What’s Your Plumbing Problem?

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Simple Solutions from Our Plumbers

A running toilet is a fairly common plumbing problem for most homeowners. If you have a toilet, there’s a good chance that after some time, it’ll start turning itself on and refilling randomly, even without having been flushed for hours at a time. This may be annoying because it means extra unwanted noise in your home, but it can really have an impact by wasting water, which means a water bill that’s far higher than it should be - and here in California, every gallon counts.

Check Your Flapper

The overwhelming majority of running toilets have a simple cause: a worn-out flapper. The flapper is the small piece of rubber that blocks the drain between your toilet’s tank and the bowl down below. When you flush your toilet, the handle lifts this flapper, allowing water to flood into the bowl below, flushing the contents out and down the drain in a safe and sanitary fashion. Flappers are constructed from rubber because rubber can flex and created a tight seal while also remaining very inexpensive.

However, rubber has a downside—it degrades fairly rapidly and exposure to water can cause it to crack. When it cracks, it can’t form a tight seal, and water will very slowly start to leak through it down into the bowl below. When enough water drips out of your tank, the float valve will drop low enough to the point where your tank starts to refill. Depending on the condition of your flapper, this will usually happen anywhere from every few hours to every few minutes. You can even hear when your flapper has a larger leak, as water will drip down into the bowl below before the tank refills again.

Do I Need to Hire a Professional?

If the problem is your flapper, as it most likely is, to be honest the answer is no. Replacing the flapper in your tank takes about five minutes, costs about five dollars, and requires no specialized tools or knowledge.

How to Stop a Running Toilet

If you have a cracked flapper, you can easily stop your toilet from running by following these simple steps:

1. Shutting off the water to your toilet and drain your tank with a quick flush.
2. Dislodge the flapper from the hinge it sits on.
3. Dislodging the flapper is extremely simple, and all you need to do after doing so is disconnect it from the handle and you can pull it out. You can pick up a new flapper from your local hardware store.
4. Place the new flapper in the tank and reattach it at the hinge.
5. Attach the chain to the handle and make sure there’s just a tiny bit of tension between the handle and the chain when the flapper is closed.
6. When that’s done, turn the water to your toilet back on, let the tank refill, and make sure there are no leaks.

That’s it, you’re done.

It’s not unusual to have to replace the flapper in a toilet every couple of years or so, but when you consider the cost is so minimal, you shouldn’t have to worry about it.

What If It’s Not the Flapper?

If your flapper is still in good condition yet your toilet is still running, then you could have a different problem like a tank leak. If you notice water dripping near the base of your toilet or along the wall near it, then you may need to replace your toilet outright. The best way to tell for sure is to have your toilet inspected by a professional plumber.

Schedule your plumbing service by calling Dutton Plumbing at (805) 849-0965 today! Serving all of Ventura & LA.

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Do you have issues with your toilet? Is it frequently leaky? Does it cause nasty, wet messes? Stop wondering why your toilet is leaking today, with answers from our helpful Ventura County plumbers at Dutton Plumbing.

To determine if your toilet is leaking underneath, listen for running water, inspect the base for water or dampness, or use food coloring to identify colored water seepage. Quick action is important to prevent damage and save water. If you are still not sure, be sure to contact your local plumber for more info.

Reasons Your Toilet May Be Leaking

• A Faulty Supply Line: Mechanical damage to supply lines can put a major strain on your toilet. Oftentimes, when joints in a supply line become dislodged and break down, water starts to drip out. The rubber lining in a supply line can also spring a leak after years of use.
• A Cracked Tank: When a toilet tank is hit hard enough to crack, ongoing leaking often becomes an issue. As the valve continues to replenish water, it may be hard to notice as small or hairline cracks let out a little but ongoing stream of water.
• A Stuck Flapper: A stuck flapper can cause major leaks when your flush handle gets stuck. This will result in the fill valve continuing to supply the tank with water even after you have finished flushing, causing overflow and leakage.
• A Worn-Out Flapper: Leaks from worn-out flappers can be hard to detect. As minerals build on your flapper over time, it will start to warp. While it is not easy to replace this part, it is a good idea to periodically check whether your flapper is still in good condition, as the more damaged this part is, the greater risk you run of experiencing serious leaks.
• A Worn-Out Fill Valve: Fill valves also wear down over time because of mineral deposits. When enough builds up to warp the fill valve, it can stop working properly, preventing your toilet from shutting off and causing leakage.
• A Broken/Dislodged Float: A float is the hollow ball that rests on the surface of the water in your toilet tank. If it cracks or is not lined up properly, it may cause the fill valve to run, which, in turn, can lead to leaks.
• Rubber Lining Defects: As the rubber linings in your toilet break down, they may also start leaking and loosening connections. You should check your rubber linings and other toilet connections occasionally, otherwise you run the risk of toilet leakage.

If you have checked all these potential issues and are still experiencing toilet leaks, it may be time to call for professional plumbing services. At Dutton Plumbing, we offer the best deals in town, and our total-satisfaction guarantee. Call now for same-day and emergency service, and see the Dutton difference for yourself.

We are available by phone at (805) 849-0965 or you can contact us online right here.

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Simple Solutions from Professional Plumbers

Toilets can show a number of different strange behaviors that indicate a problem, and one of those behaviors is bubbling in your toilet bowl. Bubbling in your toilet may seem harmless enough, but it could indicate something bigger is going on. Even small symptoms could indicate a larger problem, and a bigger plumbing service is necessary to get it fixed, so you’ll want to tackle the issue right away. Here are a few of the most common plumbing issues that could lead to bubbling as well as gurgling noises coming from your toilet.

Clogged Drain or Sewer Line

A bubbling toilet usually indicates some sort of an issue going on in the drain line that connects your toilet to your sewer, usually in the form of a clog. When water can’t go down your drain as quickly as it needs to, then bubbles will sometimes form in air pockets or gaps in the pipe behind the drain clog, When these air gaps fill with water or liquid going down the drain, bubbles go back up the drain line, leading to the bubbling you see in your toilet.

Fixing this problem is a fairly routine plumbing procedure. It can be done by either snaking your drain, which involves using an auger to reach down into the drain and physically remove the clog to open the drain line. In other cases where the clog is located further down the drain line but is still accessible through an access cover, clogs can be cleared through a process known as “hydrojetting.”

Blocked Vent Stack

Have you ever tried to pour water or milk out of a gallon-size plastic jug too quickly? It never pours out smoothly or evenly. Instead, it usually sputters, sloshes, and speeds up and slows down intermittently until enough of the liquid is poured out. This phenomenon is caused by the liquid in the jug preventing air from being able to get into the space behind it that’s been vacated by the liquid, creating a natural vacuum.

That same phenomenon can happen in your plumbing, only it’s even harder for the air to get back through and alleviate the vacuum in these cases. This is why plumbing codes require that you have a vent stack that services every drain in your home. In many cases, several different drains are all serviced by the same vent stack. However, if this stack becomes blocked, then air can’t get through to alleviate the vacuum, leading to slow drains and a strange gurgling sound as the water drains away.

If your toilet is bubbling, have it inspected by our professional Simi Valley plumbers as soon as possible! Call Dutton Plumbing at (805) 849-0965 today.