Drake toilet won't shut off - troubleshooting help please?

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Aliris19

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This thread: https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/toto-drake-gmax-fill-valve-issues-stutters-as-toilet-tank-finishes-filling.49300/page-2 has been very helpful.

I think I should start a new thread because I need more "upstream" advice.

While out of town (on the water, meaning *stuck*, actually) received a call from the house alarm company regarding movement which turned out, I guess, to actually be water flowing on the floor. I am not even sure this is possible but it seems to be the only explanation.

So upon return to a locked-house we encountered running toilet and water-evidence on the floor, but no standing water; it had apparently found an escape route. But no question there had been a lot of water about; rugs sodden, magazines on floor soaked. Water was not coming from toilet bowl.

So shut off the toilet at the valve, and after many, many days of cleaning and drying I'm now trying to figure out what to do next. I hope you-all might help with trouble-shooting?

First, where did that water come from? It's not dirty water, it was clean. Water was running down the central pipe, non-stop. The water spot in the bowl was unperturbed, no water ripples.

The handle on that toilet has always been funky, sort of catches. But I took that apart and compared it with another and don't see any problem there.

Where was that water coming from??

Water in the bowl and tank both hold.

Could the water have been somehow coursing over the wax seal, which is non-functional? (non-existent? The folks who installed it 5 years ago were not confidence-inspiring).

Should I take the toilet off its wax seal and inspect that? Or just replace the fill valve? Could a broken fill valve alone be enough to somehow result in water on the floor? The leak seems to be at the subfloor level though; I never saw water running over the floor….??

Any ideas for troubleshooting or proceeding, wise folks please? Many thanks!!!
 

Jadnashua

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If, for some reason, the toilet fill valve doesn't shut off, the water will rise and just go out the overflow tube, which goes directly into the bowl. Once the bowl is full, normal after a flush and refill, it just goes down the drain. So, IF the toilet was running constantly AND the drain was plugged AND the wax seal was either not present or had failed, it could then leak out from underneath the toilet, but normally, it would just go down the drain, even without a wax ring because the toilet's outlet is smaller than the opening of the drain line, and there's nothing to make it want to go sideways, and ont0 the floor!

You probably need to look elsewhere for your leak culprit.

Where is the water level in the toilet? If it's stopped about 1/2" or so from the top of the overflow tube, and doesn't rise...it's not the toilet itself, or it's something else not all that common.
 

WJcandee

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The story seems a little garbled. When you got back, the stuff on the floor was wet and the toilet was "running", in other words the fill valve was open and and the water was running over the top of the overflow riser and down into the toilet? I don't understand your observation that there was no ripple effect in the bowl, because if it's running down the overflow riser, it should go into the bowl, although I suppose if it's just dribbling over the riser it could make a minimal ripple in the bowl.

I'm guessing a runaway fill valve (which it seems you saw when you got back) that put enough water into the tank that it maxed out the ability of the overflow riser to accommodate it (at least initially) and it overflowed the top of the tank and onto the floor, after which at some point either the fill valve closed a bit or whatever was limiting the capacity of the overflow riser ended up clearing, so that the water subsequently just went down the riser.

I would replace the fill valve with a Korky 528MP, which is easy to do. Turn the water back on and check for no leaks and that the valve shuts off when the water reaches the point that it should shut off (about 1/4 to 1/2 inch below the top of the overflow riser). That should put you back in business.
 
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Aliris19

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Thanks, wj & jad.

I think you must both be right.

I just got the toilet out and scraped everything away [whatever plumbers earn it's not enough]...and I just see nothing. There were two plastic rings setting one inside the other and a ton of wax everywhere. I could attach photos but it's all fairly unremarkable.

I tried washing the giant grey toto contraption that shunts water from the back of the toilet into the sewer line. It smells nasty and has some gunk built up in the bend immediately below the upper gasket. But not an eclipsing amount. I presume that's sort of normal? I tried to remove the black gasket but don't see a way to - do folks just wash this or buy a new one? It looks to be in fine shape so my plan is to reuse unless someone hollers "no"!

I left water running down the drain for a good 20min at top volume before removing the toilet. Nothing. If there was a clog in the line formerly it just doesn't seem to be there now.

