We’ve made our home for the last 11+ years in a house that can best be described as a *&^#ing Money Pit, so it should surprise anyone that our master bathroom toilet has had the wobbles. A few years back we replaced the fixtures in the bathroom, including the toilet, and when I installed the new one I used the existing flange to attach it to the floor. That was a mistake because, as with most things in our house, the previous owners hadn’t really installed it right.

Last week my wife noticed that there was a little water around the base of the toilet so I figured maybe the wax seal needed replacing. Yesterday we were running errands and we stopped into the hardware store to buy a wax seal kit with the assumption that if it wasn’t the seal then I’d probably need to try to replace the flange myself or get a plumber out to do it. Wax seal in hand, we were heading down the aisle towards the checkout when we spied the Danco HydroSeat Toilet Flange Repair Kit. I’d never heard of it, but after reading the product description on the box I figured I might as well grab it in case the wax seal wasn’t the culprit.

When we got home I removed the toilet (I know this is bass ackwards, but I’m a ready-shoot-aim kinda guy) and found a perfectly good wax seal. So I took out the kit, followed the instructions, reassembled the toilet and it worked like a charm. Basically, the way it works is it gives you a way to keep the existing flange and put a new flange on top with a wax seal in between. The new flange is secured to the floor with four screws and provides great stability. According to the box you can use this if you’ve installed new flooring and need to seat the toilet without pulling out the old flange as long as the new flooring isn’t more than 3/8 of an inch.