GreenGiant117
New Member
So I have three Gerber toilets that have the Sloan Flushmate Series 503 accelerators in them.
One of them had a habit of if it hadn't been used in about 2-3 days it didn't have enough volume/pressure to flush anything down, the following flush would work, but not quite the volume/pressure of the other two in the house.
Looking at the resources, they suggested the one way valve at the top, or remove and check the cartridge, cleaned and checked the valve, no change, their manual where it says use the handles of a set of pliers to remove the cartridge wouldnt budge it.
I just dealt with it until the toilet started moving during use, tightening the T-bolts resulted in one just coming up and up, so either it had popped from the track or the flange was rotted out.
Pulling the toilet revealed a rotted flange, no biggie, chip it all away, remove the screws (got really lucky with all of them coming out) and using a repair flange.
I figured at this time I would replace the flushmate tank with a standard valve and flapper... Going to test the toilet and it doesn't flush.
The water level rises a little bit, but not (fast) enough to cause the siphon effect to flush anything but urine down.
I think the toilet was designed FOR the flush accelerator...
I was able to remove the cartridge from the flushmate tank (through a very large crescent wrench and a long screw driver after breaking it) at this point I have 3 options:
1) I can get a replacement cartridge for ~$40 USD but I have no idea if that cartridge is the issue.
2) I can get a whole new flushmate tank from Home Depot for $130 which would fix the issue, but is this going to happen again down the road? I have no idea how old these toilets are and this one in particular is in our guest/kids bathroom (currently they are too young to use it, but in a few years it will be heavily used)
3) I can replace the toilet with an American Standard Vormax for ~$180-200 which seems to be good for cleanliness and for flushing ability, or really any toilet sold at a big box store if anyone has recomendations.
Any thoughts on whether to repair/replace the flushmate or just get a new toilet?
One of them had a habit of if it hadn't been used in about 2-3 days it didn't have enough volume/pressure to flush anything down, the following flush would work, but not quite the volume/pressure of the other two in the house.
Looking at the resources, they suggested the one way valve at the top, or remove and check the cartridge, cleaned and checked the valve, no change, their manual where it says use the handles of a set of pliers to remove the cartridge wouldnt budge it.
I just dealt with it until the toilet started moving during use, tightening the T-bolts resulted in one just coming up and up, so either it had popped from the track or the flange was rotted out.
Pulling the toilet revealed a rotted flange, no biggie, chip it all away, remove the screws (got really lucky with all of them coming out) and using a repair flange.
I figured at this time I would replace the flushmate tank with a standard valve and flapper... Going to test the toilet and it doesn't flush.
The water level rises a little bit, but not (fast) enough to cause the siphon effect to flush anything but urine down.
I think the toilet was designed FOR the flush accelerator...
I was able to remove the cartridge from the flushmate tank (through a very large crescent wrench and a long screw driver after breaking it) at this point I have 3 options:
1) I can get a replacement cartridge for ~$40 USD but I have no idea if that cartridge is the issue.
2) I can get a whole new flushmate tank from Home Depot for $130 which would fix the issue, but is this going to happen again down the road? I have no idea how old these toilets are and this one in particular is in our guest/kids bathroom (currently they are too young to use it, but in a few years it will be heavily used)
3) I can replace the toilet with an American Standard Vormax for ~$180-200 which seems to be good for cleanliness and for flushing ability, or really any toilet sold at a big box store if anyone has recomendations.
Any thoughts on whether to repair/replace the flushmate or just get a new toilet?