Screwing toilet pan to floorboard

[MoonMan2]

I will be purchasing a toilet shortly and am concerned of the screwing of the pan to the floorboards.

Here is the old screws from the toilet I removed:

It does seem rather large? Is this absolutely necessay? Aren’t floorboards around 15 mm thick, so why need a 80 mm screw?

I've looked at my other toilets and the screws seem to go in at an angle rather than straight down into the floorboard. How are you supposed to drill a pilot hole with that complexity?

Speaking of pilot holes, what drill bit size should I use?

I have a hand drill and screwdriver. Will this be ok?

 

[blup]

Don’t use that screw unless you know it’s going into a joist and there are no services notched into it. The weight of the toilet and sealant around it is enough imo but you can add sealant beneath the pan if you want.

 

[blup]

Use shims to ensure the pan is level

 

[Stuckinarut]

I suppose it depends on how deep the recess is for the screw. Don't reuse that screw as mentioned though.

 

[Madrab]

Brass or stainless steel screws only should be used on a toilet pan. The screws need to be large enough to fit well into the recess hole in the foot of the pan, usually at least an M6 but the screw only needs to be as long as the board it's screwing into added to the distance from the pan to the floor.

Your new toilet may be a side fixing though and that uses a totally different fixing. Which are absolutely plastic crap IMO. I tend to use bath panel fixings now.

In saying that though, came across a pan last week that has a fully moulded flat base with squares cut in it for the fixing kit, so the plastic brackets needed to be cut to fit into them, why of why do they keep changing their $hit, just makes life complicated

 

[MoonMan2]

I'll order the toilet then take it from there. There is no rush to get this done.

Thanks for help so far.