The plumber has come and gone, and it literally was almost nothing. Apparently the flapper gasket had worn so far that it literally fell apart in his hands, so he replaced that and our flush arm.
In addition, he spent some time inspecting the floor and looking at it from underneath and came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any flooring damage that was bad enough to warrant him tearing up the subflooring. Instead, he decided that he would try tightening down the bowl itself since it had come loose. He explained that if we were still able to shake it or if water was still dripping into the basement that the seal was bad and we had to fix it. He went on to say that a good 75% of the time that the seal is OK and the bowl just needs tightening down, so we would try that. 10 minutes and 10 flushes later, we were in the basement to see if any water was accumulating and we found none.
Unfortunately, it still set us back $200. He told me that it was the smallest amount that the trip fee and labor could amount to and that he always feels bad when seemingly small fixes amount to that much money. For me it was worth the peace of mind to know that my floor isn’t going to cave in at a moments notice.
Call it a Stupid Tax or whatever you want… but at least our upstairs toilet is fixed.
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