A leaking cistern or toilet can waste up to 600L of water in a single day! That’s an astonishing amount of water to waste, think about what would be wasted if you didn’t do anything about it straight away. Apart from the precious water, you could be damaging your home, costing yourself money, wasting valuable resources, most of the time you’ll be doing all of this and you won’t even know!
In a weird way, it would be rather fortunate if your toilet cistern was leaking onto the floor in your bathroom (rather than say, in the pan where it’s much harder to see), as you would be able to notice it and repair it before it does too much damage or wastes too much water.
If the outdoor overflow is leaking, you’ll most likely notice it within a day or two. However, as mentioned above, most modern cisterns are designed in a way that they will overflow into the pan. This would be a slow and steady flow but will cause wastage in the amount listed at the beginning, 600L a day! To put this in perspective, this equates to five bath-fulls of water, every day.
If you’ve previously fitted isolation valves, you’ll be able to turn the water off for just the cistern in question, instead of the whole house. If you’d like to know more about fitting isolation valves, give us a call on 1300 328 238. Now would be the perfect time to install isolation valves if you don’t already have them.
Cistern Leaking into the Pan?
If you have a modern push button toilet mechanism where the overflow runs into the pan, you might find the leak rather difficult to spot. You might find out when you receive your water bills though. If you look close enough, you’ll find that you can hear water running when the toilet hasn’t been used. You might even notice a small but constant trickle running down the back of the toilet pan.
- An easy and clever trick you can do to test if you have a leaking toilet cistern is as follows:
- At least 30 minutes after the toilet has been flushed, wipe the back of the toilet pan dry with toilet tissue.
- Place a new, dry sheet of toilet tissue on the back of the pan and leave it for up to 3 hours, even overnight. If you come back and the paper is wet or torn, you know that you have a leak.
Toilet Cistern Keeps Running?
If you’ve discovered that you do have a leaking toilet cistern, there are a few possible causes. You could have some grit or limescale getting into the mechanism. There’s a small chance, if you’re lucky, that this might get dislodged if you give the button a few short, sharp taps or even by flushing both buttons and holding them down to ensure the cistern drains completely. If neither of these things work, it is cheaper and easier to replace the faulty flush mechanism in full.
The Fawcett Group are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, phone us on 1300 328 238 and we can get your leaking toilet cistern back up and running in no time.
Toilet Cistern Leaking onto the Floor
If your cistern is leaking onto the floor, the most likely problem is that the cistern and toilet need to be fitted at precisely 90 degrees, if you have a close coupled toilet.
Now if you have this problem but you have a low level toilet, it’s most likely that the your leaking toilet cistern is caused by the seal around the pipe where the water enters the cistern, or where it leaves the cistern to enter the pan. You’ll be able to test where the leak is by wiping the areas in question dry and see where the water is coming out. If the toilet only leaks when the toilet is flushed, then it’s more likely that the leak is coming from the coupling to the waste pipe for the toilet.
Toilet Cistern Leaking from the Base
First things first, make sure that it is in fact a leak and not just condensation. If it isn’t condensation and it isn’t coming from any of the plumbing joints then you’ll probably find that you have a cracked cistern. If this is the case, you’ll be much better off replacing the cistern.
Dripping Cistern Overflow
The water level in your cistern is controlled by an adjustable float or ballcock. If the float is set too high, the water will be allowed to fill too high. When this happens, water runs down into the overflow. In older systems, this is usually a pipe that leads outside. In modern systems, this is down into the toilet pan.
If this is the case, you may be able to just re-adjust the float. If however, it is broken, it will need to be replaced. As you can see, there are many possible reasons and causes for you leaking toilet cistern. The best thing for you and your property is to get it fixed as soon as possible. This will save you water, money, your home and the environment.
If you need a professional to help you, phone The Fawcett Group on 1300 328 238. We’re on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Give us a call.
