Common Toilet Leaks

8/15/2022 (Permalink)

Finding out there’s a water leak in your home is never fun, but one of the last places you want to be leaking is your toilet. As with everything else in your home, toilets can degrade over time with regular use. It’s important to know the most common causes of why your toilet could be leaking and how to fix them.

• Bad Supply Line or Valve – If the issue is with your supply line you may see dripping when you flush. The problem is that small leaks are often very difficult to find and identify. The easiest way to find them is with a colored water test. Using color-test safe tablets or food coloring to avoid staining the toilet, dye the water in the tank and wait. After about 10-15 minutes check and see if you can find any colored water outside the toilet. If not, give it a flush and then check again. If you still don’t see any colored water, then your problem may be elsewhere.
• Broken Tank Flange – The tank flange is what mounts the toilet to the floor and connects it to the drain line. If this is broken, there are a few things you may notice. First is obviously, moisture buildup or puddles around the base of the toilet. Additionally, you may notice unpleasant odors, or your toilet might be wobbly. Both of these are signs that the flange my need to be replaced.
• Wax Seal – When you flush the toilet, the water will exit into the sewage line. If the wax seal below the toilet is damaged, the water may instead go around the base of the toilet. To repair this, you should first try and tighten the bolts on the toilet, if you’re still having issues, you may need to replace the wax gasket.
• Poor Installations – There is also the possibility that the toilet was originally installed incorrectly. If this is the case, there’s a chance that the water damage could have been happening for quite some time before you noticed. If this is the case, you should replace the toilet and contact a water damage company as soon as possible.

Remember that water will continue to damage your home until the source of the leak has been addressed and everything has been dried out. Putting off addressing the water damage in your home can lead to even more costly repairs. If you’ve discovered water damage in your home due to a leaking toilet or any other cause our team here at SERVPRO of Chesterfield and SERVPRO of Tri-Cities, Plus is available 24/7, 365 days a year to help make it “Like it never even happened.”