It sounds like you may be the bottom unit in your building? Would you please detail the full situation? This would help inform us and reduce guesswork.
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It still is not clear where the water is coming from. I agree with others that your current plumber is not the right person to deal with it he did not diagnose the cause correctly. Toilets rarely need to be replaced. I have done a lot of plumbing!
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If your toilet “were actually the issue” then most of the time it is a $2 fix (wax ring). Or merely gently tightening up the bowl to floor connections, tank to bowl connection, or fill valve connection. It is hardly rocket science to figure out “where the damn leak is”.
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What I would be really concerned about is if the water is backing up to your toilet from a partial clog or bad blockage between your toilet and the sewer main inside your building. We have actually had to deal with this. Not fun at all!
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Since you have a brand new toilet and all connections should have been redone properly only days ago - I am concerned that the issue is downstream.
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For $150-300 someone will send a camera from your toilet all the way to the sewer main. Hope that I am wrong but it is kinda sounding like this may be the case. Often the cause is: kitchen grease, coffee grounds, cleaning wipes, baby wipes, etc. AKA - stuff that should never go down the drain.
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Please keep us in the loop and hope this gets resolved soon!
Update: so two plumbers came over to check the problem; they claim that the problem was that the guest used the toilet before the cement (glue? caulking?) had dried. At least they didn’t charge me again, however, the new porcelain toilet was expensive and installation was $399. They were in the apartment for almost 2 hours.
Needless to say, after reading your feedback, I feel insecure that the issue was indeed resolved. Tomorrow a regular guest will return for a month; I’m worried.
I’m an easy mark; just a few days ago, while cleaning the other unit, I noticed that the washing machine (font loader apartment size) was leaking. I looked inside and noticed that the rubber flap was loose and the wire/ring/metal that keeps it in place had been removed by a guest and was leaning against the side of the washing machine. I couldn’t fix it so I called a specialized company; there was nothing to replace (no materials), and it took 15 minutes to get the job done, and the amount charged…$289 for labor…isn’t that absurd?
Another expense two days ago; the caulking around the tub was looking dingy. I called a repairman to come over and provide an estimate. He told me $70 to remove old caulk and place new caulk around the tub/shower. I had to beg the guy to come back and do the job; he claimed the job was too small to bother; I called him incessantly, begging him. He finally did the job two days ago and I was…grateful…
@Jefferson I just wish I had a neighbor, friend or relative, who knew about repairs like you do. OK, I wish I had a friend, period. I have been quite disappointed with people in the past…I know, I’m pathetic.
You’ve posted here a long time and I hope you don’t take this in a hurtful way but I really feel for you. Please try googling issues before you call these “professionals” who are taking advantage of you. Or post here first, not after. Many smart folks here are happy to help for free.
No, you’re not.
If you have no interest in learning how to fix things yourself (there are youtube videos that show you how to fix almost anything), then of course you are going to get charged by tradespeople. You could have looked up how to put that washing machine ring back on and saved yourself $289. If you choose to be helpless, expect to pay for help.
If the toilet was glued or cemented to the floor instead of being bolted down, it was done incorrectly. Toilets don’t get glued or cemented and some caulking has nothing to do with leakage.
I’m a 71 year old female. There’s lots of stuff I didn’t have a clue how to do or repair until it needed to be done. I went online and taught myself how. I watched my plumber when he did things and realized I can glue pipes together, it’s not something that requires years of schooling. Of course I still occasionally need to hire a professional for something, but if I’d had to pay for every repair around my place, I’d have spent thousands by now.
And it is also hard to find reliable workers where I live, and if you don’t watch them constantly, they’ll screw something up, like plop their heavy tool down on a countertop and chip a tile. If I have to stand over someone the whole time, or wait all day for them to show up, I might as well do it myself.
You need to have confidence in yourself to learn, at least the simple stuff, if you don’t want to have to pay out for help. There are books with titles like “Simple repairs every homeowner should learn”.
@KKC thank you for your kind words. I’m all about researching in the internet. I did the research for the washing machine, I used all the proper terminology, explained what needed to be done, explained not parts were needed, and still had to pay a ridiculous amount for “15-20 minutes labor”. The problem is that when you have a guest, and the guest reports a problem such as a leaking toilet, it needs to be addressed, and in Miami, getting someone to do anything, is a painful endeavor, so I have a knee jerk reaction and call a specialized company and simply pay.
The other day, I finally found a guy for small repairs who came well recommended and charged a modest fee to install curtains in my apartment. I stayed with him for an hour (just two curtains), and finally had to leave and asked him to finish the job and then leave.
Guess what? The next day I went to the apartment to check the work done and found the door of the apartment wide open, not merely unlocked but wide open! In a condominium no less!
Oh … please confirm that the new toilet is BOLTED down to the flange, and not merely held by a thin bead of silicone? The toilet flange underneath has two slots where bolts slide into - the tops of those bolts stick up through the two holes on either side of your toilet and are then gently but firmly secured with washers and nuts (not too hard or the porcelain can crack). A bead of silicone should be entirely optional and not needed unless the floor is “wonky” (should not be the case in a condo building where there is no Fking excuse for the tile floor to be off.
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I had a very similar issue to your washer 2 weeks ago. Most of that stuff really isn’t overly tough to figure out - youtube is a big help. It is really odd that the retention ring was removed - they are held rather strongly in place by friction and a strong metal spring and usually can’t be taken off without pliers. It is hard to fathom that it “came off on its own”.
