New Basement Toilet Installation

Soil Pipe Present

• If there is already a soil pipe, the drainpipe in the floor that a toilet connects to at its base, then you only need to anchor the toilet to the floor with its drain connecting to the soil pipe. This process includes fitting a flange to the floor around the soil pipe opening and anchoring the flange so it does not move. You place closet bolts in the flange’s slots, providing a means to anchor the toilet to the flange. A wax ring sits between the flange and the bottom of the toilet, providing a watertight seal. The toilet must be secured to the closet bolts with nuts that are tightened enough so that the toilet cannot rock in any direction.

No Soil Pipe

• Without a soil pipe in the floor where you wish to install the toilet, you must turn to an alternative design for the toilet’s drain. The waste that flows out of a toilet can have mass and so it cannot simply flow horizontally in a drainpipe to the house’s sewer drain line. You may dig into the ground and install a soil pipe, but doing so may require tearing up a large portion of the basement floor and can cost more than one of the alternative drain solutions.

Upflush Toilets

• An upflush toilet has a macerating pump where the sewage flows each time you flush the toilet. Inside the pump are several steel blades that cut up the human waste and toilet paper into tiny debris. The pump then sends the macerated waste down a waste pipe that connects to the house’s sewer line, which connects to the sewer system. You do not need to break through the bathroom flooring since the upflush toilet’s pump system sits on top of the bathroom’s finished flooring, like the toilet.

Storage Tank

• You may install a large storage tank that sits below the basement’s floor, similar to a septic tank for houses that are not in an area with a sewer system. The waste from the toilet flows down into the storage tank. Once enough waste collects in the tank, a floating sensor triggers the pump that connects the storage tank to a waste pipe. The pump pulls the waste out of the tank and sends it down the pipe, where it connects to the sewer drain line.