Questions about heat and toilet floor area

[John Padmore]

Digging deeper into the Beaver today I noticed the toilet was loose (moves side to side) and thought the hold down bolts must be loose. Well, after taking the cover off I realized the bolts are not loose. It seems the floor is moving when the toilet is rocked side to side. My guess is the floor is rotted under the mounting plate. Outside, the area is located just behind the storage bay where the power and water inlets are.

1. Does anyone know how to get access to the space directly under the toilet?
2. Has anyone had this problem and what was the fix?

Also, I fired up the aqua hot today. The Patriot supplement manual said there is a switch on the dash - never found one. I put the circuit breaker on at the main panel and turned the thermostat to 90 degrees and it came on. However there doesn't seem to be much air flow from the heating registers. There is barely any air movement. I have the fan switch on the thermostat set to high.

3. Is there a seperate fan switch located somewhere.

And, I put the water heater switch on - no light on the panel next to the switch and no hot water. I had the aqua hot running for about 1 hour before checking.

4. Do I have a bad heating elemment? How to check/change?

As always, thanks for the help.

John

[Richard And Babs Ames]

You might be better off pulling the Tiolet to check the floor as access to the bottom of thr tiolet is behind the utilility hook ups if on the street side. If on the curb side there is an access panel behind the door in front of the batteries.

The breaker panel in the rear of our 97 has a separate breaker for the 18,000 btu heating element. Takes a while to heat up all that coolest on the element alone. I would wait at least 4 hours. If it is on diesel it takes about 30 minutes or less.

[Richard And Babs Ames]

3. Fans work off the thermostat and you will not feel much air unless it is hot. You should hear the fans though.

[John Padmore]

Richard, good suggestion about pulling the toilet. Here is what I found.
The floor seems to be in good shape. There is a typical flange that holds the toilet in place and leads down the hole to the tank (I presume). However, there seems to be some sort of a gasket of sorts between the flange and the floor. I cannot determine the integrity of it except that it seems to be soft (is it supposed to be?). I will try to post pictures of this and if anyone has a clue please let me know. Is there a way for me to talk to someone at "Beaver" who might know about the floor construction? I think I will need professional help with this one....Thanks, as always.

John

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

John,
The gasket is the flange seal. It is flexible, fits into the floor flange and provides a seal between the floor and the toilet. If the nuts are not tightened down, the toilet will rock back and forth so be sure they are tight. Best way to tell is to tighten them until you don't get any movement when sitting on the commode. From what you've said, you may just have nuts that have loosened.
Steve

[Gary Winzenburger]

Be careful not to over tighten these bolts, or you'll be buying a new toilet. Mine was doing the same thing and they just needed to be snugged down. They get a lot of movement over time.

[John Padmore]

OK, so today must be my lucky day! I poked and pulled at the flange on the toilet and sure enough it came right off. Well, needless to say the floor was rotted underneath because the rather large screws pulled right out. So I managed to scrape out most of the rotted wood (about 1" deep) around the flange area and underneath the surrounding tile area about 1" or so. Coming from the boating community my thought is to dry out the area for a few days (add some acetone also) then completely fill the void with fiberglass resin and chopped mat. Then drill new holes for the flange and screw it down secure. Any thoughts? Thanks....

John

Oh yeah, the part about my lucky day. While scraping with my flat blade screwdriver around the open sewer pipe, can you guess what happened. Yup, right down the hole Did you know you can go fishing with a magnet taped to a piece of string thru this pipe and if you are lucky you can get it back thru the opening . The prevoius owner of this coach cleaned it so well he didn't even leave any TP. He was nice enough however to leave me a 1/2 tank of black water.....thanks Ron!

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

John,
Sounds like you've got to the reason for the movement. Probably a leak, so find the source. You may want to consider a toilet rebuild while you've got it out. I was able to get the rebuild parts for less than $100 at Camping  World. In any case, you definitely want to replace the flange and gasket. If you don't have a manual you can download it and find rebuild instructions on the web.
The fiberglass floor repair sounds a lot more effective than a wood based repair, although I'm far from an expert here.
Good Luck,  Steve

[John Padmore]

Thanks Steve, the toilet rebuild is a good idea since it is out. I have some experience working with fiberglass so I think I can make a solid repair. Thanks for the help....

John

[Richard And Babs Ames]

Putting screws into fiberglass. Will that hold. I do not know. But embedding studs in a less crisp media may last and hold better. I have a fiberglass genius neighbor. He even built a boat. Will ask him.

[Keith Oliver]

I woould not use polyester resin.  I would use epoxy, with thickener, then you will have a solid substrate into which you can drill holes for the bolts.  If you are unsure where the rot ends, use a penetrating epoxy on the exposed edges of the wood first.  When you use an epoxy to seal the wood, the polyester resin may not adhere effectively, so using epoxy for the rest of the job ensures a good bond.

[John Padmore]

I agree that epoxy resin would be better. I will go with that. Also decided to insert bolts for the flange instead of using screws to hold it down. The heads will be immersed into the epoxy resin for stability. Just have to make sure the gasket will seal properly. I removed all of the wood down to what looks like insulation so there will be plenty of epoxy to hold things together. I might just install a seatbelt while I'm at it!  

[Richard And Babs Ames]

The fiberglass guy's recommendation. To be sure have clean unrotted wood to adhere to and use a product called Liiquid Transom. He also stated that you need to take up a larger area including some of the floor to get a lasting fix. You need to have a good large base to attach the toilet.

[Richard And Babs Ames]

Liquid Transom is available at Marine supply stores.