Hesitant Handyman Repairs - Replacing Toilet Hardware
What on earth is that noise?
You’re laying awake at night, pondering the great mysteries of life. Is there intelligent life in the universe? Is there another dimension outside of the one we know? How does Hostess get cream filling into Twinkies? And for the love of all that is holy, what is that creepy gurgling noise coming from the toilet?
Toilets are an endless source of screwball noises, not all of them human. (In fact, some of the toilet noises emanating from humans don’t sound human, but I digress). On more than one occasion, mine has made this weird hiss and gurgle that made me think that someone turned an anaconda loose in the sewer systems and it had worked its way into the bowl, waiting to swallow me during a night trip to relieve myself.
Something less sinister…
In looking around the inner workings of the toilets, I realized that the sounds were less scary in some senses and more scary in other sense. Specifically, the inner workings were wearing out. The parts of the toilet that control the flow of water into and out of the tank were all starting to degrade. As in, what I originally thought was an attempt by the prior owner to simply caulk around items in the toilet were actually how the black rubber had started to decompose.
I say “less scary” because… well… a broken toilet is less lethal than a toilet dwelling anaconda waiting to swallow you whole. “More scary” because you begin to realize that, in fact, if these seals on your toilet were to fail at the wrong time (say, while you’re on vacation–because let’s face it, nobody shuts water off to their house while they’re out of town despite the fact that it would probably be a good “just in case” sort of idea), the scene in Paddington where the bear rides a bathtub down the stairs would only be the beginning of your problems.
A call to action…
In my case, the call to action on it was plain–one day as I went to give Alton a bath, I discovered that, in fact, there was already water on the floor, and it seemed to be coming from the backside of the toilet. At first I thought it was a failure of the supply line, which I thought was odd since I had replaced the supply line not terribly long ago, but eventually after some investigation I realized our culprit was the fill valve itself. And thus began my journey to learn how to replace the inner workings of a toilet. Which, for all the fright it initially instilled in me, wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. For the most part, anyway.
How I did it…
Required supplies
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- Toilet Repair Kit – I bought the Korky QuietFILL Platinum Complete Universal Toilet Repair Kit for my toilets. I’ve replaced the innards of two of the three toilets, and am planning to replace the third one with the same kit. I’ve been really pleased with the two I’ve installed.
- Adjustable wrench
- Bucket
- Allegedly I *should* have been able to get the flush valve off without having to break it, but I had a unique experience where I couldn’t budge it, no matter what tool I used, so I broke it off with my Kershaw XCOM knife.
How I did it
Step one – Shut off the water & flush the toilet
This is basically the first step any time I’m working on a plumbing item. Thankfully toilets have a shutoff on the wall, so I didn’t have to kill water to the whole house. Once the water’s off, you’re going to flush the toilet.
After the flapper closes, you’ll need to mark the water line with a pencil. Why? Well–short version, when you get the new parts in, you’ll want to make sure that the toilet’s water level comes close to the original line–within 1/2 inch of the original line. If it doesn’t, there are additional adjustments to the flapper that need to be made. In my case, it came within the 1/2 inch tolerance, so I didn’t make those adjustments.
Step two – Disconnect basically everything
So after the water’s off, I could disconnect the water supply line to start disassembling the toilet. Once the line was off, I dropped the the bucket under the fill valve so that the water that’s still in it didn’t spill everywhere
Once the supply line was disconnected, I could remove the fill valve by taking off the mounting nut with the adjustable wrench. It took a quick tug to pull it loose (the deteriorating rubber seal was sticky).
Once the supply line was off, I moved on to the tank bolts. Two bolts hold down rubber washers that hold the tank on the seat, so I loosened the nuts on the underside of the seat. Once the nuts were removed, I lifted off the tank and pulled out the bolts.
I then had to remove the flush valve. As I noted in the supplies section, I couldn’t fit any of my wrenches around the mounting nut, and it was tight enough that I couldn’t do it with my hand. If I wasn’t working on something porcelain, I would’ve just taken my reciprocating saw to the nut, but that could’ve cracked the porcelain, so… I hacked away at it (incredibly slowly) with my EDC knife until it finally broke. Without the mounting nut, the old flush valve pulled right out.
Step three – install the new parts
I basically worked backwards from here. I installed the new flush valve first, hand tightening it onto the tank and attaching the sponge gasket. I then set the tank back on the bowl, learning very quickly that it’s easier to install the bolts before the flush valve (the valve actually blocked one of the bolt holes when I installed on the first toilet). Once the rubber washers and bolts were in place, I added the nuts and gently tightened until the tank was stable and level (being careful not to overtighten because.. well… cracked porcelain is bad, mmkay?)
finally, the fill valve went into place on it, hand-tightened into the tank. Both the flush valve and fill valve have adjustable heights–the flush valve should be 1″ below the flush lever and 3/4″ above the water line, the fill valve should have a critical level marking that is 1″ above the flush valve. I locked in these heights, then attached the tiny hose from the refill adjuster dial to the flush valve’s overflow tube. Finally, I connected the water supply to the fill valve.
Step four – Test the new parts
Turn on the water, check for leaks around the water connection. Thankfully, there was nothing. I turned off the water after the tank was filled, then flushed the toilet again. The water fell within 1/2″ of the water level mark from earlier, so no additional adjustments were needed. I went ahead and turned the water back on, let it fill, and gave it a couple more test flushes, making sure to check for any additional leaks. Nothing else popped up, so the swap was complete.
Final thoughts
The process was super easy, and Korky’s includes a far more detailed version of the instructions in the package. I’ve been really happy with how well the products work–the fill valve is a lot quieter than the old one, and the random gurgling noises in the middle of the night have all but ceased. It was a simple upgrade that I was happy to finally complete.
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