the floor, then when you tighten the bolts, the foam compresses to whatever configuration it has to and is a very good seal. You don't have to worry about the squeeze out that you get with the wax.
I having this exact problem. Mine is at least a half inch above the floor maybe more. It had wax and it was smashed super thin and they used a tone of silicone on the bottom of the toilet to secure it. I ripped out the linoleum and the toilet started leaking. I pulled and cleaned it. And took that back off as well because that hardware was basically disintegrating. I got a better then wax seal and with that their is a giant gap at the back of the toilet.
So are you saying to use this riser and not use the actually blue seal?
Nick Arms , that's exactly what I am saying. The flange has to be completely bolted to the floor with no deflection for any of it to work right. So, if you pay close attention to everything I say, that's the first step.
@@mikemorrison4860 is there already a wax seal inside the flange?
NO wax! Clean it off THOROUGHLY.
foam is water permeable and will leak.
It's not foam. It's neoprene.
@@MR-zy6bw - He does say foam in the video.....
@@spatt833 He's wrong...but you still shouldn't rely on that gasket as a seal.
I’m trying to figure out what the problem is. The flange should be above the floor, basically sit on top of it.
Me too
It is too high
WIsh this was louder. With volume on 100%, still can't hear what that kit is called with the foam ring in it.
www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=fluidmaster+better+than+wax&tag=hydsma-20&index=aps&hvadid=219988136151&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14902044186468540712&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031599&hvtargid=kwd-301625750069&ref=pd_sl_5ghwdkfiof_e&gclid=CjwKCAjwj4zaBRABEiwA0xwsP44F_cZ3FcKBm2ZuW_-cPzzlSFObY7ajbFjheqMPWQnyqFZcLlqXLxoCQdkQAvD_BwE
Fluidmaster BETTER THAN WAX!
Ton of help! Thanks Mike! Other than volume, great video!
Yes you can.
Use a regular wax gasket and plaster a Paris and your toilet will not rock at all.
your camera work is dizzying
Agreeable Dragon It's just a phone camera. I'm not a monetized pro CZcamsr.
Mike communicated the approach very well. That's the key to success on this.
Bullsh!t.....tried it. Doesn't work. Toilet still wobbles side to side and front dips lower than back. Toilet is now even HIGHER than before.
Mmhmmm. Ok, just lower the flange. Replace it if you need to. No big deal. It doesn't work EVERY time. It's just a suggestion. Good luck with that.
I think it’s because you talk more then work. I’m getting annoyed with it. Just put the dam toilet together.