While on the toilet, you might notice that there is a dark ring around the base of the toilet. The professional plumbing team at Done Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electric helps to explain where it is coming from and what you can do about it.
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What is Around My Toilet?
If you have mold on the floor of your bathroom around the base of the toilet, it means that the wax band that seals the pipes around the toilet has a leak. The mold usually doesn’t have any foul smell and you most likely you won’t see any water on the floor either. But just because you can’t see standing water it doesn’t mean that there are not small quantities of leaked water, enough for mold to set.
What Can I Do About Bathroom Mold?
The best thing for you to do in order to fix the problem is to lift the toilet from the floor and remove the old wax ring it has. Get a new ring and place it around the toilet. In order to make sure that you don’t have problems in the future, you should also make sure that the pipes under the toilet are cleaned. If the pipes aren’t clean, the water will build up every time you flush the toilet, putting extra pressure in the wax ring, which, in the end, is more likely to cause a leak. In case you don’t want to handle jobs of this kind, the best thing you could do is to call a professional plumber.
Tips to Prevent Mold
Besides a clogged drain or leaking wax ring, there are some other possible reasons for having mold in the bathroom as well. It is important to have working bathroom ventilation while you’re in the shower and you should leave it on for about half an hour after you’ve finished showering. Make sure that the humidity in your home isn’t over 50%. If you have problems of this kind, you should get an air conditioner or an air dehumidifier. It is also best to do general cleaning of your bathroom on a regular basis. For instance, if you have a rug around the toilet, it might have some mold too and if you don’t wash it, it will only grow back. Try to wash everything you can in the bathroom on a regular basis.
Can I Get Rid of the Mold?
Once you eliminate the source of the problem, you also have to make sure to kill the mold. For this you could use mold-killing products, like vinegar, hydrogen-peroxide and bleach. Open the bathroom window while working to eliminate the fumes and to allow fresh air to get inside to dry out the mold (or what’s left of it). Thankfully, in Colorado, opening a window is usually enough to help dry things out.
Having mold around the toilet is something relatively common but that doesn’t mean it’s normal. Although most people don’t realize it, you should treat the mold problem as your top priority to get rid of it since it’s not good for your health, especially if you have respiratory problems, such as asthma.
If you are having trouble locating the leak, or would like someone to replace your toilet’s wax ring, give Done a call!
