EL CERRITO – Host, Sarah Rutan: If you notice your toilet running intermittently throughout the day, you’ll be glad to know there’s a simple solution. Today we’re in El Cerrito with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Gifford Teeple of A Reliable Handyman to learn more.
Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Gifford Teeple: One problem you might encounter sometimes is that your toilet is running. You may hear the water running as if it’s about to be flushed, and it keeps doing that intermittently. That means that you need a new flapper valve. The water’s slowly leaking through the drain and the water level goes down. And so, the toilet thinks that it’s being flushed and needs to fill up again.
So, it’s a simple replacement of the flapper valve that you can do by yourself with no tools. What you do is first turn the water off to the toilet, take the lid off, and then flush the water so that all the water drains out. And then you can work on the toilet dry. And then down at the bottom of the toilet, you’ll see the red flapper valve. It’s normally red. It could also be black, or possibly blue.
But then you simply take the flapper valve off. It’s usually hooked onto the two tabs coming out of the main tube. Just lift it off of those tabs. And then it’s also hooked on at the top to the flush mechanism. So, simply unhook it from that, take it out, and then take it to your local hardware store and match the same kind of flapper valve that you have. Because there are lots of different kinds of flapper valves. So, make sure you match that one.
Then bring it back, simply replace it the same way you took it off, hook it up back to the tabs coming out of the main tube, hook the chain up to the flush mechanism, flush handle, and then turn the water back on, and put the lid back on. And you’re all set.
Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.
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