Toilet Repair and Installation
A running toilet wastes more water than every dripping tap in the house combined. A leak at the base quietly destroys the floor under it. Both are cheap to fix and expensive to ignore.
Most toilet faults are a rebuild rather than a replacement. We will tell you which yours is before quoting.
The running toilet
A toilet that runs continuously can pass hundreds of gallons a day. A toilet that refills briefly every twenty minutes, the phantom flush, can pass a surprising amount too, and it is easier to ignore because it is intermittent. Either one shows up on a water bill long before anyone connects the sound to the cost.
There are only a handful of causes, and diagnosis takes minutes.
A failed flapper or flush valve seal. The commonest by far. The rubber flapper hardens, distorts or grows a mineral rim, and water weeps past it from tank to bowl. The tank level drops, the fill valve wakes up and tops it off, and that is your phantom flush. A few drops of food colouring in the tank proves it: if colour appears in the bowl without flushing, the flapper is passing.
A fill valve that will not shut off. Debris on the seat, a worn diaphragm, or a float set wrong. Water runs into the overflow tube continuously.
Water level set above the overflow. The tank fills, spills into the overflow, and the valve never satisfies. A five-second adjustment.
A chain or flush lever fouling. A chain too short holds the flapper slightly open; too long and it tangles under the flapper. Both cause continuous running.
High supply pressure. Worth mentioning because it is missed constantly. Above about 80 psi, fill valves are pushed past their design and weep. If a house eats fill valves, the problem is upstream of the toilet, and a pressure test settles it.
A full rebuild, flapper, fill valve, tank-to-bowl gasket and supply line, is inexpensive and puts the whole mechanism back to new. On any toilet worth keeping, that is the sensible repair rather than replacing one part at a time over three visits.
Leaks, and which ones matter
Not all toilet leaks are equal, and the ranking matters.
Water on the floor at the base is the serious one. If it appears when the toilet is flushed and is clear, it is usually the wax seal or a loose flange connection, and every flush is putting water into the subfloor. Left alone this rots plywood, delaminates the floor, and in an upstairs bathroom eventually shows on a ceiling below. It is a same-week repair, not a monitor-it-for-a-while situation.
A leak at the tank-to-bowl bolts or gasket shows as water running down the back of the bowl. A rebuild kit fixes it; the bolts and rubber washers should be replaced together.
A leak at the supply connection or shutoff valve. Often the flexible line or the compression nut, sometimes a shutoff valve whose packing has dried out. Both cheap. The shutoff is worth replacing to a quarter-turn ball type while it is open, because the old multi-turn valves seize exactly when you need them.
Condensation on the tank is not a leak. Cold supply water in a humid bathroom sweats. Tank liners and a warmer bathroom help; a mixing valve on the supply is the thorough fix.
Food colouring in the tank proves a leaking flapper in ten minutes.
Call Now: 1-866-203-6890Weak flush and repeated blockages
A toilet that needs two flushes, or blocks every few weeks, has a cause and it is usually not the toilet.
Mineral scale in the rim jets. The holes under the rim that direct water around the bowl scale over on hard water, and the flush loses its swirl. Clearing them with acid descaler and a wire restores a flush people had accepted as normal for years. On hard water east of the Cascades this is a common and satisfying fix.
Tank water level too low. The flush depends on the volume dumped. A level set an inch low costs a noticeable amount of flushing energy.
A flapper closing too early. Some flappers are adjustable for dwell; a cheap replacement of the wrong type shortens the flush.
Partial blockage downstream. If more than one fixture is slow, or if the toilet gurgles when the bath drains, the problem is in the branch or the main, not the toilet. That is a drain cleaning job, and we will say so rather than replacing a functioning toilet.
A blocked vent. A toilet that flushes slowly and burps air is often a venting problem. Roof vents block with debris or, in mountain communities, freeze closed in cold weather.
Early low-flow designs. Some 1990s 1.6-gallon toilets were genuinely poor. If yours is one, no amount of adjustment will fix the bowl geometry, and replacement with a modern unit is the honest answer, current designs move considerably more waste on the same or less water.
Objects in the trap. Wipes, dental floss, cotton buds, toys. Nothing but toilet paper and waste should go down, and the wipes labelled flushable are the single largest cause of avoidable blockages we see.
A rocking bowl and the wax seal
A toilet that moves when you sit on it needs attention promptly, because the movement is what destroys the seal.
The bowl sits on a flange fixed to the floor and the drain, sealed with a wax ring or a modern equivalent. Two bolts hold it down. If the bowl rocks, the seal is being worked loose on every use, and water and sewer gas eventually get past it.
Causes: bolts that have loosened, a floor that is not flat, a flange that has broken or corroded, or a flange sitting too low relative to a floor that has had tile added over the original surface. That last one is extremely common after a bathroom refit, and shimming the bowl without addressing the flange height is a repair that fails again.
