Will replacing the fill valve on my toilet fix this wailing pipe sound?

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So about 7 months ago, I posted this thread:
Why are my pipes wailing?. I had a wailing pipe sound that would start up whenever someone would turn on a faucet. This wailing sound started a week after a new PRV was installed. It was resolved when a plumber came in and adjusted the PRV to lower the pressure, and ran all the faucets in the house for a few minutes to try and get any air out of the pipes.


Well, 7 months later, the wailing sound is back again. So I tried to replicate the plumber's fix. I ran all the faucets in the house for a few minutes, then turned them off in order of distance to my PRV, with the closest being turned off first. That didn't fix it, so I adjusted the PRV, turning the screw counterclockwise in order to reduce the pressure. That didn't fix it either.

The problem goes away almost completely if I turn off the water supply to the Toto Drake ST743S toilet in the master bathroom. At this point, I am exhausted with trying to fix this problem, and would settle for eliminating the effect instead of trying to find and fix an elusive cause.

So if turning off the water supply to the toilet makes the problem go away almost completely, does that mean that I should replace the fill valve with this replacement unit, and follow these instructions?


Thank you so much for any help. If I never wake up to another sound that's reminiscent of a distant, muted siren, I will be eternally grateful!
 
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Reach4

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The problem goes away almost completely if I turn off the water supply to the Toto Drake ST743S toilet in the master bathroom. At this point, I am exhausted with trying to fix this problem, and would settle for eliminating the effect instead of trying to find and fix an elusive cause.

Are you saying that that you get the full noise without the toilet filling (long since a flush), but you get only a much smaller noise when the supply valve to the toilet is closed?
 
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Are you saying that that you get the full noise without the toilet filling (long since a flush), but you get only a much smaller noise when the supply valve to the toilet is closed?

Yes. If the water supply to the toilet is turned on, and it's been a long time since a flush, then I get the full noise whenever any faucet is turned on. If the water supply to the toilet is turned off, then I get perhaps 0 to 10% of that noise.

It's not a noise that I only get when the toilet is in the process of flushing.
 

Jadnashua

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You have a PRV, but, do you also have an expansion tank? If you do, tap on it and try to see if you can tell if it is full of water. The ET may be bad, and you do need one if you don't have one. The tank may have lost its precharge if the air inlet valve leaks, but usually, the bladder inside starts leaking. You can only test the precharge when the water is turned off and you've opened a faucet to relieve the water pressure. THen, you can just use a tire pressure gauge. The precharge should be a pound or so below your PRV setting. Some PRVs have a bypass valve that allows excess pressure to go backwards back to the street thus limiting the overpressure. But, even if it has one, that pressure needs to get pretty high. A PRV that is failing, with no expansion tank can make some noises when the water leaks back to the street.
 
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Jadnashua

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The ET will ring more like a bell if it is intact verses thud if it is full of water when you tap it with something hard. YOu can often also get an idea of how much it weighs...it should be mostly full of air. The filler valve is the same thing as on a car tire and is on the end opposite of the plumbing connection.
 
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I wasn't sure whether the sound I was getting from knocking on it was indicative of it being full of air or water, so I took a video of it (please see above).
 

Jadnashua

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It's one of those things where you almost have to be there. You can often get an idea by how much it seems to weigh when you knock on it...it should be mostly air, not full of water which would mean probably 40# or more verses maybe 5#. The air fill valve is under that black piece on the bottom. Where it is installed, it might be tough to get it off or to put a gauge on it. Worse comes to worse, you shut the water off, unscrew the thing and it will become obvious if it is filled with water. Open a faucet first to let it discharge the stored pressured water.
 
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I'm actually not very handy, and would be afraid of messing something up with the expansion tank by removing it. It's strapped in place, but when I do try and move it a few degrees, it does seem like I'm moving something that weighs 5lbs and not 40lbs.

Does anyone have an opinion on my workaround of replacing the toilet fill valve, on the toilet that, when I shut off the water, it silences the wailing noise? That seems like something that's easy and cheap, and I wonder if it would have a good chance of success.
 

WJcandee

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Sure. It's an inexpensive step to try. You can get the Toto TSU99A.X fill valve, which is made by Korky in Wisconsin, at a plumbing supply place or online, and follow the video that the moderator added to your original post.

Or, you can get the often-much-less-expensive identical fill valve at Home Depot. Korky 528MP MaxPerformance fill valve. Home Depot calls it the 528MCM on its web site, for no apparent reason, but the package will say 528MP on it. It comes with a silver top. You don't want the red or white top ones in HD, because they aren't the same, and for reasons not worth explaining, they won't work properly. Also, if you were to get the Korky "Fits Toto" Blue-top valve, which is the Korky 528T, that one does fit your toilet as well.

But the 528MP is a little less expensive and more universal. These are also widely available in hardware stores, but don't let some dude there tell you that any other valve will work properly, and sell you that instead. You want the 528MP, and, absent that, the 528T (blue top) or the TSU99A.X (at a plumbing store). Those are the only Korky valves you can use. The valve you put in may or may not look different from the one in the toilet. Toto uses 3 manufacturers, with Korky being the best. All three types of Toto valves are interchangeable.

