Why Your Toilet Keeps Running (and How to Stop It) in Fairfield

A toilet tank has two jobs: hold water until you flush, then refill to a set level and stop. When a toilet runs, one of those two jobs is failing.

If water is leaking from the tank into the bowl, the tank level drops, the fill valve opens to top it up, and the cycle repeats.

That is the toilet that hisses at night or refills for a few seconds when nobody has touched it.

If the fill valve is not shutting off, water rises until it spills into the overflow tube in the middle of the tank and keeps running down into the bowl.

Knowing which one you have narrows the repair to a single part.

A worn flapper. The flapper is the rubber seal at the bottom of the tank.

The EPA's WaterSense program notes that because the rubber wears out, the flapper should be checked periodically and replaced at least every five years, and that an old or worn flapper can cause a toilet to flush on its own

or silently leak thousands of gallons a year.

A chain problem. If the chain between the handle and the flapper is too short, it holds the flapper slightly open. If it is too long, it can get caught under the flapper and stop it sealing.

A little slack, with nothing tangled, is what you want.

A float set too high. The float tells the fill valve when to stop. If it is set so high that water reaches the top of the overflow tube, the toilet will run continuously.

Lowering the float so the water stops below the top of the overflow tube, usually at the water-line mark stamped inside the tank, typically fixes it.

A failing fill valve. If the float is set correctly but the valve still does not shut off, or it hisses and refills repeatedly, the valve itself is worn.

Replacing it is a routine repair, but it means shutting off the supply and disconnecting the water line.

You do not need tools to confirm a flapper leak. WaterSense recommends placing a few drops of food coloring in the toilet tank. If any color shows up in the bowl after 10 minutes, you have a leak.

Flush immediately afterward so the dye does not stain the tank.

To check the whole house rather than one toilet, read your water meter, avoid using any water for two hours, and read it again. If the meter changed at all, water is leaking somewhere.

The meter is usually in a covered box near the street, and it is worth knowing where yours is before you need it.

A running toilet is easy to live with because it rarely causes visible damage. The cost shows up on the water bill instead.

According to the EPA, the average household's leaks can account for more than 9,300 gallons of water wasted every year, nine percent of homes have leaks that waste 50 gallons or more per day, and fixing easily corrected leaks can

save homeowners about 10 percent on their water bills.

Worn toilet flappers are one of the common types of leak the EPA lists.

In Fairfield, where long dry summers make every gallon count, a toilet that runs all day is one of the simplest savings in the house.

A flapper or chain adjustment is well within most homeowners' reach. These situations are different and are better handled by a licensed plumber:

- Water on the floor around the base. That usually points to a failed wax ring or a damaged flange, which means lifting the toilet off the floor and resetting it.

- A crack in the tank or bowl. Cracked porcelain cannot be reliably repaired and will eventually fail completely.

- The shutoff valve will not turn or leaks when you touch it. Forcing an old valve is how a small repair becomes a flooded bathroom.

- You have already replaced the parts and it still runs. Mismatched parts, a warped flush valve seat, or an older toilet design can defeat a standard repair kit.

- The toilet is old enough that repairs keep adding up. At that point replacing it is often the better value.

C&C Plumbing handles running, leaking, and weak-flushing toilets as well as new toilet installation. We inspect the tank parts, wax ring, and flange to find the actual cause, explain the repair, and give you a free, upfront estimate before starting.

See our toilet repair and installation service or toilet repair in Fairfield for how we handle these jobs locally.

If the leak is somewhere other than the toilet, such as a meter that keeps moving with every fixture off, our guide to slab leak warning signs covers the next thing to check.

C&C Plumbing is licensed and insured under California contractor license 982867 and has served Fairfield, Suisun City, Vacaville, and the rest of Solano County since 2013.

Leak figures in this article come from the EPA WaterSense Fix a Leak Week page.