Toilet Cistern Siphon not working

Hi, Our toilet has been flushing less & less reliably. As it's see through plastic, I can see that when the plunger which should lift the water up into the u-bend of the cistern to start the siphon, is failing to do so, almost gets there.

But I can't see anything wrong.

Is there some kind of seal around the plunger which may have disintegrated?

Do I have to in case replace the whole cistern unit?

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Reply to
zzapper
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snipped-for-privacy@tvis.co.uk (zzapper) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

There's a flap valve at the bottom of the siphon that has prolly failed.

Ypu do not need to replace the cistern, but you will need to replace the flap, and probably better, the whole assembly, they're not expensive.

You will need to remove the cistern from the bog, and there is a rubber sealing ring that is probably a good idea to replace at the same time.

Prolly wingnuts underneath will release the cistern which will just lift off after disconnecting the pipes. These nuts can be a bugger to undo on account of rusting corrupting, on reassembly grease up nicely.

HTH

mike

Reply to
mike ring

Is the bowl transparent too?

Reply to
Ian Stirling

"> > Is there some kind of seal around the plunger which may have

The flap valve is a disc of flexible plastic material like polythene and it will wear at the edges, becomeing less effective and failing to lift the water up the syphon, as you describe.

Drain the cistern, remove the syphon, take it apart, take the flap valve disc to a plumbers' merchants and get a new one. If it's not bog standard, or if it's a designer job with parts only available by special order, it might be sensible to source the bits before you dismantle it, to minimize the inconvenience.

Reply to
Aidan

Thnx for above. The unpleasant aspect of above is disconnecting the water supply feed, which means switching off main tap.

Me thinks alas that this is a job for a plumber.

zzapper (vim, cygwin, wiki & zsh)

Reply to
zzapper

zzapper wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Could be, if that's the way you feel about it, but the plumbimg skills are very elementary and could be a confidence builder.

It's within the competence of any spanner jockey really

mike

Reply to
mike ring

The water regulations say that there should be a servicing valve close to the cistern. If you haven't already got one and decide to call in a plumber, you might like to consider having one fitted in readiness for next time (hopefully in the distant future).

Reply to
Mark Williams

I've had good results by simply replacing the washer with thick polythene appropriately trimmed. Fiddly to get the exact circle with scissors, but possible. and free if you can find some suitable polythene (say a thick poly builders sack.)

Reply to
Ian Stirling

Mark Williams wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@engine1.aziraphale.homeip.net:

The professional builders who did my bathroom put one quite close to the cistern. It's a compression fitting.

They then boarded over it and tiled over that; it looked very nice.

As the main stopcock was also within 2 ft of the bog I didn't notice the lack of an isolater, but several years later the lino men must have moved it a bit.

A couple of weeks after that I started to look for the slow leak that was oozing under the new lino.......

Always use a professional

mike

Reply to
mike ring

There is often a shutoff tap near the toilet. In this case, the absolute worst that can happen is that you can flush it with a bucket for a while.

Reply to
Ian Stirling

There is no isolating tap/valve , otherwise I'd do this job, no prob. When we lived abroad our 45 year "economy" house had an isolater for every tap,toilet what a dream, Electrics weren't so good, as the house predated many electrical gadgets, but even so circuit-breakers.

Thanx for your help: Great NewsGroup!!!

zzapper (vim, cygwin, wiki & zsh)

Reply to
zzapper

Alternatively, if you'r not disturbing the valve, and in many cases you may not need to, then all you need to do is to tie up the ball-valve, so that it does not turn on when you empty the tank to work on the siphon.

Reply to
Ian Stirling

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