[Womble]

There! I knew that title would get your attention! 

Sadly the reality is less interesting, but our toilet (which is already famous, with over 8,000 views on TAS) has taken to "ghost flushing" recently. In other words, it goes through repeated fill cycles even when nobody is near it.

I've ascertained that the level in the cistern is indeed dropping when nobody has used the loo (about 10mm in 20 minutes), so it must be leaking somewhere. However, it's not dripping externally, the overflow is not running and I don't think it's leaking internally either (if I run loo paper around the perimeter of the bowl, it stays dry).


It has this type of flapper valve BTW, rather than a traditional syphon valve.



Does anybody have any ideas as to what could be causing this? It's driving me nuts! 

[Fleecewife]

SPOO-KEY!!!  Does it ever flush when you're sitting on it ?

[chrismahon]

The flapper valve is leaking Womble, either the seating in the valve or the seal of the valve to the cistern I think? It could also be the overflow pipe seal to the cistern or a crack in that pipe. Place a piece of toilet paper in the bowl at the back, just above the water level. They are prone to this, whereas a syphons valve is prone to punctured diaphragms which stops them flushing. Sadly, I've spent too long in my life fixing toilets!

[pgkevet]

The water goes somewhere. If you cant figure it out then add some dye to the cistern and avoid flushing a while then look for the colour. Probably better to use food colouring that something permenant

[Womble]

Fleecewife - yes, sometimes sitting down on it makes it start filling. It's kinda freaky!

Place a piece of toilet paper in the bowl at the back, just above the water level.

Yes, I did that last night, but I couldn't find any source of water. I'll try pgkevet's food colouring suggestion and report back.


We may just have an extremely thirsty spider living in the cistern  .

[Buttermilk]

Evaporation?  Is it too warm?  Fairies washing their hair?

[Womble]

Alright! It turns out that [member=16228]pgkevet[/member] is a genius!


I put dry toilet paper all round the inside rim of the toilet and then poured food colouring into the cistern. After half an hour, the toilet paper is still white and dry, but the water in the bottom of the toilet itself is now bright green.


So, I think this toilet must have a flush route direct from the cistern into the soil pipe, bypassing the rim of the bowl (i.e. only a proportion of the flush water goes in via the inside rim of the toilet).


As [member=23925]chrismahon[/member] says, this means that the leak must either be bypassing the flapper valve (most likely) or via a crack in the internal overflow pipe (less likely but I guess still possible). I'll replace the flapper and see what happens.

[arobwk]

Have you spoken to NFU Mutual yet Womble ?! 

[pgkevet]

Alright! It turns out that [member=16228]pgkevet[/member] is a genius!

Well I knew that 
As it goes one trick we used for multicat households when the owner didn;t know who was responsible for 'accidents' was to feed cats (one day per each cat) on a capsule we hid flourescein eye dye in... then use a UV light on any accident patch until the culprit or culprits were identified.

[chrismahon]

That's a great idea Pigkevet.


This toilet problem mystifies me Womble. There should be no way any of the aforementioned leaks would bypass the bowl and go directly into the water trap. There are two types of overflow and usually with a flapper/ dump flush valve it would be an internal flow into the bowl. The old type, as once upon a time internal overflows were not allowed, has a pipe going from the cistern overflow through the wall and outside, the idea being that the overflow was visible and water wasn't wasted or overloaded your septic tank.


Perhaps the external overflow has been plumbed into the waste pipe via a trap (otherwise it would stink)- now that would be a new one on me! It would explain however how the dyed water could get into the bottom of the bowl without flowing in from the top.

[Womble]

Have you spoken to NFU Mutual yet Womble ?!

Why? Do they do exorcisms? 


I took the cistern to bits today to figure out what parts I needed, and realised that it was only rust and luck holding everything together  . So, given that the old toilet didn't have the best of flushes anyway, rather than chase an uncertain problem around, I decided just to replace the whole thing.

Once I'd got the old one outside, I put a hose up the soil pipe outlet to see what would happen, and yes, water did indeed come out of the cistern inlet, bypassing the bowl. I have no idea if that's by design, or due to an internal hole in the porcelain somewhere, but it was definitely happening, and may also explain why the flush was so poor.

Of course this is a smallholding story, so we can't possibly end things there, can we!? Because I've been doing so much flushing over the past couple of days, our septic tank overfilled and overflowed. Yes, you've guessed it - it was totally blocked and backed up.

I suppose normally it was still passing just enough water to cope, but me flushing the loo 20 or 30 times whilst scratching my head was just too much for it to cope with! 

I dug down until I found the outlet of the septic tank and soon there was an ominous gurgle which gave me just enough warning to jump out of the hole before it filled with  ! Honestly, what a way to end a decade! 

[doganjo]

  That makes me very glad we've got a contract with the council to service the one in my orchard that is shared with two of my neighbours 

[Womble]

TBH Doganjo, the amount of money we save on council tax by having our own septic tank plus a metered water supply more than pays for this kind of hassle once a decade!

[Buttermilk]

There is no difference in Council tax bills here septic tank or no.  They claim that we still have to pay as they deal with the rain water.

[doganjo]

There is no difference in Council tax bills here septic tank or no.  They claim that we still have to pay as they deal with the rain water.

e get a discount but it's eqivalent to the cost of getting it emptied annually.