Is your toilet running? Weird gurgling noise coming from your toilet bowl? From water leaks to odd noises, toilets can do all sorts of frustrating things.
Fortunately, with a little troubleshooting, there are lots of toilet dilemmas you can correct by yourself. Here, the experts at Lakeside Heating & Air will go over some of the most frequent toilet problems, what they mean and whether it’s a plumbing issue you can fix yourself—or, if it is better to call in an expert.
1. Why Does My Toilet Always Run?
If your toilet is constantly running, it is something you should repair because it’s in all probability also costing you money on your water bill.
A typical reason for a running toilet is something wrong with the overflow tube. Found in the tank in the back of your toilet, an overflow tube allows extra water to drain from the tank into your toilet bowl so the water level in your tank doesn’t get too high and leak all over your floor. Sometimes, the trouble is that the plastic tube connecting your fill valve to your overflow tube got detached. If that’s the case, you should be able to reach into the tank and reattach them. It also could be your toilet is running simply because the overflow tube is is not tall enough to maintain the correct water level and needs to be replaced by one that is the appropriate height.
Another factor causing a toilet to run could be the flapper–which acts as a plug in the bottom of your tank—is malfunctioning and no longer forms the tight seal needed to hold water in the tank. This enables water to seep through or around the damaged flapper and escape out the bottom of your tank into your toilet bowl.
Occasionally a running toilet is caused by something awry with your toilet float, which is a floating device that maintains the water level in your tank. It does this by shutting off your fill valve when the water level raises the float to a preset height. If your float is set too high, this will allow the water level to rise too high, and the extra water will spill into your overflow tube and down into your toilet bowl.
2. Why Does My Toilet Make a Gurgling Sound?
A gurgling toilet is often caused by a partial clog in your toilet, drain lines, mainline or a blockage in your sewage vent. If the reason for the noise is a clog in your toilet, you can try to fix this by using a plunger or drain snake to remove the clog. If this rectify the issue, you can check where your sewage vent exits your home to make sure it is not blocked by debris that would restrict air flow.
If these efforts don’t fix your gurgling toilet, you will probably want to phone a professional such an expert from Lakeside Heating & Air to evaluate the problem. As the trusted plumber in Chelan and Wenatchee, Lakeside Heating & Air will check to see if the sound is due to a blockage in one of the drain lines directing toilet water out of your home or the mainline that takes waste water away from your home to the municipal water system.
4. Why Won’t My Toilet Flush?
If your toilet is hard to flush, it’s likely the problem can be found in the chain, flapper or the handle. That’s because there’s a chain in the toilet tank that is affixed to the back side of the handle. The other end of the chain is connected to the flapper, which serves as a plug in the bottom of your toilet tank.
The quickest way to get to the bottom of why your toilet is hard to flush is to lift up the lid, peer inside the tank and investigate.
Here’s how the process is supposed to work when you flush a toilet: you push down the handle, which pulls up the chain, then the chain pulls the flapper up and that enables the water to drain out of your tank and into your toilet bowl.
Sometimes a toilet will never flush because the chain is snagged on something within the tank, which keeps the chain from yanking up the flapper to let out the water. Or, the chain is too long or becomes detached from either the handle or the flapper. If this happens, free the caught chain or reach in and change it to the appropriate length.
Sometimes flappers can get stuck when they get old or become worn out. Or, there might be something amiss with the handle.
5. Why Is My Toilet Leaking?
A leaky toilet can be a costly scenario, potentially producing water damage in and around your bathroom. Often, a leaky toilet is caused by a cracked supply line or a crack in the toilet tank. If your toilet tank is overflowing, it may be something wrong with the toilet float.
Cracked gaskets around the connections on the underside of the tank also can let water to leak out of the toilet, as can a broken toilet flange or wax ring at the base of the toilet where it attaches to the floor. The majority of these issues are best fixed by an expert plumber.
6. Why Won’t My Toilet Fill With Water?
A toilet that won’t fill with water often suggests a problem with the fill valve, which is the valve that lets water into your toilet tank. If the tube has failed or is blocked by rust, sediment or mineral buildup, it may not be allowing water into the tank.
Another typical cause for your toilet not filling with water is something faulty with the float, which is a device that prompts the fill valve to stop allowing water into the tank when the water has gotten to the correct level. The fill valve does this when the water level lifts the float to a predetermined height. It might be that the float/float assembly needs adjustment so that the water is allowed to reach the correct level. Or, correcting a toilet not filling with water might require adjusting or exchanging the fill valve.
