Save water, fix your toilet - or - Can a running toilet enter the Olympics? - Phoenix Home Improvement

A running toilet can run you a lot of money if you leave it in disrepair. Remember that statistic I mentioned in a previous post about the typical household wasting 11,000 gallons of water per year? The number one culprit is a faulty toilet.

Once you understand how a toilet is designed to function, (or any apparatus for that matter) making repairs to bring it back to optimal working condition will seem elementary.

How does a toilet work? Whenever I posed this question to attendees of my clinics, invariably the comedian of the group would say this, or something similar: ‘You push down the handle and it flushes the $#!% down that big hole in the bowl.” Right. No star on your paper, buddy.

The major players.

Okay, so it’s not a Shakespearean sonnet, but these are the cast of players in this toilet drama:

Tank (or water closet)

Bowl

Fill valve

Float

Fill valve seal

Flush valve

Flapper *

Vent tube (or overflow tube) *

Handle

Chain (on older models, it is a rod)

Siphon

The weir

Supply valve (or angle stop valve. The little shut-off valve at base of the toilet coming out of the wall, usually has a chrome handle)

Supply line (or riser. The hose-like line connected from the supply valve to the bottom of the tank))

The Mansfield flush valve

*Exception to the flapper and vent tube: There is also a flush valve system known as a Mansfield (named after the city where the manufacturer is based, Mansfield, Ohio). The valve is pictured on the right. A Mansfield is just a different kind of flush valve. For one, it doesn’t flap. It is a plastic ‘bell’ looking thing that rides a vertical stem, set in its center, as a guide to always seal correctly every time is it flushed. The bell is the overflow tube and seal (think flapper seal) all in one. Quite brilliant, actually.

It still essentially based on the same principle as a flapper type.

Insert photo caption or credit here

A toilet functions on the same theory that makes a siphon work:

Part 1.

Look at the bottom section where the toilet meets the floor. See that upside-down ‘U’ configuration between the bowl and the base where it bolts down? For all practical purposes, that’s the ‘siphoning hose’. Pushing the handle lifts the plug (the flapper) at the bottom of the tank, which is holding the column water. That opens a path for the water to enter the bowl through the holes surrounding the bowls rim and raises the water level in the bowl. The bowl is not built to use your household water pressure to push the water out, but designed to siphon the water out of the bowl. As the water level in the bowl rises, it also rises in the first part of the trap. When the level rises above the weir (the top of the trap) it flows over and drops down the drain side of the trap. Once this flow as been established, a pressure difference is created between the bowl and the drain leg of the siphon. The weight of the water falling down the drain creates a drop in pressure there. Atmospheric pressure (the pressure of the air pushing down on the earth) pushes down on the water in the bowl until all of the water (and waste along with it) is pushed out. Once air is introduced (all the water is out) it ‘breaks’ the vacuum and the siphon action stops. Yes, just like how you siphon liquids for one container to another, like gasoline with a hose, only the ‘hose’ is a much larger scale. If you start the siphon and then pull the hose out of the first container, the siphoning stops because air ‘breaks’ that vacuum the lower pressure side had created.

Part 2.

Also when you push the lever; the flapper will be buoyantly suspended above the drain hole until most or all of the water in the tank evacuates. Simultaneous with that action, the float on the fill valve drops and the valve opens allowing water to rush in and fill the tank. The flapper will seat, closing the waters path to the bowl and the water in the tank will continue to rise until the float reaches the shut-off point, or ‘water level’ mark as indicated in writing on the inside of most tanks.

Failsafe.

A failsafe is an operation designed to eliminate danger or lessen damage due to a failure or malfunction. As part of the flush valve, the vent tube (or overflow tube) in a toilet tank prevents the tank from overfilling (and spilling out all over the bathroom floor) by giving the ever rising water somewhere to go should the fill valve fail to shut off at its preset level.

Water shut off.

You will have to shut off the water to repair or replace any component.

The water supply shut-off and the contractor’s special ‘one piece’ (supply valve with corrugated line all-in-one).

There is a 99% probability that you have a ‘one piece’ shut-off valve with a supply line that looks like this: corrugated. How do you know for sure? See the “How do I undo this” caption in the pic? If that connection does not have a nut, it is a ‘one piece’. - Should you be fortunate enough to have a newer shut-off valve with a PVC (plastic looking outer part) or a metal braided (Looks like basket weaving) supply line, then skip the next bit and move on to the following chapter, “common problems”. -

Now, back to the ‘one piece’ or ‘contractor’s special’.. DO NOT reuse it. Replace it with a new shut-off valve and new supply line. Trust me on this; it is NOT designed for you to go yanking on it after it has been initially installed by the builder. It WILL break. (See the pic below) You WILL flood. And, if you’re married or cohabitating, well … the rest of that story won’t be a pretty sight either. How do you fix it?

Oh, man … am I gonna need a plumber?

I don’t think so. Again according to the probabilities, you have copper pipe in your home (88% of the homes 25 years old to current builds have copper plumbing in Phoenix) so this is an easy fix.

The replacement valve will be “Quarter turn angle valve” (A ball valve. One quarter turn of the handle and it is on, a quarter turn back and it is off) with a 1/2 inch compression fitting - this part hooks up to the pipe in the wall - and 3/8 inch supply port - this part hooks to the new supply line (hose-looking thing) you will buy along with it. See the next two pics of the angle valve and the supply line.

