Help! Toilet losing water (internal), wakes me up at night because it refills tank

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Mark SF

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Hi everyone! I have a problem, it appears to me as if the water from the tank slowly seeps into the bowl. There is no outside leak at all. What happens is every 20 minutes or so, I guess some sensor indicates to the toilet that it needs to refill and it refills for about 10 seconds. The toilet is in the master bath right behind where the bed is and it wakes me up at night.
Visually, everything looks normal inside the tank, I cannot see anything obvious that would cause this.
The toilet is about a year old and it's Glacier Bay. How can I fix this??? Thank you!
 
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WJcandee

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This is the single most common question in toilet repair. We can save you the money you would spend to have a plumber fix it, and empower you for the future.

You probably just need to replace the flapper. They wear out. How long that takes depends upon the makeup of your municipal water, and is exacerbated if you use in-tank bowl cleaners.

It could be a dirty "flush valve seat", which is what the flapper rests on, but almost certainly it's just the flapper itself. 95 times out of 100, that's the problem and simply replacing the flapper solves it.

It's a $5-10 part and a minute to replace it. A very simple DIY job. A few minutes to read the directions so you understand how to do it, but anyone can do it.

You need to check whether you have a 2" flapper or a 3" flapper. Just take the lid off, and flush. Hold the lever down so the flapper lifts off the flush hole, and measure the diameter of the flush hole. On a Glacier Bay, it's going to be 3" or 2", nothing in-between. Korky makes a univerally-adjustable flapper in 2" and in 3". You can get them at Home Depot and many hardware stores, and www.korky.com has lots of helpful videos and such to help you install it properly. You just want the Universal one, not any of the specialty ones.

If you have questions, you can post us a low-res photo of the inside of your toilet and we can be more specific. Good luck and come back to us to let us know how you make out.
 
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Gary Swart

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It definitely is the flapper. It is not usual for a flapper to fail after one, not unheard of, but it makes me wonder if you are using an in-tank bowl cleaner. These contain chlorine and chlorine is a destroyer of flappers. You do not need to clean the tank. A chlorine based cleaner in the bowl is OK, just not in the tank. Common error.
 
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