Toilet flap

Recently heard the phantom fill. Suspected the flapper but interestingly the parts are so cheap, I just replaced everything. The flapper did look like it was beginning to curl and I don't know when I last replaced it. Pretty sure I did a fill valve only last time, so likely 5-8 years ago.

Back in Feb we went overseas, so I turned off the entire house at the main shut off. When I opened it, heard some pop at the toilet. It seemed the not so old fill valve would make a surging noise when filling, which was another reason I went with replacing everything.

It's not the most fun idea separating bowl from tank, but I did it, and parts were only $21. Out of this the sponge? from tank to bowl is new, and at least the rubber washers which are inside the bowl are new. They turned the water black when touched as they were deteriorating. I put rubber washers on the outside as well.

I agree with the above, this is such a simple device (toilet) yet mysterious as well!

This is what I got and I didn't use the thing that goes to the fill tube, I used the old one

https://a.co/d/c8KvvWr
 
John105 said:
I agree with the above, this is such a simple device (toilet) yet mysterious as well!

This is what I got and I didn't use the thing that goes to the fill tube, I used the old one

https://a.co/d/c8KvvWr
Click to expand...

There have been all sorts of designs over the years, but for the longest time it would be a 2 inch universal fit flapper. The fill valve was often a float ball type on a lever arm and wasn't necessarily a universal fit. However, fill valves are pretty much universal (other than height) and a modern fill valve should fit in any toilet.

But good luck deciphering the flush mechanism these days. Kohler had multiple designs in the 90s using different proprietary flapper designs and a lot of those toilets are still in use. Now it's 3 inch rigid flappers or 4 inch flappers. Or flush towers. Those will be fun if they ever need to be repaired. The part that's likely to go bad is the seal, and they sell those individually, but taking one of these things apart doesn't seem like a pleasant thing to do. At least flappers are pretty easy to understand.

61438662.jpg
 
I ended up replacing a rental property's 2 inch toilet flapper. Fluidmaster, with a black material. Had a cup attached that I assume trapped air to slow down the closure. The material wasn’t flaking or discolored, but turned really really hard where I'm guessing it didn't form a very good seal against the flush valve. The replacement came in a kit with a PerforMAX fill valve and cost less than $3 more.

So I've seen it all. Flappers where the material was flaking/rotting away. Ones where it was discolored with enough pitting to leak. Hard water deposits that interfered with the seal. Rigid flappers with a silicone seal that leaked until fiddled around with.
 
Donald said:
The solution is obvious. Those with city water where the the flapper does not last very long need to have a well drilled and then use well water for the toilets.
Click to expand...

Well water quality varies. The thing that might reduce longevity is chlorine or chloramine, which can be filtered out. But I’m not sure the costs really work out there. Replacement is pretty cheap.

In my case it’s a rental where the tenant doesn’t expect anyone to come over to preemptively replace all manner of things. They typically report an issue that gets resolved.
 
y_p_w said:
Well water quality varies. The thing that might reduce longevity is chlorine or chloramine, which can be filtered out. But I’m not sure the costs really work out there. Replacement is pretty cheap.

In my case it’s a rental where the tenant doesn’t expect anyone to come over to preemptively replace all manner of things. They typically report an issue that gets resolved.
Click to expand...
In Delaware my well water seems pretty good. No hardness to speak of, no iron or sulfur.

You don't need to go down very far either.

The well drilling guys say it's like drilling a well in a sandbar.
 
Donald said:
In Delaware my well water seems pretty good. No hardness to speak of, no iron or sulfur.

You don't need to go down very far either.

The well drilling guys say it's like drilling a well in a sandbar.
Click to expand...

