When your dwelling house's toilet cistern starts leaking, at that place's nothing platonic nearly the situation. Toilet h2o may be clean, just that doesn't hateful it is any less foul to deal with. No one wants toilet h2o dripping over their bathroom floor, particularly if they take pets or children running around.

What is a toilet cistern?

A toilet cistern holds the water that is used to flush a toilet after apply. In that location are several variations of the cistern, just they all operate in similar ways, which makes fixing them simpler for plumbers.

You can locate the toilet cistern at the dorsum of the toilet bowl. Many identify this part of the toilet as the toilet "tank" or something similar. At that place should exist a heavy lid that you can lift to meet within the cistern, which will reveal a torso of water and a few other odd-looking devices.

Within of a toilet cistern

Let'due south be frank, the within contents of a toilet tank or cistern look a bit odd. I of the first items you'll notice volition probably be the overflow pipe, which is stationed next to a device that is made up of several components: the float cup, a leak sentry device, and a water level adjustment rod.

In that location are a few other bits and pieces inside of the tank, including fill up and flush valves, and a couple dissimilar clips, tubes, clamps, and levers. Most toilet cisterns also take a float of some kind.

Leading downwards from the cistern, at the back of the toilet bowl, there's also a shut-off valve.

the inside of a toilet cistern being cleaned with blue cleaning liquid
The inside of a toilet cistern being cleaned with blueish cleaning liquid.

Identifying a toilet cistern leak

Y'all'll know fairly quickly if your toilet has a leak, but not all toilet cistern leaks happen within the home.

The most noticeable type of leak volition exist your toilet cistern overflowing or leaking onto your bathroom or washroom floor. These are a common blazon of toilet cistern leak and quite piece of cake to deal with.

You lot may also observe that the outdoor overflow pipage is leaking water. Information technology's unlikely that this kind of leak will depict your attention immediately, but you'll hopefully observe inside a couple of days of the leak starting.

It's more than likely that your toilet cistern leak volition happen inside your habitation because virtually toilet cisterns are designed to overflow into the bowl of the toilet – which is what is happening when your toilet bowl fills up and the level of h2o won't recede.

Ways to spot a leak

A toilet bowl filling to a big chapters shows a rather astringent leak. Smaller leaks are harder to notice, merely there are some means you tin can identify them. The quickest is to identify a sail of dry toilet paper at the dorsum of your toilet pan when your toilet isn't beingness used.

If the paper is moisture after three hours (or in the morning time if yous do this overnight), then you have a leak issue to deal with.

Alternatively, during a tranquillity moment in your home, go into your bath and listen for the sound of running or rushing water. This is your toilet even so running, fifty-fifty when it hasn't recently been flushed. Accompanying this, y'all may notice a trickle of water at the dorsum of the toilet bowl.

What causes toilet cisterns to drip or leak?

For toilet cisterns that have push buttons, leaks are normally caused by a build-upwardly for limescale stopping the mechanism from working correctly. You can attempt to dislodge this build-up by pressing the push button several times in quick succession or holding the push down.

If that doesn't work, you may need to supercede the affluent mechanism. This is much cheaper to exercise than paying a plumber or replacing the toilet system.

Close-coupled toilets also cause leaking issues when they are fitted a certain mode. It's amend to fit this variation of toilet at a 90-degree angle or you'll suffer with plenty of toilet leaks and no ane wants that.

Think your toilet cistern is leaking from the bottom of the tank? It might non be. If this surface area is wet, the water could be condensation, rather than a leak. Check the cistern for cracks, cheque over the pipes, and exercise a couple of the leak tests to be sure.

Finally, for leaking overflow pipes, bank check the float or ballcock of your toilet cistern. When the level that these floats are set at is as well high, the level of the water in the toilet cistern will also exist too high. This volition then crusade h2o to go to the overflow to manage the levels.

In older toilet systems, your overflow pipage will exist outside. More modern toilets don't apply an overflow pipe that leads outside, the water goes into the toilet pan, instead.

a toilet system being serviced
Servicing a toilet cistern.

How to fix a leaking toilet cistern

The ease of fixing a leaking toilet cistern will depend on the type of leak your toilet is suffering with.

Arguably, the easiest consequence to set up would exist a float that is set at the wrong level. Yous should just need to arrange the float to fix this. In some cases, you may have a broken float that needs to be replaced. To practice this effectively, make sure you turn off the water valve and drain the toilet first.

This fix should bargain with any trickling or always-running toilets that continuously leak water after flushing or throughout the day.

The more circuitous fix

One of the leading causes of leaky cisterns happens when the washers need to be replaced. The washers for your toilet cistern are at the very bottom of the toilet tank.

First, turn off the h2o valve. Then, take off your cistern's lid and flush the organisation. This volition bleed the water.

You'll need to undo the basics under the tank to be able to change the washers. Once you've washed this, put everything back together and turn the water supply dorsum on. Flush, and hope for success!