Checking Toilet

My water bill is high. How can i check to see if a toilet is wasting water ?

Reply to
desgnr
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On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:29:16 -0500, "desgnr" wrote Re Checking Toilet:

Pour some food coloring into the tank and see if it leaks into the bowl.

Reply to
Caesar Romano

Listen to it. Should be able to hear water running if its leaking. Look at the overflow tube in the tank if it is not a dumper type. If it is a dumper make sure the bucket isn't overflowing.

Reply to
Jeff The Drunk

Besides dye in the tank look at the meter when nothing is on, mine has a small wheel that moves with even a tap on.

Reply to
ransley

Turn off the water supply to the toilet and wait a few hours to see if the level in the tank goes down. If you want, you can mark the water level with a pencil when you turn the water off, so you can see even if it drops only a small amount.

Reply to
salty

That won't tell you if the problem is say a valve that doesn't shut off completely and causes water to run out out the overflow.

Reply to
George

So what. If the valve doesn't shut off completely, you can HEAR it by putting a stick against the top of the valve and the other end to your ear.

A slow leak in the flapper, however, is harder to detect, and the test I outlined will find it.

Reply to
salty

Walk around the house and make sure something else isn't broke and leaking.

Look - Listen - Feel.

Look - in the bowl. A tiny leak from the flapper will cause the water to shimmer/ripple a bit as it drains from the rim holes.

Listen - a heavier leak at the flapper will cause a chatter/shudder sound and the vale would open for filling the tank. so you hear that. Happens in the middle of the night.

Feel - the slim on the flapper, wash it and the flapper seat with mix of bleach to kill the scum.

Go back to bed, if it was the middle of the night.

The dye test mentioned: Allow this overnight.

Reply to
Oren

To the OP, where's the meter?

Reply to
Clot

fleming1988 had written this in response to

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: absolutely!! We have to save water nowadays

------------------------------------- photo to canvas and photos on canvas

Reply to
fleming1988

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:56:22 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@dog.com wrote Re Re: Checking Toilet:

You must have very good hearing. My hearing isn't that acute. I would have to stick the other end in my bu..

Reply to
Caesar Romano

I think that even if you were stone deaf you could put the stick against your skull and feel the vibrations.

The stick, used in this way, is a primitive version of the stethoscope. Mechanics sometimes use a large screwdriver in the same way to hear things such as valve tappets tapping. ;-)

Reply to
salty

Or they use an actual mechanics stethoscope.

Reply to
Doug Brown

Or they don't.

Sometimes they use a large screwdriver.

Reply to
salty

The first time I saw that trick was my father putting the screwdriver onto the power steering pump, the water pump, an the alternator. The sound was loud, but without the poor mans stethoscope we couldn't tell where it was coming from. It was the alternator bearings.

Reply to
Tony

Often you can't hear such a minuscule leak and it can be hard to detect.

A few years ago we got a whopper of a water bill and I found the water level in the upstairs toilet was just slightly above the overflow tube. It didn't make any detectable noise. It had the version of fluidmaster where you just twist off the top a quarter turn to replace the valve. I did that and when I turned the water on I noticed a very tiny stream of water was squirting out the side of the fluidmaster riser tube because of a defect.

Your test would have never found the problem.

Reply to
George

Disagree.

Reply to
salty

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