When we returned home dh says the water was squirting non-stop into the pipe in the tank (is that the "overflow riser"? What rises about it?)

I don't think the swamping happened at the top of the tank because I have a metal basket that rests on the side of the tank with books and they weren't wet. Plus that basket I'm guessing would have left rust marks or in some way indicated it had been wet. No dice.

So…. perhaps it's as jad suggested that the leak is elsewhere. While running water down the pipe dh went under the house and saw nothing. But in conjunction with a now-gone clog, perhaps there was a break in some other pipe, maybe under, say, the shower which is next to it.

So OK, I'm off to HD to buy that Korky 528MP and… wax rings I guess. Why were there two of them nestled inside each other?? Weird…. There was a ton of wax. Does this toilet need more than one ring? It's up on quite thick granite.

DH is underneath looking for different pipe-breaks. :(

Thanks for any more thoughts. Might as well attach photos in case there's something your experienced eyes see that I don't know to look for. TIA
 
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Aliris19

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"...Where is the water level in the toilet? If it's stopped about 1/2" or so from the top of the overflow tube, and doesn't rise...it's not the toilet itself,"

I think it was to the top of the overflow tube.
 

Aliris19

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..."water was running over the top of the overflow riser and down into the toilet? I don't understand your observation that there was no ripple effect in the bowl, because if it's running down the overflow riser, it should go into the bowl, although I suppose if it's just dribbling over the riser it could make a minimal ripple in the bowl...."

Dunno. I didn't scrutinize things but I didn't notice ripples or waves indicating water was running into the toilet. But it must've, right? Except I was wondering whether somehow a pipe was broken between overflow tube and bowl. Because it seemed as if the water wasn't getting into the bowl. But I suppose I'm not sure of that now. If its fill is really gentle perhaps it was happening and I just didn't realize it.
 

Jadnashua

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If the water is still running, it may just need a new seal which takes all of about 2-minutes to replace without tools verses changing the whole flush valve. The Korky valves are pretty robust, but the seal does need to be replaced periodically, and more often if your water pressure is high. The UniFit adapter, like any toilet, might need more than one wax ring depending on where the flange is verses the finished floor...if it is recessed, rather than on top of the finished floor, you might need more than one wax ring. Otherwise, one is more than sufficient.

The black gasket on the top of the UniFit should last forever.

The only reason the toilet might leak is if it has a crack in the porcelain. Well, if it's a two-piece, it could leak either from the attachment bolts, or the seal at the bottom of the flush valve. Otherwise, any water and waste just goes down the drain.

The water level in the tank typically is about 1/2" below the top of the overflow. If you decide to replace the fill valve verses just replacing the seal, make sure you adjust the valve so it shuts off at the proper level.

FWIW, you can't have a Drake, since the Drake does NOT use a UniFit adapter, but it definitely is a Toto, since they're the only brand that does!
 

Aliris19

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Oops - it's the Drake counterpart with a skirt…Vespin perhaps?

Amazing how much technology is brought to bear just to make the porcelain smooth on the outside. That "unifit" device is wild but a whole heck of a lot easier, IMO, than fitting the drake straight onto those nuts.

SUCH a big girl am I… reinstalled the toilet. I changed out the flush valve because (a) I didn't see your precaution until I'd finished just now and (b) I wouldn't like to repeat the disaster of previously. Not that replacing a whole assembly needlessly would forestall that anymore or less than just fixing what was broken I suppose. Basically, sorry - didn't see your note.

So bottom line is, I don't know what caused the flood. The bowl and tank and attachment are all intact. There wasn't much evidence of water missing the wax seal though it's possible. They'd used a flying sh-load, as it were, of wax; more than I did so I hope I won't be sorry about that. There was not even evidence of water backed up beneath the skirt.

I think best guess is coincidental clog+broken valve+broken pipe somewhere as yet undetected. We're in SoCal and I would have thought with an open crawlspace things would have dried out adequately, but they have not; there's mold on the ground beneath the house. Methinks there's been a leak a long while, there still is, and it's just the clog+broken valve that showed it to us.

Thank you all.

How would I know if there was insufficient wax on the single extra-large wax ring I placed. Odor? It was hard to see underneath the unifit piece. Why don't they make those things clear or partly-clear?

And for crying out loud, someone needs to design a better way to attach toilet seats.
 

