Toto MS854114 bowl water level drops intermittently

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bls

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Hello and thanks to all that read this.

I have two brand new Totos described in subject. I live in a newly constructed 40 story apartment building.

Both toilets will, after flushing, lose water in the bowl (not tank) in an intermittently fashion.

Sometimes the drop is 16oz in 24 hours. Other times less. But always a drop in level. No one knows the cause. Toto says cracked bowl (no leak outside bowl) or suction from building stack.

This is warrantied, but is seems impossible to diagnose.

I am at a loss. No one but Toto can believe two cracked bowls in one apartment. It is not wicking.

Would anyone have and ideas or test methods?

Thanks so much.
 

Reach4

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Are the toilets back to back with each other or with a toilet in an adjacent unit? That could explain it.
 

Terry

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If the toilets are installed back to back on a sancross or double fixture cross, flushing one will empty a bit of water out of the other bowl.
To test this, watch one toilet bowl, while having someone else flush the other toilet. If the water surges up and then settles down at a lower level, that is the problem. It's not a big deal, but it does happen.

back_to_back.jpg


One more test it to check the level and then check later. But no flush of either toilet in the meantime.
 
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Jadnashua

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My first floor fixtures are not vented properly...the stack going up is used by the fixtures on the second floor. I do notice that the toilet downstairs sometimes has the bowl lower than 'normal'. It stays up if I do not use anything upstairs during the day since the stack can work as a vent only, verses the drain from upstairs. To fix this, I'd need to add a vent line and revent it in the attic or at least higher up above the fixtures on the second floor. If your apartment building is not vented properly, that could be an issue, too. Once a pipe is used as a drain, it can no longer perform properly as a vent...IOW, they can't (with minor exceptions) have a dual purpose. It's cheaper to do it wrong, and you might not have issues depending on the volume of the waste going down the pipe. The house I grew up in is poorly vented by today's standards, so some of it may depend on when the place was built.
 

bls

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Thank you to everyone. Please let me provide additional information

My affected toilets are nowhere near each other. In fact I believe they vent to separate stacks in the 40 floor high rise.

I have never seen any movement of bowl water other than sinking lower in the bowl, and that movement is not sudden; just a slow lowering of the water line. Certainly no rising of the level. I can't watch 24/7 though :)

To test, I have marked the bowl level. Even as few as four hours can produce a marked result. And using this method empirically showed the 16oz drop in a known time period

I have done other "home remedy" tests. All results showed a visible water drop in the bowl

So this is very perplexing. Cracked bowls seem statistically unlikely but many events happen with regularity that are unlikely

May I ask if there is a procedure to follow or something else to do ... replacing one bowl perhaps? These are MS854114 one piece units.

Again thanks for the assistance.
 

Reach4

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Do you have a pet? If so, try closing the lid.

I am not a plumber. What I describe here is not a standard test as far as I know. If the problem was some problem with the venting making a vacuum at times, this is a test I think would show that. Get a piece of clean clear tubing. This could be some fresh 3/8 or so tubing from a hardware store. Shove one end into the bowl and continue until the far end of the tubing is surely past the water seal in the toilet. You might get by with smaller tubing. The only reason I suggested 3/8. Old medical oxygen tubing might be stiff enough to be thrust into the toilet trap a ways, and is usually discarded after a month of use.

Blow on the clean end to clear out any water that got picked up during the placement. Put that clean end into a glass of water so that it extends 4 inches into the water. The water should rise in the tubing so that the surface of the water in the glass and surface of the water in the tubing are at about the same level. Rig something to hold this in place so that you don't have to keep holding it.

Monitor the level of the water in the tubing. Look for differences -- particularly the rise of the water in the tubing. If that water rises ( I am unclear what threshold of rise is a problem so maybe 0.5 inches?) that would seem to be what could be drawing the water. The point is to identify or eliminate that as a problem.
 
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bls

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You made me LOL - OL. No pets. I wish it was that simple.

I like your idea and thank you. Got a chemical engineer and doc in the family. I have a physics background. So I get it (I think).

It will be a bit before I can try this, however, knowing the teeny bit of hydrodynamics I do know, if there is suction in drain, it'll produce suction in the tube and pull water out of the glass.

Has to be pas the "trap." You said that.

I will post what happens. Once again thanks for the laff and idea :)

Also note that I cannot spell Toto in the title of this post.













Do you have a pet? If so, try closing the lid.

I am not a plumber. What I describe here is not a standard test as far as I know. If the problem was some problem with the venting making a vacuum at times, this is a test I think would show that. Get a piece of clean clear tubing. This could be some fresh 3/8 or so tubing from a hardware store. Shove one end into the bowl and continue until the far end of the tubing is surely past the water seal in the toilet. You might get by with smaller tubing. The only reason I suggested 3/8. Old medical oxygen tubing might be stiff enough to be thrust into the toilet trap a ways, and is usually discarded after a month of use.

Blow on the clean end to clear out any water that got picked up during the placement. Put that clean end into a glass of water so that it extends 4 inches into the water. The water should rise in the tubing so that the surface of the water in the glass and surface of the water in the tubing are at about the same level. Rig something to hold this in place so that you don't have to keep holding it.

Monitor the level of the water in the tubing. Look for differences -- particularly the rise of the water in the tubing. If that water rises ( I am unclear what threshold of rise is a problem so maybe 0.5 inches?) that would seem to be what could be drawing the water. The point is to identify or eliminate that as a problem.
 

Wallijonn

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Was the problem there before the Totos were installed? What were the old toilets, 3.5 gpf or 5.0 gpf?

The usual test is to flush, let the tank fill up then put food colouring in just the tank and then see if the bowl turns colour.
 

bls

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Thank you. This is a newly constructed building. The only toilet ever installed was the first. A Toto.

This is not a tank problem. It is a bowl problem. Tank is fine. Bowl water recedes a lot over a short period of time.

No leaks outside the bowl. Anything leaking is happening inside the bowl and I don't know if that is even possible.

No one has any idea about this. It is perplexing for sure. Thank you for your answer.


Was the problem there before the Totos were installed? What were the old toilets, 3.5 gpf or 5.0 gpf?

The usual test is to flush, let the tank fill up then put food colouring in just the tank and then see if the bowl turns colour.
 

WJcandee

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Is there any chance that what you are seeing is the bowl being slightly overfilled on refill and then just receding to its normal "settle level" as all bowls do?
 

Jadnashua

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Try this...take something that can hold water, and after you've noticed the level go down, slowly pour water into the bowl until it stops rising. Let it sit. See if it recedes to the original level. All toilets have a 'natural' level and cannot be made to hold more unless there's a clog, but they can over a short time. The only other things that can cause a toilet bowl's level to drop is a faulty vent system, a crack or hole internal (if it doesn't leak on the floor, it could still leak down the drain via the crack or hole), or possibly something caught in the trapway like dental floss, or something similar that can cause wicking over the weir.

Last test you could perform is to remove the toilet, set it outside on something raised and level, then fill the bowl up and watch it over time to see if water leaks out. A really good visual inspection once it's removed might reveal a crack or hole. Doesn't happen often with Toto, but depends on how it was shipped.
 
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