Confused about refill tube on Kohler one-piece

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NYC

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For a while now, my toilet would not flush easily when pulling down the handle. It has gotten progressively worse and now will only flush if the handle is held down for a a few seconds.

Doing a bit of research online I found that the culprit is often a faulty flapper. I look in the back of the toilet and find that the flapper is now the likely culprit. Pieces flake off just by touching it. Surprisingly there is no leaking, though it would be inevitable. Great, easy replacement for a complete novice like myself. I've ordered the part from home depot and will be replacing it later today.

However in doing the research I came across something weird. The toilet has no refill tube. Nothing squirts in the the overflow pipe. I've used this toilet for years and never thought about it or noticed anything different. Reading up about it, the overflow tube gives the toilet water the swirl, and without water going into the tube there would be very little water in the bowl after a flush. I honestly never noticed it though this would explain why sometimes it takes several flushes. My question is how easy a fix is this and is it necessary/recommended? Is it common to not have refill tubes?
 

Reach4

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If the bowl is not getting filled after a flush, then a refill tube would be useful. If you replace the fill valve, that would come with a refill tube. It is more work than replacing a flapper, but not hard if you have easy access. Sometimes when doing that, you will also want to replace the supply line. Plus, toilets installed years ago have a multi-turn valve (stop) that can be hard to close or can leak after you operate it. So replacing that with a 1/4 turn ball valve will give you better operation and less chance of developing a leak.

How happy are you with the toilet in general? If you were thinking about putting in a toilet that you would like better, you might decide to just move that up.
 

NYC

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The toilet is fine to me. The only bothersome issue is needing to hold the handle down longer and longer to flush.

The lack of a refill tube just made me confused as everything I read made it seem essential. But I just read something and it looks like this could be by design. This is a one piece Kohler toilet with a 1.6g tank. There's a nipple on the fill valve for a tube, but water doesn't flow from it. Apparently some low flow toilets are designed not to use a refill tube?
 
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WJcandee

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It's probably the flapper. But it is probably how the flapper is adjusted as much as anything else.

Go ahead and replace the flapper. How did you know WHICH flapper to order?

Once you replace it on the overflow riser, adjust the chain so that there is minimal slack, but there is SOME slack (i.e. one link). Make sure the trip lever to which you attach the chain is aimed so that it pulls more-or-less straight up, i.e. not to one side or another and not meaningfully-forward or back. The flapper should "float" for a second and then drop. THE WHOLE TANK SHOULD NOT DRAIN. More modern toilets use the weight of the water in the tank to add pressure, but all the water isn't used in the flush. The rest is there to add weight.

Excellent Toto Drake toilet flushing, with a view into the tank. See how the flapper floats a second before closing? If improperly adjusted, it would just open and close with the handle position, and not give a long-enough flush, something I call a "misfire". It's a fast close, but not an instant one.


The refill hose doesn't add swirl. It just puts some water down the overflow to refill the bowl while the tank is filling. Otherwise, whatever was left after the flush-gurgle in the bowl would be all the next flush started with. In very rare cases, there is no refill tube, usually in "washdown" or dual-flush toilets.

Give us the Kohler model number, K-_____, from in the tank and/or a photo, and we'll let you know.
 

Terry

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Kohler has many different ways of plumbing their tanks. It maybe that there is a refill that is hidden so well that it's not obvious.
Please post a picture of what you have there.
 

Jadnashua

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FWIW, the refill tube does not make the water swirl...it's purpose is to refill the bowl. Now, the path to make that happen can differ from model to model and make to make and often comes through the holes under the rim.

The vast majority of modern toilets sold in the USA need some path to refill the bowl while the tank is refilling. On many toilets, there's a hose that goes down the overflow tube, but Kohler being Kohler, likes to do things differently, so who knows...it is very model dependent.
 

hj

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SOme of those toilets use the "fall back water" after the flush is complete to refill the bowl. It might also have a large hose from the fill valve to the front of the tank that does the same thing as a refill hose. AND if you do have one of those, you cannot replace it with just any fill valve.
 
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