Securing And Attaching A Toilet To The Floor - How To

I can remember when I started my apprenticeship as a plumber every toilet pan was secured to the floor with a sand and cement mix (mortar).  

Traditional Toilet Installations

We would place the toilet pan on the floor and mark out the foot print with a pencil and the remove it again, the next step would be to cut a hole in the floor under the pan for a key (this would create a lock between the pan and the floor).  The final step would be to mix up a stiff mix of mortar and place a large amount of this inside the under neath of the toilet pan and also a mound on the floor.  

Using clear sanitary grade silicone to secure a new toilet pan to the bathroom floor.

Then the challenge would be to carefully turn the pan over and land it on top of the mortar bed without loosing the mortar inside the pan, once this was achieved you would then level the pan off and just carefully dress the excess mortar away and clean the floor etc with a damp sponge. See also our article on fixing a running toilet.

New Methods of Installing a Toilet

Over the years securing a toilet pan to the floor has changed in a good way.  Today the method most commonly used by plumbers to fix a toilet pan to the floor is with clear sanitary grade silicone.  

How I perform this is to put the toilet onto the floor in its desired location, place some small packers or wedges under the toilet to raise it by approx 2 to 3 millimeters and until a level toilet pan is achieved (this providing the floor slope is not to drastic, I don't like to have a larger gap than 5 or 6 millimeters at the front of the pan when using silicone), then go around the whole base of the toilet pan with the silicone applying it to the gap between the floor and the toilet pan, once this has been performed I then spray a solution of soap and water over the silicone and wipe the excess off.  

The purpose of the soap and water solution is to avoid the excess silicone sticking to the floor and also your fingers as you carefully remove the excess silicone.

Like the method of using mortar mix it is advisable to always leave the toilet pan as long as possible before its initial use, but as a minimum I always suggest 24 hours before any sort of weight is applied to the pan, your plumber will always be the best person to advise this of course.

Please leave any comments about any of your experiences with setting a toilet pan to floor or visit us at: 
http://www.houzz.com.au/pro/mayfairplum/mayfair-plumbing-and-gasfitting