Replacing the Cast Iron Closet Flange

Repentantly I was replacing the finish Flooring in a small bathroom.  The flooring mainly needed replacing only because a new cabinet was being installed. This new cabinet was to be wall mounted but the owner preferred to have a base frame made for it. Because the old flooring ran to the old cabinet the flooring needed replacing or another cabinet needed to be purchased.  This situation is why I recommend running the flooring first from wall to wall and then setting the cabinets.

            I will take a moment to give you an order of steps taken to get to the closet flange replacement point. Sometime in these older home with the cast iron drain line the house has settled at a different rate than the drain line. When the toilet (water closet) is pulled the line is a little higher than level. When this difference is greater than ½” the sealing of the toilet may be affected. This was the case in the bathroom I was working in.

1. Remove thew old cabinetry and toilet and properly disposed of the cabinetry.
2. Square off the small holes as needed. These holes did not exceed 1 square foot so the renovate right laws were not violated.
3. Scrub down walls and ceiling
4. Place nee drywall in holes and pack the joints and then tape and start the mudding process.
5. I put down a new plywood sub-flooring
6. Finish off the dry-walling process with a three-coat system that require no sanding. It is a blade technique
7. Primmer the entire room and apply two coats of paint to it. (If you do not primmer the patches will absorb the paint differently than the old wall and their bleeding through will show.)
8. Built the new cabinet base.
9.  I also gave the new base and all new trim members a primmer coat and two coats of paint.
10. I then installed the trim boards and trim moldings
11.  The toilet had some problem for some time so I check the height of the closet flange and decided to replace it.
12.  This old closet flange was cocked and over ¾ of an inch higher than the flooring.
13. I cleaned all the old wax away from the old flange and drilled out the old lead using a ¼ inch bit. (This requires taking the proper safety precautions for disturbing lead but take your time and drill as close to the other hole as you can. Once you have gone 1/3 the way around, take a small punch and clean out the remaining chunks of lead from between the pipe and the old flange. I was able to wiggle my flange so I removed the remaining lead in one piece. Double bag and goose-neck tie the lead and properly clean the site at this point. I then re-drilled around this joint to remove the old hemp seal. Once the flange wobbled enough, I removed it. I then took a small grinder and ground the cast iron pipe to being level with the flooring. (You need to protect the walls and flooring from this procedure.) The new flange fits snugly inside the pipe. It needs to be screwed into position and then the Allen-head nuts inside it needs to be evenly tightened to provide the proper seal.
14. I then installed the trim boards and molding to the room.
15. I sat the cabinet to the base and secured it to the back wall.
16.  Pre-fitted the counter top and outlined the cutout for the sink.
17. Installed the counter top and added the needed weight to help seal the connection the caulking made between the counter top and cabinet.
18. Installed the sink and added the needed weight as the caulking dried as I did for the counter top.
19. I connected all the lines under the counter.
20. Cleaned the entire room.
21. Hung the towel bars and toilet paper holder
22. Re cleaned the room
23. Showed the redone room to the owner for them to enjoy.
24. This project was shown in this manner to point out that some projects demand other projects also the closet flange replacement is one of them.

Note: Images on this blog site are from a free source or taken by the author. No image or group of photos is intended to represent the people the author serves. The author does not care about Race (that is a politically correct term that he does not like because we are all of the same Race, the Human Race. He prefers the term ethnicity, color, religion, sex, gender, marital status, disability, genetic information, national origin, source of income, Veteran or military status, ancestry, citizenship, primary language or immigration status.) He is a service provider for all people. We will all rise together when we band together and help one another. Joseph Erwin is a Real Estate Broker, DRE # O2131799, and a CA general contractor # B 696662. He’s a member of the CRMLS and The East Valley Association of Realtors located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California.