You wake up to the sound of your alarm; you look up to see the clock reads 5:00 A.M. You have to start getting ready for work; as you start your morning stagger towards the bathroom, you hear a hissing. You reach the bathroom and you turn on your light, you go use the toilet; ignoring the fact that the light hissing is coming from the toilet itself. As you finish, you press the toilet handle to flush and nothing happens. You think to yourself, ?Oh man, I can?t just leave that there!?
As you take a look inside your toilet?s tank (Toilet Closet), you?re daunted by the task as you see all this complicated mechanism but actually it?s fairly simple. Water fills the tank until the floating ball reaches its set level and it turns off the water. When you press the handle (Trip Lever) to flush, the handle lifts its arm, raising the attached chain (Liftwire) that is also attached to a rubber flapper that lifts and uncovers a hole that flushes the water down into the bowl. There are only two sections from which a problem could arise, the toilet bowl or the toilet tank but if you see that the water is constantly running into your bowl, or it?s really hard to flush, or even your toilet is not flushing at all, your Lift chain could be the culprit.
Today we will concentrate on the toilets liftchain or liftwire. Problems with a lift wire can range from improper installation to corrosion. The most common tell tale of a problematic liftchain is when your toilets water keeps running into your toilet bowl and your tank won?t fill. I will go through the steps on how to diagnose, reach, and if need be change, a toilets liftwire.
Toilet Doesn?t Flush
It can either be the liftwire got unhooked from the handle/ flapper, or simply corrosion. A toilets liftwire can break from corrosion over time but no worries, liftchains are extremely cheap and really easy to replace.
Toilet Runs Constantly
There can be multiple reasons why a toilet leaks but if the problem is with the liftchain, it will probably one of two issues: The chain is too short and the flapper cannot seat properly into the valve seat, or an excess chain slack from the flapper is hanging into the valve underneath the flapper preventing it from sealing completely. Either way, you?ll end up with a leaking toilet.
Toilet Won?t Flush Completely
If you have to hold the toilets handle down throughout the flush just so that you get a complete flush, it could be that the liftwire is too long and its allowing the flapper to open just enough to let the some water out but not completely open.
At one point or another we?ve all had problems with toilets. Most just pick up the phone and call a local plumber. Well, I?m here to let you know you don?t have to! Toilets for the most part, are among the easiest fixture to repair. Just read on and see how to access the liftchain.
Accessing and Analyzing The Toilet
Shut off the water flow, remove the cover on the tank, and flush the toilet; see if the chain is attached on both ends, or if it has any kinks. Try to analyze all the moving components; does the flapper open partially or not at all? Liftchains sometimes get kinks and shorten the chain; reattach or unkink if necessary.
Corrosion on the Lift chain
If it gets a kink while corroded or corrodes with a kink with time, it will bind and you will end up with a binded corroded kink and will shorten its length leaving you with a leaking toilet. Eventually corrosion wins and makes the chain break. If it?s corroded, remove it from the handle and the flapper with some needle nose pliers and using steel wool clean the wire and clips.
Make sure the chain isn?t over the long arm attached to the trip lever and make sure it?s all clean and there isn?t any corrosion creating friction. Make sure the clips are also moving freely and corrosion free.
Overlapping Lift Wire
Make sure the chain isn?t over the fill valve?s float, as this can shorten the length of the liftwire and won?t let the flapper close and seal completely which then leads to your toilet leaking.
Ultimately you?ll want to replace the liftwire if it is broken or in really bad conditions because of the corrosion. Just go to your local hardware store with the old liftchain so that you receive the appropriate part.
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OCT
2012