So...I recommend you just get this one: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Korky-QuietFill-MaxPERFORMANCE-Fill-Valve-528MCM/203145423

Your particular toilet has a 20 percent refill percentage. So, when you install the 528mp following the video below, you can just skip the step where you adjust the valve on the little hose, and just leave it wide open. Wide open on that valve is 20 percent. (Just make sure you don't leave it all the way closed, because that's zero percent and not helpful.)

Installation video from Korky:

 
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Your particular toilet has a 20 percent refill percentage. So, when you install the 528mp following the video below, you can just skip the step where you adjust the valve on the little hose, and just leave it wide open. Wide open on that valve is 20 percent. (Just make sure you don't leave it all the way closed, because that's zero percent and not helpful.)

Are you referring to the step where you turn an adjuster dial clockwise or counter-clockwise, and mark the toilet with a pencil, so that the toilet bowl stops filling when it reaches the pencil mark? Steps 7 and 8 in the instruction booklet here?

http://pdf.lowes.com/installationguides/049057103616_install.pdf

Are you saying that that step is unnecessary on my Toto Drake?
 

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On the 528MP from Lowes or HD, that's exactly what I am saying.

The Original Drake in the model number you gave uses a 20 percent refill ratio (i.e. the percentage of the total water flow that is used to refill the bowl). Twenty percent is full-open on the 528MP. So, you don't need to do that last step, but you can super-tweak it and do that step if you want to. Most likely, it will work best at full-open.

On the TSU99A.X, it may be that the full-open position provides more than 20 percent refill, so on that valve, you would use the little key they give you to set it to the notch they tell you to set it to.
 

Reach4

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Yes. If the water supply to the toilet is turned on, and it's been a long time since a flush, then I get the full noise whenever any faucet is turned on. If the water supply to the toilet is turned off, then I get perhaps 0 to 10% of that noise.

It's not a noise that I only get when the toilet is in the process of flushing.
Do you get the noise 24 hours per day? If not, what triggers it or 100% quiets it?

If you grasp the PRV during the noise, do you feel the noise? Does the noise change if you grasp the PRV?
 
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Ok, I bought that part at Lowe's, and installed it. This was my first time doing any sort of serious maintenance on a toilet, so it was pretty hectic. With the new Korky 528 MP fill valve installed, the sound is 90-100% gone, like when the toilet's water supply was turned off. Hopefully it remains this way for more than 7 months.

I did have one oopsie while installing the new fill valve. In the instructions, in step 4c, it says to hand tighten the mounting nut (that secures the fill valve to the toilet tank). I guess I must not have hand tightened it enough at first, since when I turned the water supply back on to the toilet, water started leaking out and into the plastic container I had put under the toilet. I hand tightened it some more, and the leaking stopped. I've patted it dry with a paper towel, and am still a little worried that it might start to leak again, and will check it with the paper towel again after every use to make sure it's still dry, and keep the plastic container there.


DSCF1096.JPG
 

Jadnashua

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What they don't want you to do is to take a wrench and play ape with it...but depending on the person involved, most can get it tight enough hand tightened. IF you can't, one of two things: there's a rough surface IN the bottom of the toilet around where that seal is and you can take some fine sandpaper and smooth it off, or, it's not tight enough, and some judicious use of a pair of pliers will fix it.
 

WJcandee

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What they don't want you to do is to take a wrench and play ape with it...but depending on the person involved, most can get it tight enough hand tightened. IF you can't, one of two things: there's a rough surface IN the bottom of the toilet around where that seal is and you can take some fine sandpaper and smooth it off, or, it's not tight enough, and some judicious use of a pair of pliers will fix it.

Jim's got the right answer. Just a little addition, there's nothing wrong with getting it hand-tight and then doing a quarter-turn of the nut with a pliers. That should solve the problem.

However, if you do so, be sure to reach in the tank and (or have another person) hold the lower shaft of the valve while you turn the nut with the pliers. I say this from experience: once the nut is pretty tight, if you turn it with pliers you may end up turning the whole valve unless someone (or you) is holding it in place by holding onto the lower part of the shaft. It won't break anything but then you will have to loosen the nut, reposition the valve, and tighten again.

Glad you had success!!! It looks good in there!
 

Terry

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jamie_bent_wrench.jpg


Hand tight is fine of the fill valve nuts.
Here is a wrench that Jamie bent last week unthreading a fitting on an old water heater.
 

WJcandee

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Great photo!

Just one quick point that is well-illustrated by this picture: Jamie's hand-tight is going to be a bit tighter than my 80+ year-old Dad's hand-tight. So, depending upon where Horseless Carriage fits on that scale, I figured that if he had it hand-tight and it was dripping, adding a quarter-turn with a device like a pliers might get him where he needed to go with confidence.

How's it coming along out there, Horseless Carriage?
 
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