I lived with some of the worst municipal well water in California. Hardness was off the charts and it smelled odd. The water quality report on,y claims that it’s safe to drink, but otherwise didn’t pretend to be all that great. It was cheap though. I don’t recall it being all that bad for flappers though. But back then I could get cheap 2 inch flappers for maybe $1.50.
 
y_p_w said:
Still trying to understand how this works.

https://fluidmaster.com/products/toilet/flapper/523a-009-universal-2-3-super-flapper/

523A_SellSheet.png
Click to expand...
Never tried that one, but here's how old and senile I am. Somehow the other 3 pots, I had replaced with the correct 3" flapper. WTH I bought a 2".............maybe shrinkage, dunno. The store was great though. Juno got two treats, easy exchange, I bought some adhesive for another project and the gal gave me a 30% off any item "surprise coupon". Winning!
 
Pablo said:
Never tried that one, but here's how old and senile I am. Somehow the other 3 pots, I had replaced with the correct 3" flapper. WTH I bought a 2".............maybe shrinkage, dunno. The store was great though. Juno got two treats, easy exchange, I bought some adhesive for another project and the gal gave me a 30% off any item "surprise coupon". Winning!
Click to expand...

I noticed it as part of a PerforMAX kit. They had four different versions at Home Depot. Just the fill valve and the fill valve with a 2 in / 2/3 inch / 3 inch. Maybe even more kits with replacement flush valves.
 
Wylie6G72 said:
The Corky's always last me several years, but notably less if you use a chlorinated automatic cleaner in the tank.
Click to expand...

It really depends on all manner of conditions, including water type, material, and (as you note) in tank cleaners.

I’ve had the same factory Fluidmaster 5403 flapper since 2012. It’s rigid plastic with a silicone seal, and neither seems to degrade. The rubber tubing around the chain is falling apart though.

I’ve seen red Korky (including OEM for Kohler) flake apart, discolor/harden, or pit. Each one seems to find a different failure mechanism, although I’ve seen them last over 5 years.
 
y_p_w said:
It really depends on all manner of conditions, including water type, material, and (as you note) in tank cleaners.

I’ve had the same factory Fluidmaster 5403 flapper since 2012. It’s rigid plastic with a silicone seal, and neither seems to degrade. The rubber tubing around the chain is falling apart though.

I’ve seen red Korky (including OEM for Kohler) flake apart, discolor/harden, or pit. Each one seems to find a different failure mechanism, although I’ve seen them last over 5 years.
Click to expand...
Whatever is in the Dallas water turns them light pink to white, and they start shape-shifting and become unable to seal. When you pull them out, they have a gooey feeling to them. The process speeds up by about double if you use cleaners in the tank. My last seeping problem actually turned out to be the main tank gasket so the whole tank got an overhaul that day. Black tar everywhere, those seals were so far gone.
 
They've stopped boxing the old black rubber gaskets and seals that turn into the black goo that marks everything.
The new ones are a synthetic rubber product that doesn't degrade that way.
 
Wylie6G72 said:
Whatever is in the Dallas water turns them light pink to white, and they start shape-shifting and become unable to seal. When you pull them out, they have a gooey feeling to them. The process speeds up by about double if you use cleaners in the tank. My last seeping problem actually turned out to be the main tank gasket so the whole tank got an overhaul that day. Black tar everywhere, those seals were so far gone.
Click to expand...

I’ve seen them stay pink, but with swirls of gray, black, and other shades of maybe green. Might be something coming off the flush valve seat. At least around here they don’t tend to warp, but they get hard where it no longer forms a good seal with the flush valve. I’ve also seen them where they form some sort of uneven slime. Maybe it can be cleaned off, but then sometimes the rubber will flake off. At that point it’s best to just replace it.

Kohler was supplied by Lavelle/Korky. May still be. I remember buying some flappers at Home Depot that were marked as sold by Lavelle but also labeled as “Kohler Genuine Parts”. These were the specialty parts that would only fit in Kohler toilets. But at HD they were maybe a third the cost compared to a plumbing supply store. They now sell parts as “Kohler compatible” while Kohler sells their versions at HD and Lowe’s
 
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