Toilet Replace and Odd Electrical Behavior

[Jim Stoltz]

Rather than continue to hijack Paul's thread, I figured I'd start my own.

Dometic 310 toilet and the "adapter kit" are on the way. The adapter kit allows me to use my existing flange, which is cemented to the tank (don't want to have to cut it out).

And this is why I hate carpet in bathrooms.

I guess the toilet had been leaking. The only soft spots are under the flange - only 2 of the 6 bolts were gripping anything. 

They screwed the flange down through the carpet and padding, so I need to put 1/4" underlayment down in order to bring the floor up to the flange anyway. There's some carpeted trim that covers the pipes in the back. I may fabricate my own and try to tile it rather than put the carpeted pieces back in.

Also, some curious electrical behavior. It started when the hot water heater blew a fuse. There was a green wire running from the HW heater to nowhere. According to the wiring diagram, it's the *ground* for the indicator light. Well the indicator light works like it should without this wire hooked up. This wire is hot and had grounded out on a copper pipe. I taped it up and replaced the fuse. But I didn't have any fuses so I took one out of a spot marked "SPARE". Despite this marking, there was a red wire attached to the lug that runs into the wall somewhere. More on that in a minute.

I was working in the bathroom and the lights started to flicker. They eventually went out. All the lights on one of the two light circuits were very, very dimly lit. They were getting a little bit of juice from somewhere. I unplugged it from the shore power and plugged it back in. All the lights came back on. But, it did the same thing this morning.

So I took the fuse out of the HW slot and touched it to the slot with the mysterious red wire. All the lights came on! Even without the fuse installed - it just needed connected briefly. Assuming that the lights would eventually go out again without this fuse, I installed it and everything seems fine. Any ideas? It's only the one light circuit that goes out.

[paul nevitt]

I really can't help with the wiring issues. I am fairly good at figuring out wiring but I would have to see it to offer any advice. As far as the toilet goes keep in mind that the flange will have to sit on top of whatever floor you put in. So if you tile it it will have to sit on top of the tile. 

[Jim Stoltz]

Thanks. I'm keeping the old flange, which is screwed down through the carpet. The Dometic adapter kit comes with flange that sits atop the existing flange. It's not here yet so I'm not sure how it seals. My old flange is in reasonably good shape, but I'm going to silicone between the existing flange and the adapter anyway. The toilet bolts to the flange, but should rest on the floor when you compress the flange gasket. That's the tricky part. Since I took the carpet and padding out, I have to bring the new floor up to the bottom of the old flange. It looks like 1/4" underlayment will do it, which I will cut around the existing flange. If the new floor is too low, the flange and waste pipe will be bearing all the weight (toilet won't be resting on the floor). If the floor is too high, it may not seal properly (toilet will bottom out on the floor before the gasket compresses).

[paul nevitt]

Yeah that is what I was getting at. The toilet is recessed at the bottom for the thicken of the flange. I was thinking you were going do underlayment then tile on top of that. I am sure you have it figured out as far as the toilet goes. We have talked about it enough lol. Good luck can't wait to see how it comes out.

[Jim Stoltz]

I'm going to try to scrape as much carpet and padding out from under the flange so I can get some fresh wood under it. There's not much good wood for the new flange/adapter screws to grab into because of the rot from the leak.

[Jim Stoltz]

And by "tile" I mean the vinyl stick-on kind. With proper underlayment it sticks okay. It's cheap and looks 10x better than the worn out carpet. This is what I put in the hallway where I cut through the floor to replace the fuel lines. Door on the right is the bathroom, shower on the left. I plan to use this stuff in the bathroom, too. 

[paul nevitt]

That is going to work great and look killer

[Jim Stoltz]

Thanks! I hope so. The challenge is that the walls aren't really square, but the tiles are. That hallway, and the bathroom are sort of parallelograms. Need to sort of split the difference when installing them so they don't look goofy. It's not a big deal, but it's one of those things I will notice and will forever bug me.

[Lakota Wolf]

I havent come across a situation where the walls are actually square. I think they make them Colly wambos for a reason unknown. The tiling does look great tho

[Jim Stoltz]

Thanks. And the same goes for houses - I've done a fair amount of tiling and trim work in houses and finding an actual 90-degree angle is a miracle.

[Jim Stoltz]

Just waiting for the toilet now. Might put some quarter round down to hide some of the sins, but overall it came out nice.

It was only 6 tiles but a total pain in the butt because of the non-square shape of the bathroom. I think the floor is a decent height. Hopefully everything will seal up nicely.

[paul nevitt]

Nice!!!

[Jim Stoltz]

Thanks! Toilet will be here Monday, along with the adapter kit. Can't wait to get it all put back together.