WJcandee

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Okay. The way the Vespin II (I am guessing) that you have (because it looks like a Drake II except it has the Unifit Adapter you have there) attaches to the floor is through that Unifit. It just plugs into it. (The Vespin II and the Drake II use the exact same tank: ST454E. The bowls are different.

The Unifit connects to the flange with wax ring(s) forming the seal. One ring if the top of the flange is at floor level, two (or one extra-thick one) if it's below the finished floor.

The "overflow riser" is the vertical pipe, the purpose of which is to keep a runaway fill valve from flooding the room. If water rises above the shutoff level of the valve, it flows into the overflow riser, which as you can see goes into the same place as the water from the flapper does when the flapper is open. It then follows the same path that the flush water would, and goes down the drain, so the tank doesn't overflow. A "riser" is just a vertical length of pipe, for our purposes.

I don't know which valve you have in there, so get the 528MP. You want the Korky 528MP, the one with the silver top. They now call it the "Platinum" valve, but same model number. Other Korky valves won't have the right refill ratio (percentage of water coming into the valve that goes into the overflow riser to refill the bowl). Once you have it in, you can, if you ever need to, replace the working parts of it, all of which are in a little cap underneath the top of the valve. That R528 cap costs $3 at HD. Korky has a video on how to do it, and one on how to install the 528MP.


Here, too is the Vespin installation manual, which may help you get it back together properly. http://assets.totousa.com/product-files/0GU011Z_TOILET_IM.pdf

PS Ignore any and all advice about plumbing products and procedures that you get at HD, Lowe's, etc., because more often than not, it's 1000 percent stupid and wrong. I learned this the hard way years ago. Just ask us.

Good luck. Come back with any more questions.
 
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Aliris19

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OK, great. Got the nomenclature down. And got the toilet down too. I can only hope that overstuffed wax seal is enough. Fingers crossed.

I even got a Karbon joystick fixed tonight after being broken for 6 weeks…another story, that, but I'm feeling like Rosie-the-Plumber tonight.

I got your note earlier about needing the 528MP and I brought that note to HD. I am very grateful to you for it. As you note the name's changed and they had several other red herrings out there to ensnare hapless fools like me but I stuck to your trusty numbers and seem to have gotten the right thing. Thank You!

Contrary to advertsement, though, it fills neither rapidly nor quietly, but beggars can't be choosers. The slow fill is more a function of my keeping the flow low because I don't want to blow it out again. We do have very high pressure here (below a big hill) and that could well have contributed to whatever happened.

Thanks; your generosity of advice here is hugely appreciated. I even pulled out my phone at HD to ask google whether a "reinforced" wax ring was necessary and the first item up was from this site where the answer seems to have been "heck no". Goo is goo.

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WJcandee

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Yeah you can work your way back up to full-open on the water supply, and she'll do fine.

I would get a cheapy water pressure gauge (they're like $10 at HD; something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/3-4-in-Plastic-Water-Pressure-Test-Gauge-DP-IWTG/100175467?cm_mmc=Shopping|THD|G|0|G-VF-PLA-D26P-Plumbing|&gclid=CLX0-duip84CFUUkhgodfLYBJA&gclsrc=aw.ds ). You can screw it on a hose bib or similar and leave it on for 24 hours. You can see what the pressure is and whether it varies over the course of the day because that little other hand will show what the max was. You may need a PRV (pressure reducing valve) at the house, or an expansion tank for your hot water heater. Keeping it at or below say 80-85 PSI is what you want. Above that and stuff is more prone to leak, but to straight-up run away you need much more than that. That said, an outdoor hose bib or toilet fill valve is likely to be one of the first places that excess pressure dribbles out to then release pressure.

Good work tonight! You got a lot done. I would caulk around the base of that toilet with Polyseamseal (now called Loctite 2-in-1 Seal and Bond -- any flavor of 2-in-1 will be fine; the bath version has antifungals and stuff in it, but not critical). It comes up easily with little residue if you pull the toilet later, and keeps gunk out in the meantime. Get a small tube if you can, you don't need the big thing that goes into the caulk gun.