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What you probably could use is a good HANDYMAN who charges $30-40 an hour, rather than specialists and plumbers. Talk to your neighbors - someone is gonna be “oh you want Joe - he’s been our guy for years, etc”.
@Jefferson, apparently the floor of the bathroom is not level and that is why there was some problem – is that what you mean by wonky?
As for the washer, the most recent guest was college girl, 90 pounds with wet clothes on, and I cannot imagine why she would have taken the retention ring; maybe her jeans got snagged on the metal wire as she removed her laundry from the washer? I did look up in the internet how to put back the rubber thing, saw a couple of videos and apparently it was time consuming and not easy.
I will have to continue searching for a good handyman, however, the problem is that most condos in my area require that any vendor have insurance, etc, so it gets complicated to get a simple handyman to meet such requirements.
I’m grateful for your input and for taking the time to write to me, thank you.
@muddy, I admire a woman like you who is not afraid to tackle repairs. I do work a 50-60 hour workweek (corporate); just tonight, at 9 PM, I delivered a business presentation so I struggle to find enough time to do everything. I hope one day I will be gutsy and learn the basics 
Well, I’ve always been a homebody and I also work from home on my own schedule. Obviously if you have a high powered 9-5 job, that doesn’t leave time or energy to crawl around under the sink to try to fix a leak, or change out the ceiling fan blades… I didn’t mean to be harsh with you, but it’s always helpful and usually less expensive if you have some basic knowledge of how things work around your place. If you can even replace something simple like a toilet flapper that’s worn out, so the water just keeps running into the bowl, that’s a 5 minute job and you don’t have to call anyone or even get dirty. And you can troubleshoot, too, so you know what the problem is, even if you aren’t going to fix it yourself. For instance, you could wrap some old towels around the toilet hose and shut off valve, so they aren’t touching the floor, and check back later to see if they are wet. then you’d know that that’s where it was leaking from or not.
I know that some people just don’t have those kinds of minds, either. you try to explain to them how the door lock works, even turning the key with the door open so they can see the bolt moving in and out and you can see them sort of glaze over and stop listening, as if you were trying to teach them a foreign language. I was lucky - my dad was a mechanical engineer and I seem to have inherited his brain as far as being able to look at something carefully and patiently and determine where the problem might be.
I once took a carburator apart, replaced the worn parts and put it back together successfully. I actually have no idea what a carburator really does or how it works, but I can see how something is put together, where all the pieces logically go, take it apart and put it back together again.
I bought an antique 1860 1/2 tester bed that basically came as a flat pack. I had a friend offer to help me put it together……we had a huge argument as she could not “see” how it all fit together and I could not understand how she could be so “blind” ………
A friend once offered to help me install 12" sq. vinyl tiles in my kitchen. 3 sides of the kitchen were straight, one was on an angle. So lots of tiles had to be cut. You had to heat them up with a hair drier, score them on the cut line and snap them. So I told my friend to measure, call out the numbers and I’d cut them. She called out,
“6 inches and 3 of these little lines”.
"What little lines? 16ths, 8ths, quarters? "
“I don’t know, I never learned fractions”.
“Okay… I guess I’ll be measuring and marking and scoring and you can heat them and snap them”.
This is typical for ceramic tile floors in bathrooms, and the correct solution for that problem is toilet shims which are little thin wedge-shaped pieces of plastic used to level the toilet on an uneven surface. Silicon/Caulk is still only cosmetic.
BTW, if the old toilet was actually broken, it would’ve been obvious to the plumber when they removed it. What did they say about it? I bet there was nothing wrong with the toilet and at most it needed a new wax ring or equivalent seal (assuming there isn’t still a looming downstream clog).
Usually, yes. But I thought my hose or valve were leaking because they were wet, then realized it was actually leaking from a worn gasket around the bolt in the bottom of the tank and running down the hose.
Washer. The retaining wire merely helps to hold the rubber gasket in place - it is OUTSIDE the rim that the door closes on so there is absolutely NO WAY for anything to snag on it. They are easy to do - IF you have a needle nose plier. They are a pita without the right tool.
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Toilet. The floor technically does not need to be level - just flat. If it pitches in any one direction that does not matter. And, we are talking about only a tiny area - where the toilet sits so maybe 4 square feet. I find it dubious the tile floor under the toilet is that out of whack. Do you have a straight edge to validate?
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The toilet should not shift around if sitting on it and rocking side to side. If it does, his install was bad.
Yep, We just replaced three toilets in our house, and my plumber (husband) put a lot of silicone caulk under the toilet near the edge before setting it into place. He explained that did several things: sealed it from leaking out, sealed it from water going in, and making the toilet stable so it does not shift and potentially crack. Of course, he also bolted it to the floor.
Can I ask why you bought a whole new toilet because ‘something was broken’ What was broken exactly and why did that necessitate the whole toilet being replaced.
You say the guest is now saying there is flooding . Where from have you gone over to see where the leak is coming from ? If it’s the toilet surely unless guest error the plumber you sort for free ??
She doesn’t know anything about plumbing or toilets and just did what the plumber (who either is incompetent or a scammer) recommended. She already feels pretty foolish about it, so we should probably go easy on her.