Repairing a Leaking Toilet

The house has two toilets, one of which is original. By the looks of it no maintenance has been performed on it since the house was built. Recently I noticed that the toilet on filling water would shoot up and hit the top of the tank and then run down the back of the toilet and onto the floor. Regulating the the refill pressure had brought some joy but not for long. So I decided that I would try to repair it.

First thing I did was to visit a hardware store to see if they had any replacement O rings for the inlet value. There was two to choose from and with a price of less than $5 I hedged my bets and bought both. After removing the ballcock assembly I attempted to put in the new O ring but on putting everything back together it still wasn't working 100%. So after a bit of reading on the internet I decided that a complete replacement assembly would be the way to go. So after a quick trip down to Bunnings I had myself a replace unit and a few other bits and pieces. I would have spent no more than $50AUD.

The replacement float valve that I chose was from Fluidmaster.  Here is a picture of the packaging. There were instructions on the box and it all looked quite simple to install.

Before I can install the new I have to get rid of the old. First I started with the removing the existing pipe that connected the valve to the tap. With much coaxing I was able to get that off. Next was to remove the old float value and to install the new. Here is a shot of the old unit still in the toilet.

Once it was out, just a matter of putting in the new. The instructions were very good at explaining what went where in terms of washer, gaskets etc. So here is a shot of the new float valve in place along with the new meshed hose for connecting up the water

Next step was to adjust the height up to which the toilet should fill. As Sydney and the rest of Australia has been going through a drought for many years I decided to reduce the height. You can see that the height of the water now is below the original water line. I should now be saving a couple of liters per flush.

Now does it work? Confirmed, we have splash down!

Here is a picture of the removed parts. They certainly did the job for 30+ years, but now was the time to bring in the new.