Another question for my experts.

PS the wax seal of this toilet is intact. It was replaced a few months back.

Depends what kind of construction the building is. If the building is of fireproof or fire protect (concrete floors, fire protected metal/wood joist, etc.) then it an unprotected penetration through the fire rated floor assembly would be a violation yes. But temporarily opening the assembly to make a repair and restoring the fire rating seems reasonable and should not pose an issue with proper failsafes in place and ensuring that the restoration of the fire rating is done correctly and in a timely manner.

If the building is of nonfireproof construction (eg wood framed floors with no fire rating - the kind of buildings that are usually six or fewer stories with fire escapes) then there’s no issue making and leaving a penetration as the assembly between floors is not required to be fire rated.

Thank you INT. Building is 14 floors poured concrete circa 1960's.

When I was renovating and put lights in the closets the contractor told me he could not put lights into the ceiling. They had to go on the walls.

Why isn't the building repairing this?

Doesn't the lead bend have to go through the concrete subfloor no matter what?

Keith, the building is in the process of repairing. 30, yes I wonder about this too. The bathroom floor is elevated about two inches, I'm guessing for the pans.

Making an opening in the concrete floor would be a difficult task. Would make better sense to rip up the ahower above.

I agree.

Not sure I understand. There is not a lead pan under the toilet. There is a lead pipe (or "bend") If they need to replace the pipe you pretty much can only do that from below. But that is rarely needed. However, the fix from above may require some skill. They may need a more knowledgeable plumber, like this fellow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4s1eLz_nJQ

@nyc_sport. That would be true if the OP is describing a standard toilet that has an outlet on the floor. Then the closet bend would be below the concrete slab. But a lot of bldgs in nyc with concrete floors - especially post-wars with low ceiling heights - have rear outlet toilets to minimize the number of penetrations through the floor slab and to minimize impacts to ceiling heights.

That being said if the OPs is describing a standard toilet then the *only* way to repair the closet bend will be via their ceiling finishes. No reason to cut through the slab in that case.

My bathroom ceiling has drywall attached to the concrete floorplate which I believe is the original finish. Are you saying they would be able to get to the bend pipe through this drywall without damaging that floorplate?

Everybody, the problem is not the bend pipe per the plumber. My personal theory is because it's a pied a terre, they have 'relatives' marching in and out of that apartment and some must not be sitting down very carefully. It's not a Lazyboy! And thank you everyone especially INT for your input. I now know more about toilet plumbing than I thought I would ever need.

@stache - "relatives" ah yes, many such cases

In North Brooklyn its mostly trust funded kids letting their various hangers-on crash for days/weeks/months at at a time
I nicknamed this AirBro&B

We had one guy who trashed his place so badly it still smelled like a dive bar / high school boys locker room 6 months after he had moved out.. unsurprisingly it took many price cuts and months to sell it.

Stach - so if it’s not the closet bend then what is it? Is the toilet dripping in the floor then the water permeating through the slab into your bathroom below?

If you have no drop ceiling - and just finished affixed directly to the underside of the slab above then its propably a rear outlet toilet above you. Those are notoriously leaky given the orientation of the seal relative to the flowing water. If the outlet of the toilet is leaking then the water on your ceiling is not clean.

I know you said it’s not the seal since it was just replaced. And rear outlets don’t have a closet bend. So then what is leaking on you?

The plumber said judging by where my ceiling damage was, the leak was coming from the air valve(?). This time they put plaster with the wax seal I guess to stabilize. Super will measure ceiling for water next month to see if it has dried.

The air admittance valve? These would be unusual in an apartment buildings with central stacks reasonably adjacent to the bathrooms and kitchens, unless the toilet is at the end of a particularly long horizontal run (I've got one adjacent to my kitchen sink in the 2nd home. Also unusual, because these are usually quite a bit higher than the level of the piping. If the horizontal run pipe is shared with other fixtures (sink, tub, adjacent kitchen drains, etc.) then there may be some downstream blockage that is causing it to backup and overflow at certain times (but usually other drains would overflow first).

Kitchen and bath in my line are on separate stacks, about fifteen feet apart.