The proper fix is to lift the bowl, inspect the flange, repair or replace it, including a flange extender where the floor height has changed, fit a new seal, set the bowl level with proper shims, tighten in sequence, and check for movement before finishing. Where the subfloor around the flange has softened from a long-standing leak, that has to be repaired first, because bolting a flange to rotten plywood buys a few months.
Water at the base is a same-week repair. It is going into the floor.
Book a RepairRebuild or replace
Our default is repair, because most toilets are worth keeping and a rebuild is a fraction of a replacement.
Rebuild when the china is sound, the bowl flushes well when the mechanism works, and the fault is in the tank. Flapper, fill valve, gasket, bolts and supply line, all replaced together.
Repair the seal and flange when the fault is at the floor. Independent of the tank mechanism and independent of the toilet age.
Replace when the china is cracked, a hairline crack in a tank or bowl always gets worse and cannot be repaired reliably; when the bowl design flushes poorly regardless of adjustment; when parts are no longer available for an unusual old unit; when the trapway is so scaled that flow is permanently restricted; or when the bathroom is being changed and a different height, footprint or style is wanted.
Age alone is not a reason. A well-made older toilet with available parts will outlast a cheap new one.
Choosing a replacement that works
Rough-in dimension first, the distance from the finished wall to the closet bolts, usually 12 inches, sometimes 10 or 14 in older houses. Get it wrong and nothing else matters.
Height. Comfort height, around 17 to 19 inches to the seat, suits most adults and anyone with mobility issues. Standard height suits children and shorter adults better. Worth deciding deliberately rather than by default.
One-piece or two-piece. One-piece has no tank-to-bowl seal to fail and is easier to clean; two-piece is lighter to handle and cheaper. Both are fine.
Flush type. Gravity flush is simple, quiet and serviceable with parts available anywhere. Pressure-assisted moves more waste and is louder, useful on a long or shallow-fall drain line. Dual flush saves water where it is used as intended.
Bowl shape and trapway. Elongated is more comfortable; round fits tight rooms. A fully glazed trapway blocks less often, and a skirted base is much easier to clean.
Parts availability. We favour brands whose flappers and fill valves are on a hardware shelf in every Oregon town, which matters more in Burns than it does in Beaverton.
What a proper installation includes
Removing the old unit, then inspecting what is underneath, because that is where problems hide. Flange condition, subfloor condition around the opening, and drain alignment all get checked and reported before the new toilet goes on.
Then: flange repair or replacement if needed, a new seal, a new quarter-turn shutoff and braided supply line, the bowl set level and properly shimmed on an uneven floor, bolts tightened in sequence to avoid cracking china, caulk at the base where appropriate, and the tank commissioned with the water level set correctly and the flush tested.
We take the old toilet away, and we leave the shutoff working so the next repair does not start with a hunt for the house valve.
Flushable wipes are the leading cause of blockages we clear.
Get a QuoteServices that often go with this one
- Drain cleaning
- Faucet & fixture installation
- Shower & bathtub plumbing
- Water pressure regulator
- Leak detection
- Emergency plumbing
Where we cover
Available in all seven regions, 155 Oregon communities.
Toilets, answered
Put a few drops of food colouring in the tank and do not flush for twenty minutes. If colour appears in the bowl, the flapper or flush valve seal is passing water. It is the cheapest diagnostic in plumbing and it explains most unexplained water bills.
Yes. Clear water appearing at the base when flushed usually means the wax seal or flange connection has failed, and every flush is wetting the subfloor. It is inexpensive to fix now and expensive once the floor has rotted, particularly upstairs.
Most often scaled rim jets reducing the swirl, a tank level set too low, or a flapper closing early. Sometimes it is a partial blockage or a vent problem downstream, and occasionally it is an early low-flow design that was never good. We check the cheap causes before suggesting replacement.
Not reliably. A hairline crack in vitreous china propagates, and the failure when it comes is sudden and messy. If the crack is in the tank or bowl, replacement is the honest answer. A crack in the seat or lid is a different and trivial matter.
Yes, and they are the largest single avoidable cause of blockages we clear. They do not break down like toilet paper, they catch on any roughness in the line, and they accumulate. Nothing but toilet paper and waste belongs in a toilet.
If it predates 1994 it likely uses three to five gallons a flush against 1.28 today, and the saving is real for a busy household. If it is a well-functioning 1.6-gallon unit, the payback is much longer and repair is usually the better spend.
Check the rough-in before buying a replacement.
Talk to a PlumberMost toilet problems are a small repair
A rebuild, a seal, a descale of the rim jets. We diagnose before quoting, and we tell you plainly on the minority of occasions when replacement is genuinely the better spend.
Same-day where dispatch allows
Call 1-866-203-6890