And don't worry about the wax ring. If you used the big one, and the flange top is around even with the floor, that will be enough. If you could feel the Unifit "squish" down onto the top of the flange, you have enough wax. And remember, it isn't really there to seal out water. If you needed to make a watertight seal that would hold back pressure, you would have to make a proper watertight joint, as with glue on PVC or soldering ("sweating" in the trade) metal, or using a compression fitting. The main purpose of the wax ring is to seal out the gas ("sewer gas") that comes up through the drain/waste/ventilation system ("DWV system") in widely-varying-quantities from home to home when there is no seal. Smells nasty, often contains some methane. That's why your sink/tub/etc. has a P-trap -- the water in the trap seals against the gas floating into the house -- and why your toilet fixture has a trap built-in (the water in the bowl). The actual outflow from the toilet spigot (or in your case the outflow from the Unifit adapter) is narrower in diameter than the flange, and will often spray out below the lip of the flange, hopefully into a nice, obstruction-free closet bend (the pipe under the flange). The wax fills the space between the top of the flange and the cavity of the toilet or unifit adjacent to the spigot. It may get splashed on occasionally, but it's not holding back any flow. So, in short, if the wax fills the gap, and you don't move the thing around after smushing it down onto the wax, you're fine.
 
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Aliris19

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Thanks, wj. I *am* worried about insufficient "smushing". Is there litmus-paper, or some-such, for odors I wonder?

Thing about the water pressure is, plumbers have commented in the past on the high water pressure. I like it, until... How would one mitigate that if one even wanted to? Truth is, I like it. Though I understand flood == bad.

I couldn't find that polyseamseal perhaps b/c the name changed... does HD usually carry it?

Thanks for the kind words about productivity. I have been fishing all evening for praise from my daughters but they seem to think it entirely unremarkable that Mom would proceed from making a delicious dinner to fixing a nasty toilet. This is what comes of breaking that glass ceiling: no appreciation for iconoclasm. ;)
 

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Thing about the water pressure is, plumbers have commented in the past on the high water pressure. I like it, until... How would one mitigate that if one even wanted to? Truth is, I like it. Though I understand flood == bad.
There is a device called a pressure reducing valve (PRV). These work together with a thermal expansion tank to keep the water pressure in the house below 80 PSI.

To see if you need one, get a water pressure gauge with garden hose thread. It can go on a hose spigot, laundry connection, or water heater drain. Under $2o.

If the temperature and pressure valve on your water heater were to open and release water, where would that water go? A very high pressure on your plumbing might make the toilet fill valve and the WH T+P valve open.
 

WJcandee

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The polyseamseal was renamed by its new owner (and I gave you the name above). This stuff: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Loctite-...emium-All-Condition-Sealant-1900055/205451965 The 2-in-1 is the Polyseamseal.

There's high water pressure meaning that it's good and solid and reliable, and then there's insane pressure that creates all sorts of problems while giving you no meaningful additional flow. Kind of like blood pressure. 80-85 would be something to "like". Above that, no.

loctite-tub-tile.jpg
 
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Jadnashua

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While throttling the input to the fill valve might help with water hammer (and the Korky valve doesn't seem to have that issue...some other types do), it does NOTHING to reduce the actual pressure. Think soda straw verses a fire hose...they both have the same pressure, but one can produce lots more volume than the other. Another way to think about it is the size of a wire...connected to acv, a small wire going to say a phone charger is still got the pressure (volts) that a larger wire has to run an iron, the larger wire just acts like the fire hose, but the pressure is the same. If you have excessive pressure, you may need to replace the seal in the thing every couple of years. If it were lower, it might go as much as a decade or more before it failed.

If you haven't thrown it away yet, pop the float cover off of the old fill valve, then lift out the float. Then, you can twist things apart (about 1/8-turn) and look at the old seal assembly cap. There are instructions on the Korky website. I'd bet it's cracked. A new one is a smooth dome.
 

Aliris19

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Welll.....I threw it away but it's just one smelly dumpster's dive away. Is it important? I shoulda thought to have been more curious.... (especially since I was nominally troubleshooting..)

....I don't *see* a problem...?

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Jadnashua

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No, it's not important, just interesting. If your water pressure IS high, you need to address that for the long-term health of everything in the home. Washing machine hoses, faucet supply lines, all can wear out quicker if your pressure is high. Pop one of those babies, and it can be many, many thousands of $ in repairs.
 
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