About 10 years ago I insulated the toilet tank with a kit from Home Depot maybe. After some years it finally gave up the ghost. I'd like to insulate it again but the kits I see now are the white styrofoam not the closed cell translucent sheets I'd used previously. Before I can redo it though I've got to get rid of the old adhesive inside the tank. Any ideas on a good product to get rid of this residue? Know if they still sell that closed cell insulation instead of this styrofoam? Haven't checked any local plumbing shops yet.
I'd like to insulate because in winter the incoming supply of water is fairly cold. My basement is unheated which doesn't give the supply pipes a chance to warm up at all. When this water settles in the toilet tank, the difference in temperature between the water in the tank and the ambient air in the bathroom causes the tank to sweat a lot. When the tank was insulated before it cut down on the amount of dripping water I had to towel up continually.
Not he only way it forms. Cold well water, repeated use with a few family members. Don't know if they still do, but American Standard offered a liner for just that reason.
Don't be afraid to open your mind to other conditions that your own house.
Understood. And it's a very commom condition. But consider that it may also represent the existence of rather high humidity in the bathroom.
My first suggestion is to put in one of "leak sentry" fill valves from Fluidmaster. It keeps the float from dropping as water leaks past the flapper valve, so you only have new water coming in when someone actually flushes.
Second suggestion is that you notice whether you have any mold forming in the bathroom. Because it needs humidity of 55% to form and thrive. Plenty of condensate at the tank would suggest plenty of available moisture in the air.
I've seen an insulating kit at Home Depot, with the Styrofoam panels enclosed in plastic to keep their cells from getting water-logged, but I see that as a Band-Aid to cover the existence of other conditions that should be corrected.
Nope, I don't have mold forming anymore, now that I have insulated my outside wall with Styrofoam, installed a humidity-sensing vent fan, and a 52" ceiling fan to run when the light is turned on. No condensate on the tank either, unless the toilet gets flushed during or immediately before someone's shower.
I'm an inspector. I see conditions, and corrections, in hundreds of houses. It is quite impressive how ingenious some of the fixes have been. Including one where the person removed his tank, sprayed "Great Stuff" foam on it, shaved off portions that interfered with putting it back into place, extended the flush handle, and got his wife to make a cover for it, including the lid. End result was quite pretty. He had even made a different attachment for the toilet seat lid so that it could be raised and would stay in place. I felt that what he had done had considerable elegance, and told him so.
However, his wife was routinely needing to deal with mold growth in the bathroom. After he realized that the conditions were related, he devoted his artistry to the overall problem of moisture accumulation. Nowadays, he sees the insulated commode tank as a monument to seeing a problem instead of looking at the bigger picture.
Why not install a mixing valve from the hot water line? Mix in just enough hot water to the fill to keep the water below the dew point. Find the humidity of the room and adjust the valve to get the desired temp. Wastes a little hot water but solves the condensation problem.
The temperature of my 300+ feet deep well water filling the tank is=20 about 55=BA F year round. If the bathroom is warmer than 55=BA, any=20 humidity, even the least amount of ambient humidity in the house air,=20 condenses on the tank continually until the water in the tank reaches=20 room temperature, where condensation no longer forms. This can be a=20 couple of hours, unless flushed again. Until that time, the condensation =
builds up and the excess drips onto the floor. Insulating the inside of=20 the tank with foam, or the outside of the tank with those nice fuzzy=20 covers that disguises your toilet so it looks like an upholstered chair, =
prevents the condensation from forming on the cold tank. All without=20 using using electricity.
No mold in the bathroom since fan is used during and after showers for a long time to evacuate most if not all the excess moisture. Simply due to difference in temp between air and water in the tank. Thought of installing a mixing valve but most people I've talked to that have had them say that they plug up after a while and have to be replaced. It seems the insulation of the tank lasted at least 10-12 years for short money too. Just can't find the old type of insulation I had in there. Think I should just scrape the old adhesive off from the inside of the tank?
Don't look for tank insulation. Look for sheets of ethafoam (polyethylene foam) and glue it in place. It is a common packaging material and you can find it in 1/8" to 2" thickness.
I can tell you that almost all of the styrofoam insulation that failed was on the bottom of the tank, The sides are still intact. I just looked in there and there are still little styrofoam balls floating on the surface of the water. I put this styrofoam kit in the tank more than 10 years ago, so the life span of both is about the same. I don't have much glue left on the bottom of the tank other than a few 1" round spots where the styrofoam is gone, since I had just tacked it in there. Perhaps if I had put a lot of glue in there, the bottom wouldn't have broken up. I don't know if you can scrape it out, but I suppose it can be done. I'm not going to bother.
Yep. And if you save all those styrofoam sheets that come in many boxes, you can do it all for the price of the glue alone. :-) A couple of months ago. I bought a 3 tier resin garden fountain from Lowes. It came in a large plastic box that was corrugated like the cardboard ones. Both my wife and I stated what a good, sturdy, well built box it was. I still have it in the garage, wondering what I can do with it. :-)
I'll look for some of that foam. I was concerned about the glue because sometimes it can actually eat away at the styrofoam and not perform as glue but solvent. Don't have a Lowe's around here yet but one is being built as we speak. I'm sure I can squirrel something up though. Thanks for the answers and ideas.
If I can think back long enough (and it is a real challenge), there was no Lowes where I live so it might have been Home Depot where i bought the tank insulation.
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