Replaced all the toilet flappers. More home owner crap

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

May the force be with you
Joined
Aug 8, 2013
Messages
16,390
Display Name
Display name:
Sixer
I swear I don't live in some sort of condemned house.
It is a nice house, I think it just might be a lemon

To the point. we have water issues.

2 questions:

1: The valve at the curb that regulates pressure is kaput so our water pressure is way too high. The city says it is my job to fix, the plumber quoted me $600

Do I pay that or is it a simple fix?

2: my water bill spiked (I forgot to turn off the water all night when filling the pool which if you are wondering costs $200)

The utility company came and checked due to the spike and said "Leak on the owner's side" Aside from the pool issue, I know we have one toilet that kicks on frequently.

Last week, I put food coloring in all 3 tanks, waited an hour and all 3 toilets were filled w/ colored water.

Today I replace all 3 flappers and put blue food coloring in all 3 tanks
all 3 toilets now have blue water in the bowl. I am not hearing any of them kick on. Should they be completely clear or is it expected that some water will always seep?


I want to move back to an apartment sometimes
 
A little seepage is inevitable.
 
Man... 3 toilets... you must be rich..!!!

I have two myself, and one is on the front porch for growing flowers....:rofl:
 
I'm no plumber, but it seems to me that excessive water pressure and internal plumbing issues might be related.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I swear I don't live in some sort of condemned house.
It is a nice house, I think it just might be a lemon

To the point. we have water issues.

2 questions:

1: The valve at the curb that regulates pressure is kaput so our water pressure is way too high. The city says it is my job to fix, the plumber quoted me $600

Do I pay that or is it a simple fix?

2: my water bill spiked (I forgot to turn off the water all night when filling the pool which if you are wondering costs $200)

The utility company came and checked due to the spike and said "Leak on the owner's side" Aside from the pool issue, I know we have one toilet that kicks on frequently.

Last week, I put food coloring in all 3 tanks, waited an hour and all 3 toilets were filled w/ colored water.

Today I replace all 3 flappers and put blue food coloring in all 3 tanks
all 3 toilets now have blue water in the bowl. I am not hearing any of them kick on. Should they be completely clear or is it expected that some water will always seep?


I want to move back to an apartment sometimes
Click to expand...

Pressure regulator on your end...easy fix.

Forgetting to turn water off....not easy fix.

On the issue with the toilet flappers....Do you use those chlorine tabs in the tank to keep the toilets "fresh"? If so....they cause flappers to degrade fairly quickly.

If pressure is above 150 psi...the pressure relief valve for water heater will be purging too.
 
Last edited:
TEFLONSEAN said:
Pressure regulator on your end...easy fix.

Forgetting to turn water off....not easy fix.

On the issue with the toilet flappers....Do you use those chlorine tabs in the tank to keep the toilets "fresh"? If so....they cause flappers to degrade fairly quickly.
Click to expand...

No, nothing like that. When I was single and had an apartment, I did because I thought the blue water was cool. Then I married Mrs 6PC and she said that was dumb :dunno:
 
PRV may or may not be an easy fix. The plumber will just put in a new one, $300 plus his time.

Doesn't hurt to pull the thing apart. If the diaphragm is blown, you need a new one otherwise if it's just sticking or leaking from hardness buildup you can clean that off.

If you do buy a new one and put it in, just as a technicality, you need a "pressure sustaining valve" although they are generically referred to as PRV's. A strict PRV serves a different function and won't work for your use.
 
Last edited:
SixPapaCharlie said:
No, nothing like that. When I was single and had an apartment, I did because I thought the blue water was cool. Then I married Mrs 6PC and she said that was dumb :dunno:
Click to expand...

What is the pressure at the house?

Edited my above...if above 150 psi...could be coming from water heater.
 
The flapper valves should not leak. Check the condition of the surface the flappers seal against. They may be goopy or eroded.

I got sick our our old toilets, replaced them with new Kohlers. Instead of setting up a syphon and hoping it empties the bowl, these use some sort of suction method that's way more effective.

I hear you on the home stuff. I always have something to fix/replace/paint. Last weekend I put the laminate flooring back down in the playroom, after having to pick it up to replace some damaged sections. This weekend I have to prep the walls for paint. There's a large mural, a section of chalkboard pain, a wall that has this iron based primer that makes magnets stick to it, and a large dent where my daughter ran into it.

