All you need is a good plumber

We have a good plumber. A plumber who we trust, is very competent and reasonably priced. As a bonus he's a huge Giants fan too (makes DH happy). Unlike the electrician where we got three quotes and interviewed them, we committed to our trusty plumber's quote right away. We set a date and he starts the work.

Everything is moving along nicely when our trusty plumber points out that the toilet flange is a little far from the wall so either we have to special order a 14" rough in toilet or move the flange to make up for a 2" gap. We have some time to think about it which launches me into some late night searches for 14" rough in toilets. We decide that it might be a good idea to check out all the other toilets in the house and find that our other full bath upstairs also has a 2" gap from the back of the toilet to the wall. We've lived in our home for seven years and it's never bothered us so we decide to bag both ideas and go with a regular 12" rough in toilet.

Trusty plumber comes back to do the work and has another discovery (uh oh). Remember how the builder had to reconfigure the bathroom rough ins? Well, during our home inspection, we should have lifted the toilet flange cover because it turns out our builder took a short cut and installed an offset flange which isn't to code in our county. We had no idea what an offset flange was so I quickly googled it. Because the flange is offset, the toilet outflow can be impeded leading to clogs (yuck!). They're also apparently not to code in most places so it's interesting that they still make these. If the builder hadn't used an offset flange, then the toilet would be 4" from the wall which is a lot more obvious than 2".

So we're back to two options - we can either hope that the inspector doesn't notice our offset flange since the flange has a little plastic cover on it (and he didn't notice it the first time around even with the metal ring around it) or fix it for $200 more which involves breaking up the concrete again! We like to do things above board and proper to save headaches down the road and after visions of a backed up toilet zoomed through my head, we decide it's worth the $200 to fix it properly.

So the concrete floor gets broken up for a second time to move the toilet flange. One benefit of doing this is that we now correct the location once and for all so that we won't have a 2" gap. Our trusty plumber re-pours the concrete (see the wet concrete around the flange?) and the problem is solved! Yeah!