Yeuck!

So, yesterday we scolded the dogs, as we weren't sure which of them peed in the bathroom against the toilet.  Got scolded again this morning, gently, as we were looking at the liquid and thinking ... that looks pretty clear, if someone's peeing they're drinking an awful lot of water!

Closed the door to the bathroom and found out later this morning that we were once more scolding dogs for peeing when it was an issue with the house itself ... leaky toilet!

So, after the end of my morning shift did some investigation online, and found that it was likely a leaky wax gasket seal, and that sometimes tightening the bolts which hold the toilet bowl to the floor would seal off the gasket and stop the leak.  So, I tried that (very very carefully so as not to crack the toilet bowl).

Unfortunately, while the leak had slowed down, it was still happening, so we did have to go out and get a replacement wax gasket seal.  When we spoke with the gentleman in the plumbing section of the hardware store, however, he advised us against getting the plumber's putty to use as a seal around the bottom of the toilet bowl itself ... as he pointed out, if you get a leak from the gasket in the future, if the bowl itself is sealed to the floor, you still have a leak, you just don't find out about it until you may have had some structural damage to the house.  Never thought of that!

So, we've been working hard all evening, getting the toilet emptied out, getting the behind-the-toilet cabinet emptied, disconnected from the wall and then moved, then moving the toilet itself, cleaning it off, attaching the new wax gasket seal, putting the toilet back in place, confirming that there doesn't seem to be a leak any more before putting everything back in place, and while doing so getting a scrub down of the walls in behind the toilet and cabinet done (it's not like I've been able to access them for the 7 years we've lived in the house, after all!), now getting the cabinet and toilet tank replaced ... so we're almost done.

Fingers crossed that once we're done, we're done for good and don't find that not only had the gasket failed (when we got it out we found it was 1/4 simply GONE) and that we don't also have a cracket toilet bowl.