I’m wondering if anyone has ideas for a couple of problems we have. We have some dripping copper pipes under the house. Is there a product I could put on the leaky areas to keep from resoddering? Also, we recently replaced our rotten bathroom floor and installed ceramic tile. When we put the toilet back in, we added a flange since there wasn’t one. We also used a waxless toilet gasket instead of a wax ring. Ever since, the grout at the very front and off to one side of the toilet base is darker like its staying wet. It seems like water is somehow leaking. I don’t know what we did wrong. I watched when we set the toilet in place and it looked like we got the pieces lined up right.
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“Is there a product I could put on the leaky areas to keep from resoddering?” And when that fails? What then will you use to further delay the inevitable? The toilet flange should be flush with the finished floor. Use a wax ring, or two.
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You need to replace the copper pipes because they probably froze. You need to use two wax rings when you set the toilet.T.C.
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When you put in tile it raises the level of the floor to the mating surface of the toilet flange. It causes a greater gap than what was originally there. I did the same thing originally, adding ceramic tile. I tried 2 wax rings but my toilet is an air assist flush. It develops extra pressure when it flushes. It pushed past the wax rings in just a few days. Then I tried the waxless type ring. What I found I had to do was add a few spacers to raise the top of closet flange to meet the level of the floor. That worked for me. The closet flange spacers were at Home Depot, this was several years ago but I don’t imagine it’s changed much. You just have to get them to match your closet (toilet) flange. They’re about 1/4″ thick and it may take a few of them to build the flange up.
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In regards to the leaking pipe-the best way is to locate the the leak and make a proper repair as it will come back to bite you at a most inopportune time.However if that is not in option, most hardware stores sell a clamp adapted to the size of the pipe that will fit around the leak. You can also use a piece of water hose make a cut in the middle and hose clamp it at both ends, Or a piece of rubber.
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There is a coupler that will change over from copper to plastic that can be purchased at Menard’s, Home Depot or Lowe’s. Plastic pipe is easy to work with and is just glued together. There are more plastic pipe fitting on the shelves of these home centers are there is copper fittings. This would make an easy to work with permanent repair and if something goes wrong you just cut out the plastic section and redo it. No soldering or plopping on goop that will fail. Plus copper has gotten to be expensive and plastic is not. You can easily cut the copper out with a tubing cutter that costs around $6 dollars or so. You have to make sure your city, county or state allows it by code.
Another way to go is Pex tubing but many city don’t allow it yet as they don’t trust the crimp fittings to not fail especially when buried in the wall. The tool that crimps the fittings is expensive however so it does not seem to worth a one time shot to me.
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