Of course once it's prepped it has to be painted. My wife watches home improvement shows, I live them.
 
Sac Arrow said:
PRV may or may not be an easy fix. The plumber will just put in a new one, $300 plus his time.

Doesn't hurt to pull the thing apart. If the diaphragm is blown, you need a new one otherwise if it's just sticking or leaking from hardness buildup you can clean that off.
Click to expand...

Is this something that a trial and error, semi handy person could do using youtube videos and google as a guide?
 
Bryan,

We rent, but i fix things myself. Our downstairs toilet would run and run, so i went to home depot and bought a new flapper with a new seat. It ran me all of 6 bucks. A little silicone on the back of the seat to hold it to the old seat, installed the flapper and no food color seeps from the tank to the bowl. The upstairs master toilet had a problem with running, the flush lever was in a position that was pulling up on the chain enough to make it run. A quick bend of the flush lever and all was good again. No more running toilets for me..
 
TEFLONSEAN said:
What is the pressure at the house?

Edited my above...if above 150 psi...could be coming from water heater.
Click to expand...

Water heater is brand new. It was replaced last fall :lol: (AHS is slowly building me a brand new house)

I believe it was around 125 psi at the outside spigot.
I will double check tomorrow.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Is this something that a trial and error, semi handy person could do using youtube videos and google as a guide?
Click to expand...

Not too difficult. Just access the valve seals and diaphragm shaft and clean the crap off. If that doesn't work buy a new one.
 
sferguson524 said:
Bryan,

We rent, but i fix things myself. Our downstairs toilet would run and run, so i went to home depot and bought a new flapper with a new seat. It ran me all of 6 bucks. A little silicone on the back of the seat to hold it to the old seat, installed the flapper and no food color seeps from the tank to the bowl. The upstairs master toilet had a problem with running, the flush lever was in a position that was pulling up on the chain enough to make it run. A quick bend of the flush lever and all was good again. No more running toilets for me..
Click to expand...

I will try the silicone. I have some in the garage.
I was thinking about sung a lubricant for the pool filter gaskets but silicone makes more sense
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Is this something that a trial and error, semi handy person could do using youtube videos and google as a guide?
Click to expand...

I had a house I lived in for 7 yrs....replaced 6 pressure regulators during that time. Seemed like once a yr like clockwork they went bad. Pretty sure this was due to high pressure before the regulator(was 250 psi).

In my area pressure regulators are an easy fix...typically found near a hose bib in front yard. I live in So Cal...im sure they do it different in a lot of areas of the country with freezing temps so your experience could be drastically different.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Water heater is brand new. It was replaced last fall :lol: (AHS is slowly building me a brand new house)

I believe it was around 125 psi at the outside spigot.
I will double check tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Not saying it's deffective...but if pressure is above 150....it will be doing its job and releasing pressure.
 
sorry I should have clarified.
I had someone check it. The valve at the street has crapped out. That is verified.

The plumber said $600 and I said "let's hold off" That's a lot of money if there is potential that I can do it myself.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
sorry I should have clarified.
I had someone check it. The valve at the street has crapped out. That is verified.

The plumber said $600 and I said "let's hold off" That's a lot of money if there is potential that I can do it myself.
Click to expand...

shut off water....remove...go to hardware store...match it up...usually easy fix. Unless it's extremely hard to get to should be pretty straightforward...if you have ever done a little sprinkler work....not much harder than that...shouldn't have to sweat any pipes(but I could be wrong) I don't in my area. And the regulator isn't that expensive.
 
Ours is in the basement, it looks like it's just two huge compression nuts. If ours were to go and I had to replace it myself, I'd do it early on a Saturday and keep an eye on it all weekend. Should it start leaking, it would do thousands of dollars in damages.
 
FormerHangie said:
it would do thousands of dollars in damages.
Click to expand...

because it is in the basement and would ruin your stuff or because it would mess up pipes?