The toilet supply line will be 9 inches long for standard height toilets in older homes and 12 to 16 inches for ‘comfort height’ toilets or standard height toilets in newer homes. The connection size is to the new valve is what? Yes, 3/8. The connection to the bottom of the tank is standard. (Just make sure one end of the line is 3/8 inch and the other has the big plastic nut, that’s the one you want).

Removing the old valve (and tightening the new one as well).

You’ll see the compression fitting has two places for a wrench. One on the valve and one is the nut nearer the wall. So, you need two wrenches (adjustable or crescent wrench preferred – no teeth to mare the chrome finish) one to keep the valve from spinning while you loosen the nut closed to the wall. When the valve comes loose you won’t be able to get the nut past the compression sleeve to slip it off the pipe. Don’t go all panic on me now. Listen; JUST LET THE NUT STAY ON THE PIPE. No worries. On the new valve remove the nut and the copper ring (or sleeve) that is inside. The new valve will match up to that nut you left on your pipe, so simply thread it together (NO TEFLON TAPE) and hold the valve side with one wrench (so the 3/8 inch port aims up) and tighten the nut, tight. Turn on the water main. If it leaks, tighten up a bit more and it will stop. Attach the supply line to the valve and the toilet (again, NO TEFLON TAPE) and you’re in business.

Common problems.

(Always turn the water off before attempting any repair.)

Symptom: It seems to ‘come on’ or ‘run’ for half a minute every so often, or you hear water tricking in the tank after flushing.
Solution: The flapper has failed. Replace the flapper. (See the first pic below) On a Mansfield, replace the Flush Valve Seal – use the red one. (See the second pic below)

Exclusive tip! Always replace the flapper with RED rubber! (Or on newer toilets, use the white rubber flapper replacement). Because our water is completely recycled over and over, chemicals are used to kill the bacteria (and God knows what else is in there). Untreated natural type rubbers (the black flappers) break down in the presence of these chemicals, even at one part per billion. (Remember it is, after all, soaking in it.) Red rubber is treated to be chemical resistant. As well the new, originally equipped toilets with white rubber flappers.

Symptom: The water does not shut off. Which means the water in the tank rises higher then it used to and is overflowing into the vent tube.
Solution: Some ‘experts’ would say, “Adjust the float down so the valve shuts off at a water level below the top of the vent.” Um, yeah. Floats, as a general rule DO NOT go out of adjustment from daily use. Actually, it is the valve’s seat that is out of whack and adjusting the float ‘compensates’ for that ‘temporarily’. Temporarily means you will have to keep adjusting it from time to time as the valve seal continues towards total failure. Who wants to keep waiting for that shoe to drop? Replace the seal at the supply side of the fill valve, or update the fill valve with a new replacement. Problem solved.

Fill valve seal and fill valve replacement. One word. Fluidmaster. So easy it almost installs itself. If your Fluidmaster unit is less than three years old and it is ‘running’, just replace the seal (as indicated in the pic below).

An Arizona summer exclusive! Yes, we do get hot in the summer. And, so to does the incoming cold water to our homes. So hot, in fact, that it can reach 150 degrees in the underground pipes that supply our neighborhoods. So, we are used to just letting it run a few minutes until it gets cold, no worries … right? Except for your toilet, which is designed for ‘cold water use only’ (This disclaimer is posted in the installation or operation manual or somewhere on the box). It does not have the luxury of letting the warmed up incoming water run cold before it enters the tank. Hot water wreaks havoc on the rubber parts in your tank, mainly the flapper (which will ‘waffle’ in hot water, making the flat part of the flapper look ‘wavy’.) Also, the rubber washer or ‘seal’ of the fill valve will fail for the same reason. Chances are, if you’ve noticed the toilet seems to ‘run’ all by itself and then stop ever so often, the flapper has failed and is not seating properly due to this phenomenon. Or, if the fill valve will not shut off completely after a flush, the seal has failed due to warping from the hot water. In Arizona it is NOT uncommon to replace either or both of these parts every 12 months. Yeah, I know …what can I say? Welcome to Phoenix.

Something you may not know:

In 1992 our Congress passed the Energy Policy Act which mandated that all new toilets installed in America use just 1.6 gallons of water per flush, less than half of the typical 3.5 gallon toilets in use at the time. They did not offer any ideas or technology to the manufacturers in order to accomplish this task. As a result, some toilets flush better than others.

The best 1.6 gallon toilets will have a high, narrow tank. The higher the water level, the more initial pressure it can release when entering the bowl. In science they call it a ‘column’ of water, the taller the column, the more weight pushing down on say, a square inch. A tank holding a one foot column will have the same pressure if it is two feet wide, or ten feet wide. Obviously, a ten foot wide tank would hold more water, but it is the principle I want you to understand. At 1.6 gallons, a 16 inch high water tank will have a higher initial water pressure then one that hold the same volume but only 10 inches high.

Flushing golf balls.

Some manufactures claim they can flush ‘a dozen golf balls’ or two dozen, or whatever. First, golf balls are round and offer no resistance to movement. (Think about it … How many things that you typically tend to flush are perfectly round?) And despite their tendency to sink, golf balls do have a rubber winding around the core, which is also rubber, giving them a buoyant characteristic. Any little movement, or current, will carry them along with it. It is a ‘showboat’ demonstration to flush round balls down a toilet and it proves absolutely nothing, folks. Except maybe someone has too much time on their hands and golfing on the brain.

Hopefully, you’ve learned something new and have the ~~golf~~ ~~balls~~, err - I mean incentive to fix it yourself. Speaking of the little round trouble makers ... Make sure all of your golf balls are going in the hole on the green, and not the one in your toilet.

What’ll they think of next?