There's a hole in my toilet what am I gonna do?

[MrsRussell]

So this is sort of half-urgent but not horrible, we have two bathrooms!

We've just gone to replace the seat on the upstairs loo, and it seems that at some point in history some bugger has actually broken the back of the porcelain (where the seat bolts go) and glued it back in place.
This is all well and good, but it's also broken out a chunk of the - I don't even know what to call it - the bit where the water comes out, there's a chunk missing so when you flush water pees out of the back of the loo and consequently through the floorboards into the living room.

Just left a message with our plumber (who I hope is out with his family enjoying the sun, rather than elbow-deep in somebody else's khazi!) but is there any temporary fix?
I'm wondering if expanding foam might do the job just to make it useable till he can get here.

PS reading that back it doesn't make a heap of sense, the glued part has now come out (I think it must be about 20+ year old glue) it's a sliver about 2inches by about half an inch, and it's right underneath where the bolts go but next to the wall so it would be a beastly job to glue it back in. Even if glue would hold in wet porcelain...

The first thing is don't flush.If you have a flexible pipe going to toilet with a valve in it then turn it so water does not go into cistern.
Use a bucket of water straight down the pan to flush waste away.
Glue obviously works as it's held on for 20 years if you have the piece but you are probably looking at a new toilet.

Sure of it, unfortunately @Starisnotanumber.
We've flushed it since (with flood socks etc in place ) and there's still about 100ml of water escapes through the cracks where I've glued it back in place. It's not like a full flush, it's about a cupfull. It's still enough to drip through the floorboards though! (it's an old house!)

I've sent DH to go off and get a can of expanding foam to fill in the gaps. I don't intend to use it but we have a 10 year old and I will lay you a pound to short odds if anyone is going to get up in the night and flush in his sleep, it'll be him.

If you can't isolate the inward pipe I would tape over the flush handle so it can't be used by accident.
If it's a push down flush a pice of card taped over should do it or if it's a handle then tape it as it is now.
Then use a bucket straight down the pan to flush until you can get plumber.
Weekend rates are obviously going to be more expensive

Thanks, that's a really good idea.
Our usual plumber is stacked out at the moment so I want to keep it ticking over (even if like you say that's an emergency-only bucket flush) till he can fit us in when he's got time - doubt he'd do it as an emergency anyway now!

If you know a good plumber they bare like gold dust I'd wait for him to do the repair or more likely replace the toilet.
It may be covered on your insurance though if you have accidental damage as part of your policy it may be worth checking as they sort everything out for you.

post some photos if you can.

a tray or grill-pan may slide underneath to catch the escaping fluids. Don't let them run into the floor, and especially the void, ceiling and room beneath.

Encourage men to wee outside to reduce flushes. Hosing into the soil will (mostly) prevent odours.

It will also discourage foxes and some cats.

p.s.

a new WC can be cheaper than you think

but we need photos, to identifty what sort you need.

example

Use a jug - eskers to get under a tap then a bucket! Or fill a bucket and use a jug from there. Remove the flush handle. Job done until a plumber can replace the toilet.

Oooh! @PigletJohn! I'm glad you posted - I used to be Cattermole, you helped me out with my leaky kitchen (this is relevant!) it turned out to be the neighbour's downspout that was discharging into the back of their drain where the cement had eroded, and thus directly into the soil and through the wall, into my kitchen. Cement was applied, approx half a ton of ballast thereof, my kitchen is now dry as a bone....

Anyway as a consequence I have lots of unused flood socks to soak up bathroom spillages.

At the risk of sounding like one of the Beverly Hillbillies, we have a jug on the bathroom windowsill for hairwashing in the bath.
I don't think we would be in the business of replacing like for like. It's not clear from the photo (this is the estate agent's photo from when we moved in 5 years ago when there was considerably less crap in the bathroom) but it's a proper Heath Robinson job - the toilet is in fact raised on a piece of four-by-two to give it sufficient lift to connect it with the wall cistern. But yeah, like everything else in our (small and oddly-shaped) house it was bodged many years ago and we are slowly going through un-bodging things as necessary. Will the plumber has already had a look at the thing some months ago - we've been meaning to have the bathroom done over next - so he knows what he's up against!

Weeing outside keeping off the cats? Some hope, we've got five of the buggers!!!
Flush handle now taped up.

Do you own the home? If so, just replace the toilet yourself. It's not hard.

if the WC trap goes through the wall and connects to an iron soil pipe, the wooden bearer was probably to get the new pan outlet to the existing height.

you will probably have to do the same with the new one.

plastic pipes are much easier to cut and change.

you could probably use expanding foam, or gorilla glue, to fix the broken bit back on. Use much less than you think, it expands a lot, spread it with a disposable knife on the edges of the btoken piece. It will set in damp conditions. Use tape to hold it in place while setting.

Plastic soil pipe but yes, you wouldn't want to cut holes in granite twice! This was what Will was saying, the various bits of the toilet don't actually bear much resemblance to each other - it's as if they found a cistern in a skip one day and a pan somewhere else, and kind of fudged them into something functional.
And to be fair they've evidently worked for twenty years...