Poor Flush

[Jen D]

Hi

It was apparently working fine - then an overflow problem - now it doesn't have sufficient siphonage to take away a piece of toilet tissue!

It's a close-coupled toilet (25+ years old) which originally had a problem with its overflow. A friend of my mothers replaced the existing toilet siphon with a push-button flapper toilet cistern valve, which incorporated an internal overflow - solving the overflow issue. However, now it has a poor/weak flush.

When the toilet is flushed, water seems to emanate normally around the bowl rim, the bowl water level rises and then returns to its normal level but with no particular siphon whoosh, which results in a simple test piece of toilet tissue remaining in the bowl.

The only things which jumped out at me (I don't mean that literally) when I looked in the tank was that the water level was lower than the waterline mark on the inside of the tank (approx half the depth), and the bottom entry inlet valve looked quite short.

I have tried holding the float down to allow the tank water level to raise to the waterline mark (which takes the water level over the top of the inlet valve) - this produced a more significant flush which took away the toilet tissue, but I doubt that it would have taken away much else.

I have checked the external drainage which appears free flowing - the only other thing that crossed my mind was whether a plastic toilet bowl blocks which should hang off the rim has fallen into the bowel and become trapped in the bowl siphon. Although, Im leaning away from this as it would have thought the issue would have been apparent prior to the flush mechanism change.

I have also tried tipping a bucket of water into the bowl which seemed to result in better bowl siphon.

I beginning to think that the problem is associated with the 'quantity and speed' of the water entering the bowl and intend to nip to my mothers to have a closer look at the rim holes to see if they are restricted in anyway and also look to see if the flapper can be adjusted in anyway.

Does anyone have any other thoughts?

Thanks

[Mary Fisher]

At 25 years old it's almost certainly wasting water no matter how it flushes.

Get a new system, designed for water saving and with a dual flush

Mary

[John]

[TheScullster]

"Jen D" wrote

If water is not leaving the bowl as fast as it is entering and the water level simply rises and slowly subsides, this is likely to be a blockage. I too have had similar syptoms when a bog cleaner thing got lodged in the pan waste outlet. Do you have more than one item discharging into the same drain as the WC? If so check the rate of flow from other devices compared to the WC just to get a "feel" for a good flow. Then flush the toilet. If it's leaving the bowl slowly then you should notice the difference. I would try one of the spiral wire drain cleaner thingies down the bowl as a starting point. IMHO changing the cistern and bowl is most probably not necessary. I deliberately reconditioned and kept my old cistern, boxed it in and fitted a new bowl as I didn't want to end up with a pathetic 3/6l flush (I already have this in another toilet and find it hopelessly inadequate

Phil

[Mary Fisher]

Ours is excellent!

Mary