OATEY 43645 Closet Flange Spacer Kit

That's exactly what the Oatey 43645 Closet Flange Spacer Kit is for. It builds up an existing closet flange when new or replacement flooring leaves the flange sitting below grade, so the toilet seats on a flange at the right height instead of on a stack of wax. The kit is a 1/2 inch PVC spacer plus two gaskets, toilet bolts and shims, so you get the lift and the fasteners in one box.

One 1/2 inch spacer per kit. If your tile, LVP or underlayment build-up is thicker than that, order more than one kit and stack spacers, gasketing between each layer. Tile with thinset commonly lands around 1/2 inch, so a single kit covers a typical one-layer floor change.

In the box: a PVC spacer, two gaskets, toilet bolts and shims. Not in the box, and you will need them on the job: 100 percent silicone, which gets applied between the gasket layer and the spacer, and approved floor fasteners, since the ring has to be fastened to the floor with fasteners suited to the substrate. Plan on a wax ring or bowl seal as well.

No. The spacer kit stacks on top of the closet flange that's already in the floor, which is the whole point of it, you keep the existing flange and the existing connection to the drain. Pulling and resetting a flange means cutting into the closet bend; a 1/2 inch PVC spacer, gasket and silicone avoids that entirely. The spacer does have to be fastened down to the floor with fasteners appropriate to the substrate.

Two stacked wax rings is the shortcut, and it's the one that comes back as a callback. Wax has no structure, so the bowl can rock and break the seal over time. The Oatey 43645 spacer is rigid PVC that gets fastened to the floor and sealed with 100 percent silicone between the gasket and the spacer, so you're raising the flange itself and then setting a normal single seal on it. For a property manager turning units after a flooring change, that's the difference between a repair and a repeat visit.

One gasket seals between the existing flange and the spacer, the second seals above the spacer under the closet ring or bowl, and silicone goes between the gasket layer and the spacer. If you're stacking multiple kits for a thicker floor build-up, that gasket-per-interface pattern is what keeps each joint sealed rather than relying on the PVC faces meeting flat.

Toilet bolts are included, along with shims. That matters because raising the flange 1/2 inch means the old bolts may no longer have enough thread above the bowl base to take the nut, so the kit ships the bolts sized for the stack-up. Shims are in there for leveling the bowl on a floor that isn't flat after new covering goes down.

PVC plastic, the same material family as a standard PVC closet flange, so it doesn't corrode the way a steel ring does in a wet floor. Load transfer comes from fastening it down: the ring has to be secured to the floor with fasteners approved for that application, which on tile over concrete means masonry anchors rather than wood screws.

Oatey 43645 is the manufacturer part number for the Closet Flange Spacer Kit, one kit per toilet for a single 1/2 inch build-up. Each kit runs about 0.667 lbs, so a case quantity for a 20-unit turn is light freight. Count your openings by floor thickness, not by door: units that got tile need more spacer height than units that got LVP over the old subfloor.