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(I'm on vacation now. That's why so many posts.)
My toilet normally has a pseudo dual-flush feature. If I want a short flush, I press and release the handle. If I want a long flush, I press and hold it for longer.
A week ago, for no reason that I can figure out, the toilet started always doing a very long flush - even longer than the normal long ones (what some people call a triple flush, as the water drains out of the bowl and fills up 3 times before stopping). But from reading about how toilets work, it seems to be working exactly as designed. The flapper in the tank goes up and stays up until the water level falls to the bottom of the tank. The only way to make it fall back down earlier is to push it down with a stick.
So why/how was it working differently before?
It is not an adjustable type flapper. Nor does it have a float. It's the kind with a rubber bulb on the bottom. When I installed the flapper 2 years ago (as well as when I installed the prior one 3 years before that*), I trimmed off all but ~2cm of the bulb, specifically so that it would close faster than the default.
*Yes, I keep notes. Those flapper replacements were done to fix leaks.
Now, to try to fix the problem, I put a zip tie around the overflow tube and positioned it to stick out to prevent the flapper from rising up all the way. (I got this idea from a webpage.) But in most positions, it had no effect. In one position, it made the short flush way too short. Yet even with the zip tie in that position, if I hold the handle down for more than a split second, it again does the triple flush. So that's no solution.
This thread indicates that some toilets need to use a flapper with a float to avoid the long flushes.
This page suggests adjusting the chain, though I'm not clear how that would help. My chain currently has hardly any slack, so adjusting it would require lengthening the chain.
In the end, I decided to trim the rubber part of the bulb even further, and that fixed the problem. Now it flushes about like it did originally.
This is a dual-flush converter kit that might be worth trying some day.
Some good related videos:
How to repair and buy the right flapper valve - I didn't know that rigid flappers only require a rubber ring to be replaced rather than the whole thing. If I had known that, I might have been able to keep the original flapper that this toilet had when I moved in.
The Flush Toilet - an army training film, apparently. It shows a cross-section of a toilet and explains how the water flows through it. (listen to the unique background music!)
The Toilet Part 1 - has some more cross-sectional views of toilets.
My toilet normally has a pseudo dual-flush feature. If I want a short flush, I press and release the handle. If I want a long flush, I press and hold it for longer.
A week ago, for no reason that I can figure out, the toilet started always doing a very long flush - even longer than the normal long ones (what some people call a triple flush, as the water drains out of the bowl and fills up 3 times before stopping). But from reading about how toilets work, it seems to be working exactly as designed. The flapper in the tank goes up and stays up until the water level falls to the bottom of the tank. The only way to make it fall back down earlier is to push it down with a stick.
So why/how was it working differently before?
It is not an adjustable type flapper. Nor does it have a float. It's the kind with a rubber bulb on the bottom. When I installed the flapper 2 years ago (as well as when I installed the prior one 3 years before that*), I trimmed off all but ~2cm of the bulb, specifically so that it would close faster than the default.
*Yes, I keep notes. Those flapper replacements were done to fix leaks.
Now, to try to fix the problem, I put a zip tie around the overflow tube and positioned it to stick out to prevent the flapper from rising up all the way. (I got this idea from a webpage.) But in most positions, it had no effect. In one position, it made the short flush way too short. Yet even with the zip tie in that position, if I hold the handle down for more than a split second, it again does the triple flush. So that's no solution.
This thread indicates that some toilets need to use a flapper with a float to avoid the long flushes.
This page suggests adjusting the chain, though I'm not clear how that would help. My chain currently has hardly any slack, so adjusting it would require lengthening the chain.
In the end, I decided to trim the rubber part of the bulb even further, and that fixed the problem. Now it flushes about like it did originally.
This is a dual-flush converter kit that might be worth trying some day.
Some good related videos:
How to repair and buy the right flapper valve - I didn't know that rigid flappers only require a rubber ring to be replaced rather than the whole thing. If I had known that, I might have been able to keep the original flapper that this toilet had when I moved in.
The Flush Toilet - an army training film, apparently. It shows a cross-section of a toilet and explains how the water flows through it. (listen to the unique background music!)
The Toilet Part 1 - has some more cross-sectional views of toilets.