I have never done a bathroom floor before. I’ve painted, designed, and decorated bethrooms, I have never tore up linolium and put tile on the floor. Currently, I have bought the following: Linolium remover/chipper, 150 sqft terracotta tile, knotched trowl and the adhesive.
I already know the subfloor is fine…I already have a tile cutter and all the other necessary tools. I really would love to aviod taking the toilet out, because I have never had to take one out and heard it can be a bitch!
Any suggestions? If I do have to take it out, what part do I have to buy to replace when it is out. I seem to remember someone saying that everytime you take a toilet off, you need to replace something…Any help from the Teeming carpenters?
Ok, be sure of the floor strength!s. I’d add a tile backerboard to be certain. I’d add a waterproof membrane too.
Toilet comes out - NO DOUBT. NONE. Toilet goes back down after the tile.
You replace a 2 dollar wax ring with a 3 dollar wax ring with the extended flage piece. That’s the part. Get the wax ring with the extension for 3 bucks.
I would never set tile on wood. AND never in a bathroom. Tile over a backer/cement backer product.
I don’t know if you need to remove the toilet, but as far as what to replace:
In every home show I’ve seen, they always replace the big wax ring that forms the seal between the toilet and the big pipe in the floor. The shows make removing and putting back the toilet look pretty easy, but then again, they probably do it a lot more than most people.
One good bit of advice they always give is, stuff a rag into the hole in the floor after taking the toilet up. That way, you won’t lose tools and other important things (nuts, washers, etc.) down the hole.
Wood will gradually fail because it will absorb some moisture.
AND YOU ARE USING TERRA COTTA SO THERE IS NO QUESTION: CEMENT BACKER BOARD AND WATERPROOF MEMBRANE.
AND buy a stone sealer product - a good one will cost 30 plus bucks. A MUST for your tile and grout, esp terra cotta. When done, you’ll see the floor from stains and moisture with it.
back to the just wood floor issue:: It won’t ‘fail’ per se as far as regular use is concerned in a house, but it will fail over some years as required to be rigid enough to stop tile from cracking.
-remove the toilet (ya know, turn off- suck up water with cups and rags)
-get old crap off floor.
if floor is sound - which it seems - just add 1/4 or 1/2 inch cementatious backer board, which you screw down with the screws sold next to it and you also set it down with thinset (some folks go liquid nails on this)
-spread water proofing product down (spreads like thinset)
-after few hours you can tile. lay tile out so that you don’t leave any really thin pieces anywhere…practive and try to work from center in the layout design.
Don’t choose do go with big grout line - use a medium spacer.
Ok, replace the wax ring. Would it serve me right to take the toilet off, and then take the wax ring that will be replaced to Home Depot to match it exactly, or is it a universal fit. I don’t want to make multiple trips…
Also, I am preparing the floor with a type of tyvek membrane I bought at HD. The bathroom is on the first floor and which means I have wood over a concrete slab. I really do not want to take the wood up…Our house is decently climate controlled so it is rarely that humid…
I do have medium spacers…home depot guy informed me of that as well. Can I use cementatious backer board over this wood if it is over a slab? Or should I just take the wood off?
Removeing the toilet is really no problem. Remove the two bolts that secure it to the floor, and disconnect the water line.
You may want to grab a plunger to get as much water off as possible. Also a sponge to get the last of the water out of the tank. You can leave the tank on the bowl.
You may want to get a piece of cardboard for something to set the toilet on when you move it. There may be remnents of the wax wring on the bottom.
Sure make it more interesting that you have wood over cement!
See, I’d not worry about deflection with the wood over cement, but the wood will change is size over time, so I’d still go 1/4 inch backerboard which is so easy to lay over a small area. I really would.
I sent you some tile pics I had on hnad …oh - and I set my hearth this weekend. One giant slab of marble, 72x24 and I set it myself. Perfectly! I’ll have pics this week.
I just finished doing this nearly exact same remodel myself, and here are some tips:
1 - Definitely remove the toilet. Nothing tricky here, but re-setting can be a problem. Here’s what to look for on the re-set:
a) Get the new seal ring. For myself, I abandoned the old wax-ring-and-flange arrangement and went with a new Fluidmaster waxless seal. It comes with a set of rubber O-rings and new mounting bolts. This unit works perfectly on 3-4" pipe and allows for the new floor height. It’s a couple bucks more expensive, but much less messy than the wax.
b) make center marks on your floor to indicate the centers of the drain. Pencil should work fine. Make corresponding marks on the toilet for the center of the toilet drain. When you set the toilet using the marks, you can’t miss the hole this way.
c) Use a level and check the level of the bowl (you did remove the tank first, right? you’re re-seating just the bowl at first…). Also, check for “rocking” on your new tile floor. You may want to use wood shims to eliminate the rocking and level the bowl. (I followed the instructions to use “plumbers putty” on the base of the bowl to level it and seal it - this was a BAD idea. It just squeezed out from under the bowl and left it unlevel…) Once you have the bowl leveled (make sure the bolt holes are not “bridging” any shims - you don’t want to take a chance of cracking the bowl when you tighten the nuts later. You can avoid this by adding shims directly under the bolt holes so the bowl is on something solid at the bolt locations), and that there is no “rocking” of the bowl on any unevenness, then you can tighten the nuts. DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN! Those nuts are only there to keep the toilet from shifting - they’re not there to “cinch it down.” Vitreous china does NOT “give” and will definitely break if you apply too much pressure to the nuts.
d) apply a 100% silicone caulk to the base of the bowl between the bowl and floor. It comes in several colors and is only a couple of bucks a tube. For your purposes, you may not need to buy a caulk tube, but rather a squeeze tube, since you won’t be needing a lot of it.
e) re-attach tank and water lines and you should be ready to go.
