: I feel like I'm in heaven! We moved into our 1911 house 5 years ago and have a Vent-Away toilet in our main bathroom. It has worked PERFECTLY until yesterday. Now it seems to run constantly--I tried to turn off the water valve behind the bowl, but am unable to get it completely tight--the water pressure seems to continue. I wanted to turn it off so I could familiarize myself with the gizmos inside--it looks like no toilet I've ever seen before--a virtual Rube Goldberg machine!! Any hints?
: Thanks much,
: kathie

Kathie,
Check the tightness of the backing nut inside that holds the handle to the side of the side of the tank. If that nut works loose, it will place an unacceptable amount of slack in the linkage and you will not be able to turn the vent water supply valve off without removing the lid and moving the linkage by hand. Fine tuning the linkage is easy. Just open the lid and loosen the locking nut on the threaded link between the handle and the bellcrank arm to the vent water valve. This threaded link is also threaded to the handle link, so screwing it in or out adjusts the point in handle travel at which the vent water comes on and shuts off. Adjust it so the vent water shuts off when you push the handle in slowly to the point where it doesn't quite flush the toilet. Because the travel of the linkage and the vent valve bellcrank is fixed at the factory by design, this ensures that pulling out will activate the vent action and flushing stops the vent action. One other thing to watch out for is that if the vent water valve is disassembled in place, it is possible to install the rotory valve plug 180 degrees out and reconnect the linkage. The linkage will not activate the vent action and flush all in the same mechanical travel. I found one of mine in that condition.

I agree with you. I bought a house that has 7 Vent-Away toilets and they are great! Took me a little while to figure them out and repair/adjust the linkages. The problem I am now working on is that the backing nuts inside the tank which hold the seat to the toilet have deteriorated/crumbled/disappeared(?!). The hold-down stud built into the seat pivot has a strange thread and I haven't found appropriate nuts. Also, just getting your hand/tools into that area to tighten such nuts is almost impossible without partially disassembling part of the flush/vent mechanism (Actually, removing the flapper, if I remember correctly.) Since the flappers are almost 30 years old and probably brittle, I am a little timid on this.

Lastly, let me tell you that the American Standard technical service folks are very helpful on this. There is one older gentleman I spoke with who is their Vent-Away expert and he is awsome on the subject.

Chris Rodrigues