[ttyler]

I have 2 parts of my floor (on in the kitchen and one the bathroom) that have rotted through. I know what happened in the kitchen there was a leak that went unnoticed. However it wasn't until last night when I sat down on the toilet and it went forward and the pipe came yanking out of the wall that I realized I had any problem there. Luckily by the time my fiancee realized I was screamng about something real (such as water going everywhere) I had already grabbed the cut off key and was handing it to him. Now to my question, is there any way to figure out what happened in the bathroom and how do I go about fixing this at minimal cost. My fiancee is a construction worker and swears that it has to be done by a professional but I've seen on other sites where it gives directions for doing it yourself. Any Advice!

 

[purplewg]

I am no professional but I do have a lot of experience in this area. Some years ago I was gone for a weekend and had supply line break. Long story short a couple years later I about fell through the bath room floor. Had to fix it. Now I am doing the same thing in the room on the other side of that room from the same leak.

You must have a floor joist system by your description. If you caught it soon enough the fix may not be all that bad. Maybe the joists are still intact. Usually a leak around a sink or a toilet will be limited in size but not always. What he needs to do is rip up the subfloor and see what is going on. No need to get under the house yet as we know the subfloor is bad. Remove the toilet, remove any covering in that area (figure at least 2ft x 2ft), determine what the sub floor is, set your saw to cut one layer at a time, rip that up with a crow bar or pry bar, keep going till you get to the joist, try to make cuts so that any replacement subfloorig will end up half way on the joists if possible, take a look at the joists and see if they need replacing or just a portion repaired. Depending on the amount of clearance under the house this maybe easy or hard.

There are several good posts on this subject here so maybe do a search on "rotten subfloor", or replacing joists. It is pretty straight forward but it is not a job for those who lack confidence they can carry it off.

 

[VaViaCo]

Agree with investigating the damage as posted above.
Wax rings on toilets don't last forever.
A little leak with each flush can ruin floors/joists over time.
Once the plumbing is fixed and wood rebuilt you can check for leaks before applying the subfloor (if there are pipes down there.)
After the toilet is in and before the base of it is caulked, flush it a bunch and watch for leaks underneath it.
If there is access to below, look there too.
The cause was as you stated for the kitchen: unnoticed leak.