How to Replace a Wax Toilet Seal

There is a wax ring that is installed between your toilet bowl and the flange that is on the floor. This wax ring seals the toilet bowl to the floor as well so that when you flush the water will not just go everywhere.

In the plumbing industry this wax ring is referred to as a “johnnie ring”, “wax bowl ring” and also known as a “toilet flange wax ring” , there are all the same thing but just called different names.

This wax rings comes in two different styles and both will work, but one has a hard plastic cone in the center and one has just the wax ring. (see pictures) Let’s Get Started.

Step One:

The first step would be to remove the toilet bowl from the floor and if your not sure how to do that be sure to see our guide called “how to remove a toilet bowl”, and that will show you hoe to exactly do so.

Step Two:

Once the toilet bowl is removed you will see the toilet floor flange and the wax seal or what’s left of it sitting in top. It might not be yellow like the new one you have but it will be there and probably a lot more brown of a color. You will now want to take your putty knife and scrape all the old wax seal off of the toilet flange making sure you remove it all. You may also want to take a peak under the bowl as well and scrape that wax too as sometimes wax will not only be stuck on the toilet flange but on the bottom of the bowl as well.

Step Three:

Now that you have removed all the old wax seal from the flange you can take the new wax seal and put it where the old one was and make sure that your johnnie bolts are standing up straight and go ahead and go get the toilet bowl so that you can get ready to re-install it.

Step Four:

If everything looks good to you and you have the toilet bowl in the bathromm with you now, you can now go ahead and put the bowl on the flange , tighten your johnnie bolts and reconnect your water supply, that’s all there is too it.

Tools You will need:

You will need a putty knife, adjustable wrench, small pair of channel lock plyers , trash bag, flat head screwdriver and off course don’t forget the wax seal!