Toilet Repair

Running and phantom flushing

A toilet that runs, or one that refills briefly in the middle of the night with nobody near it, is leaking water from the tank into the bowl. The usual culprit is the flapper. Rubber hardens and warps with age, and chlorinated or hard water speeds that along. A worn flapper lets a slow trickle past, the level in the tank drops, and the fill valve kicks on to top it up.

The other suspect is the fill valve itself. If water is spilling into the overflow tube, the float is set too high or the valve is no longer shutting off cleanly. A drop of food colouring in the tank, left for twenty minutes without flushing, tells you which side the leak is on. Colour in the bowl points to the flapper.

Both parts are inexpensive. The trick is matching them to the toilet. Many newer models use a three-inch flush valve or a canister design instead of the classic two-inch flapper, and a generic replacement may never seal properly.

Leaks at the base

Water on the floor around the toilet is a different matter. It may be condensation sweating off a cold tank in summer, a weeping supply connection, or a failed wax ring under the bowl. The last one is the one to take seriously, because the water seeping out is not clean and it soaks into the subfloor.

A toilet that wobbles when you sit down has usually broken its wax seal already. We pull the toilet, scrape the flange, check that the flange is sound and at the right height, and reset it with a new seal and fresh bolts. If the flange is cracked or the floor beneath it is soft, we tell you what we see before going further.

Weak or double flushing

When a flush barely clears the bowl, look at three things:

1. Tank water level. It should sit near the line marked inside the tank.
2. The rim jets and siphon jet. Mineral scale chokes them over time, especially with harder water.
3. A partial clog in the trap or the line beyond it.

Scale is a real factor in this region. Our article on hard water in York Region explains why. High house pressure can also make fill valves misbehave; see pressure reducing valves if your toilet hisses and other fixtures bang.

Repair or replace

Otherwise, repair usually makes sense. Parts are cheap and the work is quick. Replacement starts to win when the toilet uses a lot of water per flush, when parts are hard to find, or when the same unit keeps clogging because its trapway is narrow. In that case, our toilet installation page explains what a new one involves.