How to Replace A Toilet Flapper - by Best Plumbing, Seattle, WA (206) 633-1700

How to Replace A Toilet Flapper - by Best Plumbing, Seattle, WA
Visit us online at http://goo.gl/ry00ms or call 206-633-1700

Video Transcript
Hi, my name is Colin, I'm with Best Plumbing (in Seattle). We've been serving King, Pierce and Snohomish counties for over 40 years.

Today, we're going to talk about how to change a toilet flapper. This here would be kind of more of a everyday typical flapper that's more generic and fits on multiple toilets. This case, it's more of a barrel design with a gasket at the bottom.

Step number one is going to be to shut the water off and flush the toilet to get the water out. In this particular toilet, you're going to turn this, it's going to give you about a quarter turn and the whole thing is going to lift out.

Here's the gasket that were going to be replacing. It can be warped, when people put bleach in the tank it generally leads to these warping quicker, it deteriorates the plastic..so we're going to take this off. Get your new one. Basically has a little ring in there where it seats.

Once it's back in there you can see that right in there, that little, it's kind of a, almost like a key. When you look down in here, you can see that they receptacle part of it - that key will fit in. So put this right side up, align it and then turn it back over and that's going to secure it. Fit the tube at the top again, turn the water back on and let it fill up. Once it fills up, if you no longer hear that running noise, you should be back in business. Another way to test it is to put dye in the back of the toilet. Once it's filled up, if you put that dye in the back of the toilet and no dye shows up in the bowl, you've solved the problem. If you put dye in the tank and the dye gets to the bowl then the flapper is still leaking. You can use food coloring, you can use anything that's going to show a difference in color for the water.

If you flip the seat up now, you're going to see clear water, just like you see in the back of the tank. If you throw dye in here, it turns that blue - that should still be clean and clear. If you have higher chlorine contents or putting in bleach tablets, you might only get like two years and not only that it will make the plastic brittle where you have other failures, cracked parts that kind of thing and then I've seen other flappers where they've lasted five or six years. Nobody is putting in bleach tablets.

It's time to call a licensed plumber when you're going to the local supply house and or you can't quite get the leak fixed.

For more how-to videos and the latest innovations for your bath and kitchen, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Visit us online at http://goo.gl/ry00ms or call 206-633-1700.