By Matthew Baring-Gould, Kingscliff-based drainage plumber. Servicing Tweed Heads for 4 years. 5.0 stars across 173 Google reviews. Licensed NSW 383340C and QLD 15036450. ABN 74 605 392 348.
Toilet in Chinderah that kept blocking regardless of what the customer flushed. Found a 60mm horizontal offset at the pan collar, installed wrong at build. Replaced the collar. Fixed.
What the customer called us for
Repeat-blocking toilet. The customer had been told by two previous plumbers that it was a usage problem, change the paper, stop flushing wipes, etc. The toilet kept blocking anyway. We get called a lot for this exact scenario.
What we found when we got there
The pan collar at the base of the toilet had been fitted with a 60mm horizontal offset. The pipe coming out of the floor and the outlet from the toilet were not lined up. Someone had used a horizontal offset collar to bridge the gap. Every flush, paper and effluent was catching on the lip of that offset and slowly building up. Over a few weeks it would close enough to block.
Why we did it this way
A horizontal offset pan collar is a legitimate product but only for very small misalignments and only in low-use situations. On a main household toilet, any horizontal offset is a long-term blockage machine. The right fix is not to clear the blockage again, it is to replace the pan collar and get the alignment right. The permanent fix lives under the pan.
What we did on site
- Pulled the toilet to expose the pan collar.
- Confirmed the 60mm offset with a camera and visual inspection.
- Removed the offset pan collar.
- Fitted a correctly aligned pan collar with no offset.
- Re-seated the toilet.
- Flush-tested with paper to confirm clean flow.
The result
Toilet flushes clean. No more recurring blockages. The customer had been told for over a year that she needed to change what she was flushing. The fix was five hundred dollars worth of plumbing under the pan she had been using twice a day.
If you have the same issue
If your toilet keeps blocking no matter what you flush, and the plumber keeps clearing it without checking the pan collar, you are paying for the symptom instead of the cause. Ask for the pan to come off and the collar to be inspected. Call Matty on 0447 188 394 or request a quote.
Customer names and addresses have been withheld. Individual results vary. Drain Masters Plumbing is licensed in NSW (383340C) and QLD (15036450).
Frequently asked
How do I know if the problem is the pan collar?
If the toilet blocks on normal flushes, with normal paper, regardless of what the user does, the fault is almost always physical: a bad collar, a crush in the waste pipe just below the floor, or a trap collapse. All require pulling the toilet to confirm.
Why does nobody check the pan collar first?
Pulling the toilet is extra work. Clearing the blockage with an eel takes twenty minutes and the customer stops complaining for a few weeks. Checking the pan collar takes an hour and finds the real fix. Most call-out jobs end at the eel.
Is this just a Chinderah thing?
No. We see this on new-build toilets across the Tweed, Kingscliff and Gold Coast estates. If the floor plumbing was rushed, misaligned collars are a common builder shortcut.
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