New Toilet, Now a Urine odor

speedster1

After my Easter morning toilet disaster I Replaced the subfloor in my bathroom with 3/4" tongue and groove Plytanium on top of 26/32" plywood. I roughed in a new 12" toilet and purchased a Jacuzzi Era toilet. I plan on tiling the floor in a week or two so for now I just placed the toilet on top of the subfloor. A day or two after installing it I noticed a stale urine smell in the bathroom. It's only me and my wife in the house so no one has peed on the subfloor. The toilet was brand spanking new and I've cleaned it numerous times. But the smell is persistant.

What would be causing this? It's not sewer gas smell. It smells like pee that's been sitting ina toilet for 2 days. Yet we flush after every use and as I said the toilets been cleaned thuroughly.

SuperPlumberGuy

Your aim is not as good as you think
Plywood is like a sponge.

speedster1

LOL. I'm telling you, I did not pee on the floor! As gross as it sounds I put my nose to the floor around the toilet and the only smell coming from the wood is the chemical smell of new plywood.

I swear the smell seems to be coming from the toilet itself. I flushed the toilet and paid careful attention to the sheeting action of the bowl rinse. All parts of the bowl seem to be covered by rinse water.

AllanJ

Did you install it correctly? Maybe it's leaking at the wax ring underneath.

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mikey48

Wax seal is leaking.

speedster1

I pretty positive that it's not teh wax ring. First off, if the wax ring was leaking I would smell sewer gas, not stale piss

Secondly, I've looked at the toilet drain from directly underneith in the garage and no signs of leakage. But I could be wrong. I'm going to pull the toilet tomorrow and lay some tyile. I should get to the bottom of it one way or another.

JakAHearts

If you were going to remove the toilet again you could have used a waxless gasket. They can be removed and replaced without having to buy a new wax gasket over again.

mikey48

I would not use the waxless. The Jacuzzi comes with a standard size seal and may not have been thick enough. Make sure you feel the compression of the new seal, if not it is to thin.

speedster1

I knew I was going to take the toilet out and that I'd have to buy a new wax ring but hey, it costs $5. I'm a tightwad but I'm not that cheap

tpolk

sometimes you can get an ammonia type smell from new materials, ply,plastics etc

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shadaz5

I have the same problem!!! Have you been able to solve this?? It's driving us crazy!

Mr Chips

Do you have young boys? if so, look for yellow stains near both of the flange bolts( on the toilet itself, not on the floor) We had this problem, tried mopping the floor almost daily. finally discovered a dried up yellow film in the area of the flange bolt, but it was hard to see since it was on the side closest to the bathtub.
I guess my son was getting pee up on the rim and around the seat mounts, and it drained down from above by the holes that mount the seat to the bowl and ran down and collected by the flange bolts, up off the floor, and out of site unless you really almost crawled between the tub and toilet

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shadaz5

thanks for the reply, but yes, we have already cleaned the bathroom numerous times, daily. The walls, bolts, under the seat, baseboards...we've cleaned it all. It's the strangest thing!

the_man

When you set the wc again after you tile, caulk the base all the way around. I'd bet ten bucks the smell disappears

speedster1

Well I'm sorry I never came back to this thread and explained where the smell came from. I guess I just lost track and was so busy. I did figure this one out and admittedly I'm a little embarassed of the answer. Of all the answers I received on this thread I have to crown tpolk the winner of the "Guess where the piss smell is coming from" contest

Here is what happened......
In my rush to get the toilet back in I had to put it down before I tiled, mudded, painted, etc. So the very day I sat the toilet in place was the same day I began fixing the walls and getting ready to mud, sand, repaint, etc. I spent a couple of days mudding and sanding. During this time I had the strong urine smell. Because it smelled like urine the logical conclusion was that it was coming from the newly installed toilet. I was super frustrated and blame jacuzzi for making a crappy toilet about 5-6 days later my plan was to pull the toilet back out, prime and paint, and then tile. So when the weekend came I pulled the toilet out and sat it on my porch. I plugged the drain hole in the floor and began priming all the walls. Later that day I told my wife, the piss smell is gone! It's got to be that damn toilet! After painting I took a closer look at one part of the wall and determined I wasn't happy with the results and I was going to remud it to make it look nicer. So I threw some more mud on and let it dry for a couple of hours. After a few hours I walked into the bathroom and guess what??? A faint urine smell was back! It took about 10 seconds for me to realize the mud was causing the urine smell. Now I know what you are thinking, dry wall mud doens't smell like urine..... But I've got to tell you in this case it really did. I had my wife, my dad, my brother-in-law and family all notice the urine smell during the renovation. I had bought good quality compound (USG SheetRock blue lid). So after sanding I re-primed and painted. Then laid my tile and reinstalled the toilet. Guess what, no urine smell at all!! Mystery solved

So TPolk had it right, he suggested the smell was coming from construction materials and he was right. I learned a good lesson. I'm sorry I doubted Jaccuzi. LOL