Should You Caulk Around The Bottom Of A Toilet? Pros And Cons! | The DIY Great Debate!

On today's episode, we're going to be talking about a debatable topic of whether you should caulk around the base of your toilet or to not caulk around it. So, which one is it? Stay tuned. I'm Jay from Fix This House. If you're new to the channel, please consider pressing the subscribe and notification bell so you can always be in tune on DIYs, how-to videos, and product reviews that I do within this channel. Today's episode is a debatable topic. There's actually a lot of opinions, a lot of debate going on on whether you should even caulk around the base of your toilet and some are saying no, don't do it. It's a bad thing. It all depends on your local codes. Not all codes apply on every area. There are various different codes that will allow you to caulk around the toilet. Some codes don't allow you to do it at all and some don't even address it. So, that's why it's always important to check with your local codes before doing any of these projects. So, make sure you watch the whole video because I'm going to be talking about all the advantages and all the disadvantages on caulking around the base and I'm also going to be showing you the proper way to do it around there if you decide or if you are allowed to caulk around the base of your toilet. The one advantage of caulking around the base of your toilet is because caulking has good adhesion qualities, meaning that the base of your toilet is nicely planted on the floor. So, given your toilet is bolted to the floor with two bolts on each side, but adding caulking around it will just keep it nice and planted to the floor whether you have vinyl plank, cement floor, or even tile. So, the second advantage of caulking around the base of your toilet is that it preserves the seal around your toilet flange. So, if you watch my past video, I'll leave it on the link on the top right here if you want to watch that on how to install a toilet gasket and how to install a new toilet, but all of them are the same. You place the toilet on top of the toilet flange and between that is a toilet gasket, whether it be a wax gasket or a rubber gasket. So, if you put caulking around the base of your toilet, it will help prevent it from moving. It'll preserve that seal between your toilet and your flange and it will keep that wax or that rubber gasket from moving, which will in the future prevent it from leaking. So, it might not help that much or make a big difference, but you always want to make sure that it's nice and planted and not moving so it doesn't disrupt that seal. Okay, so hopefully that makes sense. Let's get to the third advantage of why you should seal around the base of your toilet with caulking and that is to keep it nice and clean. So, if you notice, if you look around the base of your toilet, there's an eighth inch gap all the way around there and over time, you're going to have dust building or dirt going in between those crevices. And I have kids and they play with a lot of, you know, they have little cards here, little pieces of paper they play with, little thin objects that could potentially go underneath there over time and it will build up and pretty much build bacteria. Bathroom gets a lot of moisture, a lot of water from the sink, you know, people brushing their teeth, water going in there, dripping over time. If you look underneath the toilet, there are pockets from the manufacturer, they made indentations underneath the base that could possibly build up all that bacteria. Overall, it's not good for your health. The fourth advantage of caulking around the base of your toilet is for aesthetic purposes. Well, it all depends on the person as well. Some people like that floating look where it's, there's a little tiny gap or a shadow. Some people don't like it. So, to make it nice and flow with the floor, some people just caulk it and it gives it that nice, clean look. So, it all depends on you. So, that's another debatable topic on its own. I'm not going to go there, but that's the advantage of it for aesthetics. So, that was four advantages of caulking around the base of your toilet. If you have any more suggestions of why you should do it, leave it in the comment section down below. I'm very interested in what you think. Now, let's go and talk about the disadvantages. I only came up with one disadvantage and that is what if your toilet leaks? You won't be able to see it coming out of the bottom of the base. So, that is one of the biggest concern of why people don't want to do it because, hey, what if my toilet leaks? I'm not going to be able to see the water coming out of it and the water is going to accumulate there. It's going to be an internal thing inside and it's going to eat away and rot through the subfloor if you have wooden subfloors. Yes, that is possible, but there's a clear way on how to avoid that if you do plan to caulk around it. And I'm going to show you that when we start putting caulking around this base later on. So, let me know in the comment section down below if you could think of any other disadvantages that I missed. Please share with the community. We'd love to have a good conversation on the bottom of the comment section. And let me know in the comment section down below if you caulk around the base or if you don't do it and why. There are two circumstances when it comes to caulking around the base of your toilet. One is if you have your toilet set on top of concrete. So, we already know that concrete is, you know, it's very hard to keep it level. And if you have your base set on concrete and around the flange area, if one side is too high, one side is too low, there's a possibility that your toilet is going to rock back and forth over time. So, putting caulking around the base of your toilet will actually add extra support and prevent your toilet from tipping left to right or rocking back and forth. The second circumstance that I have is hopefully none of you have this in your bathroom and that is wooden flooring. Because the slightest water drip on that thing, the wooden floor will buckle and it'll pretty much create a seal so that when it leaks underneath there, you're not going to see that water coming out because it traps it in there. A lot of people think that I have wooden floor in this bathroom. This is actually waterproof vinyl plank flooring. Now that I've got those two circumstances out of the way, let me show you now the proper way of caulking around the base. So, let's go and I'll show you what I'm going to use. The caulking type that I recommend using for this project is the tub in tile silicone and 100% waterproof and make sure that it's mold-free sealant or mildew resistant, whichever type you want. So, these are the type that I recommend. All the tools that I use in this video including this caulking, I'll leave it in the description down below. Check out that link if you're interested. So, if you look right here, I put a nice clean bead right around the back area but you can tell that I left this back portion area open. So, just in case that if the toilet does leak, there's a that we can indicate that and we'll see the water coming out there. So, but we notice I put a clean bead right around the toilet right there. It's a little harder because I have a darker floor but if you have a nice white tile flooring, this will blend right in. For me, I had to work a little extra and clean up around the area just to make it nice and clean just like that. And if you look all the way around, I stopped at that break. There's a break right there. There's a break on that area just for the water to escape. So, I did about 90 percent seal all the way around. Just a few tips. Make sure you use a damp rag whenever you're caulking around the base and latex does shrink if you use latex. So, make sure you apply a little extra for it to build a nice foundation underneath the base. It does take one hour for the caulking to dry so you can use the toilet after that but give it several days for it to have that full adhesion strength of the caulking, okay? So, hopefully friends you found this video helpful. If you did, please hit that big thumbs up, press the subscribe and notification bell and let me know in the comment section below if you caulk around the base of your toilet or if you don't, let us know the reason why and share with the community. If you have found this video helpful, thank you so much and I'll see you on the next one.