LEAKY TOILET NIGHTMARE
For several months now, our downstairs toilet continued to turn off and on all by itself. As a matter of fact, all three toilets in the house at one time or another, serenaded us at various times throughout the day, including the wee hours of the morning. My first thought was bad toilet fill valves, but how could all three fill valves on all three toilets be bad at the same time? I guess it’s possible, so I replaced the one in the downstairs toilet with the granddaddy of flush valves, the Fluidmaster PerforMAX High Performance Toilet Fill Valve 400 with high efficiency refill range, EZ-Twist height adjustment, Universal fit and least but not last, Torque Guard. Seriously, is that necessary? You have to hand it to those marketing folks, they made me feel like I was about to repair a hydrogeologic two-phase transient water flow system on the space shuttle. I don’t even know what I just said!
I listened for any flushing sounds for about an hour and heard nothing. Success! I immediately threw on some pants and a shirt and headed out to Lowes. I bought two more Fluidmaster 400’s and installed them in our other two toilets. I profoundly exclaimed to the household that the handyman has resolved the toilet issue! I deserve accolades! Unfortunately, a few moments after installing the last Fluidmaster 400, we all heard it, the sound of water inexplicitly draining into the toilet for some unknown reason. My wife was quick to point out my miserable failure. Of the three toilets, two of them were still spewing water at unpredictable intervals throughout the day while only the toilet in the master bedroom did not. After all that time, money and proclamations, only one of three toilets had been fixed. If this were baseball and I was a hitter, I’d consider this a huge success, but it wasn’t.
As the days past and the not so soothing sounds of sporadic spurts of mysterious flushes filled the house, the family concludes that we have ghosts and they are teasing us by flushing the toilets every 10 minutes. It’s the only possible explanation. What else could it be? I’ve replaced, what I thought were broken fill valves with the latest in plumbing technology and yet I am taunted by the sounds of invisible flushing in all but one of my bathrooms. Just then, as I’m wallowing in the stench of my own humiliation, I noticed some writing on the inside of the top of the toilet tank laying on the bathroom floor. What is this? It’s a schematic of some sort with troubleshooting tips to boot! Could it be that in all these years, in my stupidity, I failed to realize that there were actual instructions, physically adhered to the tank in plain sight, begging me to read them?
The answer was right there all along, the illusive flush valve. Yes, it sounds very similar to the fill valve but it is a completely different part of the toilet tank ensemble. You see, whereas the fill valve controls the flow of water coming INTO the tank, the flush valve controls the water going OUT TO the toilet bowl! Eureka! I think I may have cracked this case wide open!
I turned off the water, flushed the water all the way down and tried to figure out how to take this flush valve off my Kohler toilet. As I’m starring down into the toilet tank, I realized I had no clue how to take this thing apart. As it turned out, this wasn’t the normal rubber flush valve setup in 90% of toilets in America. No, this was a “canister style flush valve”. What the hell is that and how, for the love of God, does this thing come off? As I sat there, pawing at this simple piece of plastic, I couldn’t help wonder to myself, how freaking dumb am I that I can’t figure this out. How can I stop this toilet from leaking? The answer hit me like a bolt of lightning, YouTube.
Of course, YouTube is like the Magic 8-Ball of the post millennium era. I fired up the laptop and searched YouTube. I quickly find what I’m looking for. This guy magically appears and proceeds to show me how to repair a flush valve on a Kohler toilet. This is just what I needed. Without wasting anytime, I threw on some sandals, grabbed my wallet and put on my Dallas Cowboy hat and headed out the door to Home Depot. I quickly found what I was looking for and rushed home, all the while day dreaming of the oh so sweet vindication of finally conquering this maddening matter. This time we truly have success!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t give my fellow handyman a plug and link his YouTube video here. Thanks bro!
