Bathroom Repair in Portland, OR

A leaking toilet seal, a soaked subfloor and matching hex tile, repaired in three days.

Published October 31, 2026 · Portland, Oregon

Water from a leaking toilet seal doesn’t stay on top of the floor. On this Portland, OR 97233 bathroom it showed up as a yellow-brown stain in the grout at the toilet base. Underneath, it had been running down the drain pipe into the original plank subfloor.

This was a bathroom repair, not a remodel: find where the water went, open the floor down to the boards, let the wood dry, and put back hex tile matched to the rest of the room. The wall tile stayed. The job took 3 days and came in under $5,000.

The stain, and what was under it

This is how a slow leak shows up: the grout around the toilet base turns yellow-brown, and the caulk line at the bowl discolors and starts breaking up. Grout is porous, so a leak at the seal wicks out through the joints. By the time it shows on top, the floor underneath has been taking on water for a while.

So before pulling anything, we checked from below. That’s the cast-iron closet bend coming down through the original plank subfloor. The boards are dark and water-stained right at the pipe and fade out from there, and the top of the bend is crusted with rust. Wet at the pipe and spreading outward points to water coming down past the seal above.

Yellow-brown grout stain and discolored caulk around the base of a toilet on a hex tile floor in a Portland bathroom — Yellow-brown grout and a breaking caulk line at the toilet base.

Rusted cast-iron closet bend and water-stained plank subfloor seen from below a leaking toilet — The closet bend from below: stained boards at the pipe and rust on the bend.

Toilet pulled, tile out

With the toilet off, the problem is plain. The old wax seal has broken down to a crust on the flange, and black staining runs out from it through the grout lines. That’s water getting past the seal and traveling under the tile. Tiles right at the flange are cracked. You don’t scrape this clean and set a toilet back on it; the tile comes up so we can see the wood.

We cut the tile out of the whole toilet alcove, through the old layers underneath, down to the original plank subfloor. The boards are stained dark across most of the opening, worst around the drain. We stopped the cut at the base trim, so the wall tile stayed put. There’s no reason to tear out good wall tile to fix a floor. A rag goes in the drain to block sewer gas and keep debris out. Then the floor sits open and dries. Tile over damp wood just seals the moisture in, and you’d be back doing this job in a few years.

Toilet removed, showing a corroded flange, old wax seal and black staining spreading through the hex tile grout lines — Old wax seal crusted on the flange, with staining running out through the grout.

Hex tile removed down to the water-stained plank subfloor, left open to dry during a Portland bathroom floor repair — Tile cut out to the plank subfloor and left open to dry.

Floor and toilet back in

Once the boards were dry, we treated them, put the floor back together and laid new hex tile and grout matched to the existing floor. The toilet went back down on a new wax ring. A wax ring seals once and is never reused. A braided supply line connects it to the shutoff.

Finished bathroom floor repair with new hex tile matched to the existing floor and the toilet reset in Portland, OR — New hex tile and grout matched to the existing floor, with the toilet reset on a new wax ring.

Stained grout or a soft spot around a toilet can mean the floor needs attention beyond the seal. To have us take a look, request a free written estimate.