I realize this looks like a lot of info, and it is…be prepared to spend an easy 2 - 3 hours to do the toilet right.
Oh, and why did I re-do my bathroom?? Because the stinking, no-good plumber that fixed my toilet the last time used a cheap, shoddy wax-flange-ring, did NOT level the toilet, and it wound up LEAKING under my vinyl floor…
I cannot elaborate further on their advice but I wanted to say that with the treehouse you’ve built and the tiling job you’re about to do… you think the toilet’s intimidating?
The was rings are generic and cheap! Buy 2 because sometimes you make a mistake aligning things or the ring shifts before you squish it and that’s not when you want to have to run to the store… $3 insurance policy
Ok first [sup]I’m intimidated by the new look of the SDMB[/sup]
Second…My tree-office has no plumbing…I wish it did but to my dismay, it does not Thanks for noticing though, makes me realize people are concerned with my sanitary help…And thanks all for the advice…I am taking up this job on Wednesday Too much going on tomorrow. My wife has a crazy list of stuff to do … I’ll check back in a bit
I went ahead and ripped out a bathroom. Took 3 days to go from a fully functioning bathroom to nothing but studs and the original tile floor. I wanted to keep it, it’s very pretty and was completely undamaged in the demolition process.
The toilet. No sweat. I would like to address what a poster said up there. Turn the water off first, then remove parts of your toilet. :eek: Many old rags and towels will be handy. Get cheap rubber disposable gloves, to put the wax ring into place.
I’ve heard of the wax ring free system. Me, I like the old ways. Wine stamped by foot. Leather, tanned in a hollowed-out tree trunk. Brain surgery…well. You get the point. The wax is splendid, buy two as has been mentioned because you run something like a 87% chance of blowing it the first time you try to re-seat, and for reasons that escape me, I always do this stuff twenty minutes after Home Depot closes. So, buy two. You will join the teeming masses of bathroom remodellers in the world who have a brand new spare untouched wax ring in the linen closet behind the hand towels your Mother In Law gave to you after her visit one Thanksgiving because " nobody in their right mind would wipe their hands on the tattered rags you have shoved over the rack in the guest bath !!! ".
I’m still trying to figure out why a builder would place a layer of wood underlayment atop a concrete slab. Although you may not like the advice, I’d tear out the wood. Bosch makes a close quarters saw that can be used to cut the wood parallel to wall planes. If you’re steady of hand and patient, a reciprocating saw can be used for the same task.
Who go through this work? Concrete is the best substrate for installation of tile, period. In addition, once you’ve removed the wood and added tile along with the thinset, you’re likely close to the original elevation of the toilet flange. Adding CBB, mastic, thinset, and tile to the existing floor plane will probably leave the toilet flange 3/8-1/2" below finished floor-so you’ll need a flange extension or some other means of dealing with that.
One final observation-the reason for stuffing a rag into the open hole at a toilet flange is not to prevent dropping stuff into the hole, it’s because a toilet contains an internal trap. Once you’ve removed the fixture, nothing prevents the escape of sewer gas into the dwelling.
My home was built to own…it’s a modern Log home which means, large frontal A-frame with two wings attached to either side. 3 1/2 baths. 1 1/2 baths on first floor…this is the guest room bath. The original owner had hardwood flooring throughout the whole place…the left wing does not have a basement underneith it, it’s on a slab. Thats why the hard wood coverings over the slab…Yes normally you would not see this, and the half bath on the other side has no concrete under it. Why someone but linoleum OVER pretty hardwood is beyond me.
Since the last owners could not afford the house, and forclosed on it - thats how we got such a good deal on the 3700 sqft home. The previous owners only had the home for 9 months…the linoleum must have been put down in that time.
Also, Dances thanks for the great advice! I have bought two wax rings and already have the wood flooring out. I have a circular cordless dewalt that did just fine. I’m going to prepare the serface in a few hours…I have some other stuff that needs my attention…
I had linoleum over a nice hardwood floor in my first house, too. This was fine, because the lino kept the hardwood in good shape while decades of hard-using renters lived in the place. Once I got the lino up (and spent months painstakingly, gently scraping the lino glue off the hardwood, but everyone needs a hobby, right?), the floor was in virtually new condition. A light buff and re-finish, and it was gorgeous again.
Thanks for noticing though, makes me realize people are concerned with my sanitary help…And thanks all for the advice…I am taking up this job on Wednesday