Mine is buried 50 feet from the house so it can't cause damage by leaking
 
Most of N TX has very hard water. It's tough on regulators. If you don't have a street key to turn off the main water valve, you can sometimes use a pair of channel-lock pliers. Once it's turned off at the street, open the spigot that's lowest, then open the faucets upstairs to let some of the water drain back down. Then, disconnect the pressure relief valve, and take it to ACE HARDWARE and they will match it for you. If you get one that is adjustable, you can set your pressure to the house. I installed a adjustable model and set my pressure for 45PSI upstairs. It takes longer to fill the pool, but it's a lot less hard on all the rest of the faucets, and valves in the toilet. Install the new regulator, and leave the spigot and faucets open. Turn the main valve back on slowly so taht you prevent water hammer(pressure surges) that can damage the regulator real quick. Once you have it turned on go inside and turn off the faucet and the spigot outside. Go back to the main, and look at your meter. There should be a little red dial thing next to the odometer and pointer. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QUzQg3BMvCs/T3N701-IrzI/AAAAAAAAAWE/-pywlI5ti3w/s1600/water-meter-1.jpg That little red dial is there to check for slow leaks. Make note of where it is, and watch it for 20 minutes. It should not move at all. If it moves, go back and open the faucet upstairs for a bit to purge the air, open a shower faucet too, and get the water out. Recheck that red dial, make sure it's not moving.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
because it is in the basement and would ruin your stuff or because it would mess up pipes?

Mine is buried 50 feet from the house so it can't cause damage by leaking
Click to expand...

Water damage. I don't think you'd want to put too much torque on those compression nuts, but not being a professional plumber I don't have a good feel for how much is enough. Yours being outside the only risk you have is erosion and a potentially large water bill. I'd still keep an eye on it.
 
docmirror said:
Most of N TX has very hard water. It's tough on regulators. If you don't have a street key to turn off the main water valve, you can sometimes use a pair of channel-lock pliers. Once it's turned off at the street, open the spigot that's lowest, then open the faucets upstairs to let some of the water drain back down. Then, disconnect the pressure relief valve, and take it to ACE HARDWARE and they will match it for you. If you get one that is adjustable, you can set your pressure to the house. I installed a adjustable model and set my pressure for 45PSI upstairs. It takes longer to fill the pool, but it's a lot less hard on all the rest of the faucets, and valves in the toilet. Install the new regulator, and leave the spigot and faucets open. Turn the main valve back on slowly so taht you prevent water hammer(pressure surges) that can damage the regulator real quick. Once you have it turned on go inside and turn off the faucet and the spigot outside. Go back to the main, and look at your meter. There should be a little red dial thing next to the odometer and pointer. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QUzQg3BMvCs/T3N701-IrzI/AAAAAAAAAWE/-pywlI5ti3w/s1600/water-meter-1.jpg That little red dial is there to check for slow leaks. Make note of where it is, and watch it for 20 minutes. It should not move at all. If it moves, go back and open the faucet upstairs for a bit to purge the air, open a shower faucet too, and get the water out. Recheck that red dial, make sure it's not moving.
Click to expand...

I don't have an upstairs faucet. 1 story house.
Can I just open any faucet?
 
Sometimes the issue is not the flapper but the gasket under the flapper. I had water leaking from tank to bowl at my girlfriend's place (rental) and a simple flapper replacement didn't fix it. After a bit more investigation I discover this:

toilet.jpeg

That's the gasket under the flapper completely deteriorating. That could be your issue, but if it was I'd expect the toilet to run every now and then as the tank water level was reduced.

If your pressure issues get fixed and the toilet issue remains, you might buy a few of those kits at Home Depot that contain all the guts of the toilet and just do a full swap. It really doesn't take long and if the guts are old, it makes sense anyway. They usually come with everything you need, including the bolts that attach the tank to the bowl, which are often rusted.
 
FormerHangie said:
Water damage. I don't think you'd want to put too much torque on those compression nuts, but not being a professional plumber I don't have a good feel for how much is enough. Yours being outside the only risk you have is erosion and a potentially large water bill. I'd still keep an eye on it.
Click to expand...

