Toto Carlyle II won't completely flush

[Brucet99]

Toto Carlyle II, one of four installed 4 years ago now won't flush completely even when flush lever is held down. The other three work fine.

Dump a 1.25 gallon bucket of water in the bowl and I get a complete flush.

Problem would seem to be that the flush valve delivers less than enough water,
or flush valve delivers water too slowly,
or something in the water ducts through which the flush water flows from valve to bowl restricts water flow velocity,
or ???

Before I buy and install a $40 replacement flush valve, I'd like advice on what is causing the problem.

 

[Terry]

First I would check the siphon jet hole where the water comes into the bowl, very bottom and it's the small hole that water flows through that starts the siphon. I have put a rubber glove on and using my finger reached in there and made sure it was clear. If that gets blocked, the toilet won't flush well. It starts everything.

The water adjustment, I normally have it about 1/2" from the top of the overflow tube, though as long as the water doesn't go over the top, you're fine.
The water in the bowl should be at the right starting level. That tube from the fill valve that points down the overflow, that handles the bowl refill. An empty bowl is harder to flush than one at the proper level.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Brucet99]

First I would check the siphon jet hole where the water comes into the bowl, very bottom and it's the small hole that water flows through that starts the siphon. I have put a rubber glove on and using my finger reached in there and made sure it was clear. If that gets blocked, the toilet won't flush well. It starts everything.

The water adjustment, I normally have it about 1/2" from the top of the overflow tube, though as long as the water doesn't go over the top, you're fine.
The water in the bowl should be at the right starting level. That tube from the fill valve that points down the overflow, that handles the bowl refill. An empty bowl is harder to flush than one at the proper level.

View attachment 88050

Thank you!
I had swapped flush towers between the problem toilet and another with no difference, thus eliminating that part, and tried cleaning the under-lip water ducts, but hadn't noticed the siphon jet hole.

Sure enough, one minute with a small bottle brush (remind me not to use it on bottles) brought out some debris from there and like magic it flushes fine again.

BTW, the wife had asked about the dark gray deposits she sees in the siphon jet opening and in the trap-way opening. They don't brush away with the nylon bristles of the bottle brush. What do you suppose they are and how would we remove them? If they are calcium deposits or something similar, would they respond to muriatic acid?

 

[Reach4]

Dark gray does not seem like calcium deposits.

Deposits would be 3-D that could be detected with a fingernail. Metal marks from somebody using a tool would not be 3-d.

 

[Brucet99]

FYI
A plumber friend told me that the gray stains look like urine salts. We are in SoCal, so don't flush every time, (If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down) to conserve scarce water. He suggested lowering the water level and dumping in muriatic acid to dissolve deposits. I only had some Phosphoric acid, but tried that after lowering the water level to just above the siphon jet hole, letting it work for a couple of hours, then scrubbed lightly with a nylon bristle bottle brush. Sure enough, the deposits flushed away, leaving the siphon jet and trapway clean.

Before picture

 

[Terry]

I've had customers that let it mellow. For some of those, there was so much salt deposits in the bowl, that they wound up replacing it. Here is a picture of the drain when we pulled the toilet.

I chipped out the salt deposits and cleaned off the wax before resetting the new bowl.

Another job on Somerset in Bellevue, a friend of the family, a doctor that delivered some of my brothers and sisters, had a home with the old 1960's copper drain lines. They didn't flush the Master toilet at night, and eventually the acids in the urine ate through the copper drain line.

And then we sold them new toilets that used a lot less water so flushing every time wasn't a big deal.
I have early childhood memories of him and his wife taking a vacation with my family in British Columbia in Canada.
E. C. Manning Provincial Park, first time I saw someone taking a bath in a river with a bar of soap. Our family swam in rivers, and fished in them, but I had never seen someone get up early and take a bath in a river before.

​

 

[Brucet99]

Thanks for the further info. We're taking Navy showers and using a recirc pump to eliminate wasted water while waiting for the lines to deliver hot.

I guess your examples show why mellow yellow is not such a good water saving idea after all.