I have a Kohler toilet that worked fine for years. Now, it seems to be balky. I just do not get the whoosh and strong vortex I got before. If I dump water from a bucket, very little water is needed to flush.
I have replaced the flapper. The drain from the tank is clear and unobstructed. I fill to about a quarter inch of the overflow pipe. I often get the whirlpool but not whoosh. I have tried holding the lever down to get a full volume flush.
The only thing I can think of is that there is partial clogging past anything visible.
So your toilet flushes good with a bucket of water? even a small amunt in bucket?
easily solved and cheap too. the internal passages in your toilet espically the bowl rim is clogged from hard water or using those blue things in tank.... both can cause this.
you can attempt to clear the bowl rim holes with a coarthanger but its much easier to use acid.
dont freak acid is safe in this application and will have you flushing fine within 15 minutes:)
it also cleans out the lower bowl passages.
flus toilet with water off try to get water level as low as possible on tank and bowl. then sop up or vacuumn water out of trap in bottom of bowl, yuk job.
use muriatic acid, wear glasses and rubber gloves, open bath window carefully pour about a cup or 2 down the dip tube, and about the same amount in the bowl, then cap the acid and leave room immediately. wait
15 minutes and flush normally. enjoy seeing the water go down so well:) you can give it a second treatment if you want but its probably not necessary. 5 bucks get you the acid at your local store. its used for lots of stuff.
its a good idea when your doine to flush the toilet about 10 times to dilute whatever acid remains in the lines.
what happens is to flush well the flapper opens and water goes both dsown main passage but bowl rim, it MUST move fast to cause a wave and get the traps water moving.
when the passages get clogged the water just swirls around and doesnt flush well.
gpo get em i have fixed a bunch of toilets this way
use a funnel if necessary, dont splash, and wear rubber gloves and safety glasses in case you do splash. take a deep breathe before you start pouring and dont linger.
I was able to flush with about one quart of water dumped directly into the bowl. I guess that the swirling of water comes from discharge through the rim holes. There is nothing apparent at the flapper valve that would induce that swirl.
While it may be due to the rim design, but with the exception of toilets on the equator it will swirl all by itself due to the rotation of the earth. It happens when you remove the plug in the drain for your sink or tub as well. It turns the other way south of the equator.
I hope this is tongue in cheek. While in principle, the earth's rotation will set up such a swirl, you have to do a careful experiment to ascertain that it was really set up by earth rotation.
If you take a bathtub soak, it is easy to get the rotation during draining going in whichever direction you chose. Slight motion of the water at a distance from the drain becomes big motion when that water goes down the drain. It is analogous to an ice skater revving up by pulling arms in.
No not tongue in cheek. Try it and you will see. The earth's rotation is only the tinny nudge that gets it started one way or the other since the force is so small, any other existing force can disrupt it and under some conditions it may not develop any swirl. It is true that it will rotate different north or south. Here is an interesting reference.
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That very small effect is enough to control weather however.
I agree. As noted any larger force due to outside influence or to drag differences where the water is flowing can change the outcome.
You are talking about the Coriolis force. It is proportional to speed. It increases away from the equator. It is significant for wind speed. In a bathtub, there is no speed except as it builds up inwardly to the drain from zero as the water starts moving from rest.
If you wish to discuss it further, do it by email.
Joseph, there's a reason your cite re "coriolis force" doesn't mention its effect on water flowing in the sink or toilet. Alas ... commonly believed but not really true.
I tried your procedure. It was miraculous! I presume that it was mostly carbonate precipitates from the hard water that accumulated over the years.
I did not take all the precautions you suggestion although that would have been a good idea. I guess I was a bit careless because in my high school days long, long ago, I lost my respect for hydrochloric acid. This time, I got a small whiff of hydrogen chloride. In those days people were not up as tight about such things and liability was not so high on everyone's list. A splash of even concentrated muriatic (hydrochloric) acid is not that big a deal if you wash it off quickly. Please everyone, do not take this as encouragement to be careless.
My added twist to the procedure was to neutralize the acid with sodium carbonate also known as sal soda or washing soda. It comes with different amounts of water in the crystal structure. That water does not help neutralize acid.
I was wondering if sulfuric acid would do the job as well. It would probably have to be diluted in order to attack the scale. I would be more concerned about contacting concentrated sulfuric acid than of hydrochloric acid. Even then a quick deluge of water can save much grief. I you want to see what can happen, put a little sugar in a heat resistant bowl and wet it down with concentrated sulfuric acid, but be careful. It is available as drain cleaner. The sugar will char as water is sucked out of it as it will your skin if it contacts the acid.
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