Compression nuts are easy....finger tight and a smidgen more...turn on water.. If you get a drip tighten in very small increments till drip stops. If it never stops dripping and you over torque it and it breaks...it needed to be replaced anyway!;)
 
Here in WFalls TX we're under a "Stage 5 Water Catastrophe" restriction because of the drought. Last year I installed an extra water cutoff valve about 5 feet downstream of the water meter in my front yard and set it to about 20% open. Granted, this does not reduce pressure any, but the volume restriction has resulted in my using about 50% monthly of the volume of water I used to consume in years past. I have no leaks in any of my home's faucets or toilets and still get enough pressure and volume to make my shower work adequately good enough although the water pressure and flow volume coming out of the shower head is way noticeably reduced. The toilet tanks take a lot longer to refill after every flush too.
 
FormerHangie said:
Ours is in the basement, it looks like it's just two huge compression nuts. If ours were to go and I had to replace it myself, I'd do it early on a Saturday and keep an eye on it all weekend. Should it start leaking, it would do thousands of dollars in damages.
Click to expand...
Don't ever start a plumbing job on a Saturday.

When I first got into commercial properties, I had a maintenance guy who knew how to fix anything. He had one hard and fast rule: Never, ever start a plumbing job after 3 PM on Friday. And never on a weekend.

Why? If something goes really, really wrong, you won't be able to call a plumber.

That rule has saved my butt a couple of times. :)

WRT toilets, they are the devil's work and should never have been invented. They all eventually leak, sometimes catastrophically, and they WILL rot out the floor beneath them, eventually.

As someone with 25 bathrooms to maintain, I wish we had just kept crapping in the woods. :)
 
Neal Howard said:
I have serious doubts that Mary would concur with you on that idea. :D;)
Click to expand...
Last month we had a toilet feed line -- braided stainless steel -- utterly fail, for no apparent reason. Two days before a sold out weekend.

The housekeeper noticed it when water was coming under the wall in the adjacent room. The room itself had water 2" deep. Ultimately three rooms were involved, and we had to move two guests.

After helping me clean up THAT mess, Mary would have gladly had me take every toilet in the hotel out to the shooting range for an afternoon of target practice.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
1: The valve at the curb that regulates pressure is kaput so our water pressure is way too high. The city says it is my job to fix, the plumber quoted me $600
Click to expand...

Jeez, your plumber tooling around in a new $70k F-250 or something?

I had ours replaced last fall, $170.
 
If one is draining the water lines in their house, ensure the electric water heater circuit breaker is turned off first. Refill tank before turning back on, otherwise you might have to replace an element.

To get a warning before 2" water floods the place from a leak, I installed "watch dog" water alarms at each appliance/sink/toilet during construction 14 yrs ago. Used them twice already. At $10/ea, It is cheap insurance.

Glentronics, Inc. Model# BWD-HWA Basement Watchdog Water Sensor and Alarm
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I swear I don't live in some sort of condemned house.
It is a nice house, I think it just might be a lemon

You have it so easy. I really overdid it with my 115 year old monster in Mass. I think I got the lemon. You could never imagine what we have done to this place. I can't believe it but we have had no problems at all with the 4 toilets in this place. We did install 83 new windows in the house last summer. House ownership is fun!
Click to expand...
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
sorry I should have clarified.
I had someone check it. The valve at the street has crapped out. That is verified.

The plumber said $600 and I said "let's hold off" That's a lot of money if there is potential that I can do it myself.
Click to expand...


I don't know how the water source enters your house, but if is accessable I would mount a new PRV in a location where further servicing is easier.. Curb located valves are a pain to get to, including digging.... If you house is a slab on grade and the supply comes up through the slab then you might not get so lucky on placing the PRV at that location... Good luck..:yes:
 
I just flushed one of the toilets and went out to the curb and watched that little red wheel spin. It slowed and finally stopped.

As long as that isn't moving, I am not leaking right?
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I just flushed one of the toilets and went out to the curb and watched that little red wheel spin. It slowed and finally stopped.

As long as that isn't moving, I am not leaking right?
Click to expand...

sounds reasonable. But check over a few hours. In other words, check the wheel at night before bed and again in the morning (don't use water that night) and see if the reading has changed.
 
I suck at plumbing. Hd to replace the flapper valve thingie in the downstairs toilet. Two trips to the hardware store and three tries, two of which terminated with me mopping copious quantities of water off the floor.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I just flushed one of the toilets and went out to the curb and watched that little red wheel spin. It slowed and finally stopped.

As long as that isn't moving, I am not leaking right?
Click to expand...

Any leak at this point will be very slow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top