Poor toilet flush

[fred]

Yes I know this is a perennial but a quick Google gave no help.

Basically the toilet flushes o/k in so far as all of the water empties out of the cistern. The trouble is it doesn't seem to do this aggressively enough so the contents of the pan don't clear properly. Repeated, sequential pressing the handle to assist the flush is partly effective. I replaced the internals but to no great effect. Toilet is on second floor and septic tank was recently emptied but this made no difference either.

What to try next ?

Paul Mc Cann

[Paul - xxx]

Drain the cistern and check the connections from the flush to the pan. On one of ours with a stand-up flush unit the base, where the water sucks up from the cistern before siphoning off, was loose and allowed lots of air to be pulled in, meaning the flush was weak and finished early, repeated flushes were needed.

Similarly the top, if it's a stand-up flush, can also come loose and stop the siphon working properly, but this might need adhesive or filler to fix!

[sm_jamieson]

That's what (close coupled) toilets are like now with the reduced volume. However, if you can flush again and get more water, have you set it to a short flush ? The new downstairs one I fitted with a hidden cistern elevated about 600mm above the pan and delivered via a curved tube. Its delightfully fierce. Of course with a high level cistern, you could flush away a cat. Simon.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its not a Shires 'Adelphi' is it? the Loo That don't Flush?

[sm_jamieson]

Could be a pan designed for the old sized flush volume. The new ones have a narrower outlet, and thus, target zone ;-) Simon.

[Andy Dingley]

We had that. An old (avocado vintage) suite with a double syphonic action - one of those bright ideas that the invisible hand of product selection has since done away with. It worked, just never well.

Finally the plastic flush syphon broke for an unrelated reason and had to be replaced. Replacing it coincidentally with a "full volume" syphon rather than the previous 1990s reduced volume flush cured the problem. Flushing is now powerful and effective. We're wasting water until we replace the entire bathroom, but then we live in Wales so we're hardly short of the stuff.

[fred]

Thanks to all for the many suggestions. I'm off to the hardware to see if I can source a better innards. Thats my weekend fecked up ;-(

Paul Mc Cann

[fred]

Upon investigation could this be the problem ?

toilet is not close coupled though it is low level. The pipe connecting the cistern with the pan seems to go very far up into the syphon. (The rubber ring does not move from one picture to the other so this is the extent of its penetration ) Is it necessary for it to go this far ? Is it part of the problem ? I don't want to go hacking bits off it un-necessarily and messing the whole thing up

Thanks to all again

Paul Mc Cann