Maybe the technician or someone else bumped the toilet, displacing the wax ring. Is the leaking happening after flush, or is the leaking constant. This has been happening for a few weeks?!

@Jake, when you turn off the water valve outside the home that supplies all water to the home, then turn it back on, there is a brief moment when the system has higher pressures than it normally does. My outside contractors normally open up the outside water valves to allow that excess pressure to have somewhere to go. Not sure why this time that did not help....

The toilets that had the "filter" were Japanese-style toilet seats that double as a bidet. Their proprietary system has a filter to make sure their equipment never receives any particles that might be wandering through the supply water.

I can try to supply a photo later, but I am confused why there is any confusion here. The water is seeping out from inside the base, right where the wax seal would be located. There is no other path water can follow except from the sewer line through the wax seal, to under the base of the toilet.

@JimMat, this has happened for a few weeks, since the day of the "incident" where the system had higher pressure momentarily. The leak is continuous. It might be slightly worse after a flush.

@Stax, there is no leak under the tank. The tank is not constantly running to fill itself. The water visually is coming out from under the base of the toilet. It's just seeping out very very slowly.

“My confusion is why has this been happening for a few weeks,” right were the wax seal would be located””

@Stax, I have inspected and felt behind the bottom of the tank, and there is no evidence of water running down.

What if I just shut off the water to the tank and then emptied the tank? If the problem is with the wax seal, the leak should continue. Since the tank would be empty, it could not be the source of the water.

Here is a photo of the area that is leaking slowly. I have towels on either side.

I would be suspicious of the bidet function.

Assuming you have a functioning PRV on your water line, do you also have a pressure expansion tank on the cold water side? It's a code thing now, and should have taken up any extra pressure in the house. That's what its for.

@weemeister, I know PRV is required in commercial installs, but I did not know it is required for new residential installs. Do those allow the full pressure to get through if it is below some threshold?

In a standard toilet, what you are describing wouldn't happen.

Assuming the drain is not clogged and backing up, the only time there is water at the wax ring is when the toilet is flushed. It will sometimes happen that water that seeps past the ring when it's flushed will take some time to appear on the floor - but there isn't water at the wax ring unless it's being flushed. Water pressure has nothing to do with the wax ring - the water is not under any pressure at that point other than gravity.

It's possible that the bidet function is leaking somehow.

The over-pressurization issue still doesn't sound right - I don't know how that happens. If the static pressure at the street is more than 80 psi you need a PRV installed (and an expansion tank for the water heater). If that's the case and you don't have a PRV then it won't be a temporary situation. If it's less than 80 psi then you aren't going to over-pressurize anyway.

Here's where I am with this: Water leaking from the base of a toilet - assuming you have ruled out leaks running down from other places -- is the wax seal. Just replace it. The seal is $5 and is often a DIY job. It's much cheaper than dealing with the damage caused by a leak.

There is an interesting development on this toilet. I cannot drain the tank. With the flush valve open full, the water only drains down to about a point where there is still maybe five inches of water remaining in the tank. I am not able to drain it further than that.

So I am wondering now is maybe the main sewer backed up, and that prevents the tank from fully draining, but it also leaves water constantly pressing up against the wax seal?

What would be a good diagnostic at this point?

@stax, I cannot drain the bowl. It also has about five inches of water in it. If I manually raise the flush valve to full open, neither the tank nor the bowl fully empties. I tried to put a small plumber snake down the bowl, but it did nothing. It did not go in very far though.

@stax, sorry but I did not understand the mechanics of a toilet correctly. After looking at several toilets, it looks like no tank ever fully drains. They drain to the rim of the ceramic that holds the flush valve.

I did plunge the toilet and the bowl is now able to drain. I guess at this point I need to wait and see if the leak continues.

Assuming that the bowl was not draining completely, how would that affect the wax seal? From what you are saying, the wax seal is only supposed to encounter water pressure very briefly, during each flush of the toilet. It is not designed to encounter continuous water pressure? What might have happened there for water to be continuously pressing up against it?

@stax, sorry I do not see the point. The bowl has not had a draining problem up to now. I only encountered the bowl being unable to drain after I turned off the water to the tank and then attempted to empty the tank.

In any case, the problem was the leak at the base of the toilet, never the bowl.

" I know PRV is required in commercial installs, but I did not know it is required for new residential installs. Do those allow the full pressure to get through if it is below some threshold? "

The need for a PRV depends on locale. Here, the street pressure varies from 100psi to 150psi, so all homes have them. My pressure in the house is around 70psi. The PRV maintains this pressure throughout the flow range.

westes Zone 9a California SF Bay,

1. The toilet wax ring is never under pressure other than gravity. It's never subjected to pressure from the water supply.

2. Generally there is a small amount of water left in a tank (inch or so) after you flush it. This can vary by toilet.

3. If it's leaking at the floor, just replace the wax ring and be done with it. Seriously. Assuming you have been diligent about checking, we've exhausted virtually every other likelihood such as leaking elsewhere and running down the outside of the toilet. Replacing the wax ring is generally a low-cost, often DIY fix.

@weedmeister here my outside pressure is around 40 psi, which may explain why I do not have a PRV.

Come back and let us know what you found when repaired.

@Stax After plunging the bowl the leak stopped. That might be temporary, so I am going to observe it for a few weeks before deciding to replace the wax seal.

Even if the bowl had something stuck in it, the wax seal should not have leaked? So probably I need to replace that in any case?