Leaking toilet wax ring. Flange installed too low (20 years ago). Plumber wants to rip up bathroom floor to fix. Any other options?

We've been having a very frustrating issue with a leaking wax ring in the toilet in our main upstairs bathroom. My son and I replaced the ring three times -- twice with an extra thick wax ring and then, as a last resort, with a Fluidmaster "Better Than Wax" universal toilet seal. Each time, the seal lasted for about a week, then started leaking again. Our home was built in 2000 (we purchased it in 2017) and, as far as I can tell, the wax ring has not had any issues until recently.

My plumber (who I have used before for projects and who I have a high degree of trust in) also replaced the wax ring, using an extra thick ring, but he also replaced the standard closet bolts with longer ones, since the bolts I installed only had a little bit of thread left showing when fully bolted down. We were optimistic that it was *finally* fixed but, sure enough, about a week later, it started leaking again. Arrggh!

Here are two photos. It appears as if the original builder of our home installed the flange too low into the floor (which I have read is a fairly common issue). **My plumber now wants to rip up our bathroom tile (of which we have no spare pieces left for replacements), tear up the subfloor, and install a new pipe and flange.** (His rough estimate for this is around $1,000. Ouch!)

So, Reddit, is this my only option, or is there a way to extend the existing flange, without having to rip out a section of flooring?

Thanks for any suggestions!


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