toilet installation

[Avaire Archive]

Author: Steve Fuelling
Date: 8/9/2008 10:07 am EDT
The sales person told me to cut tiles around the toilet and use Avaire Flexible Grout between the toilet and tiles. Not to lay tiles under the toilet because this is a floating floor system and bolting the toilet down on top of the tile would not allow movement of the floor. A recent Avaire reply to a question said to lay tiles up to the toilet flange and bolt the toilet down on top of the tiles. But doesn't doing so lock the supposedly floating floor system in place? MORE INPUT PLEASE.

[Avaire Archive]

Author: the Avaire team
Date: 8/9/2008 7:24 pm EDT
We recommend pulling the toilet and installing the Avaire around the flange. Leave at least a 1/4" gap around the flange. Make sure you completely fill the gap between the Avaire and the flange with a quality silicon sealer/caulk. You won't want to have the flange in the middle of a tile - thats hard to cut. Better to slit to flange across a couple of tiles.

There are several methods for cutting the curved cut. Easiest is using an angle grinder with a diamond blade designed to cut a porcelain tile. Please note - don't try to cut through the entire thickenss of the tile in a single pass. Instead, mark the cut, and then draw the blade across the cut multiple times taking a few 100's each bite. Or, you can make a series of line cuts from the edge to the desired cut line (think a comb). You can then break the individual "teeth". Since the edge of the cut will be hidden under the toilet, it need not be perfect.

Make sure to use a wax ring and/or extender that will compensate for the additional height when you replace the toilet (always use a new wax ring).

As far as tightness, you want to have the toilet firmly mounted. Of course, over-tightening can break either the toilet rim or the tile. Sorry, but I can't really give you a "pounds" figure.