Toilet leaks

I got hit with a 1000nt water charge (which is very unusual, most the time it’s like 300nt or so for residences and even businesses that uses a ton of water don’t get hit with more than 800).

I realized that my toilet must have been leaking the whole 2 months I have been to the new place because I kept hearing strange water flowing sounds coming from the toilet tank and thought nothing of it. I had raised the toilet water level a bit as it wasn’t flushing cleanly, and so of course the landlord had told me that since I messed around with the toilet it was my responsibility.

I should have noticed something was not right and told the landlord right away instead of being hit with a large water charge… 1600nt of water charge (for the entire building) is enough to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool… but if the toilet is leaking stealthily you would never notice as the gallons of water is flowing down the drain without you knowing.

The problem only came to light because there was a water outage on Sunday, and since the landlord has like 3 water towers on the roof with enough water for a whole week (in fact 1 cubic meter of water is like enough water for 100 flushes, no way you’d flush the toilet that many times in even a week), he didn’t care about the temp water outage, but however the water had run out somehow in like 5 hours instead of a week… and I sure as hell wasn’t using that much water. So I knew something wasn’t right, plus the landlord got a call from the water company telling him that their water usage was off the charts.

So guys pay attention to your toilet… in my case the toilet has a separate valve that drains water directly to the bowl… and that valve has stuck open (I think) which explains the water sound I hear when the toilet wasn’t filling. But you’d never know all that water is flowing away because it isn’t a ton of water, it is in fact a trickle but if it were flowing for days and days without you realizing it (and any evidence of this was flushed down the toilet during your regular use) you’d end up with a big surprise bill. Worse yet if you were in places like California where the water penalty is much higher (certainly more than 1000nt every 2 months for sure!)

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Thanks for this. My water bill has slowly been creeping up this year. At first it was because of some new charge they added, sewage or some type of cleaning charge. My last bill finally went over 1000ntd. I also thought it was because we had a baby right before the summer and we are washing clothes more. Other family’s of 4 that I know only get charged around 300-400ntd every 2 months.

Although I never hear any water dripping or running, I’ll still check the toilet tonight just to be sure.

I did the math. In Taiwan water is billed by cubic meter. That’s 1000 liters of water, or around 260 gallons of water. Assuming your toilet is about 2 gallons per flush (which is normal), you can flush your toilet 100 times on a cubic meter, meaning it should last you at LEAST a couple of days of normal use, even if you wash clothes a lot. But if you do wash clothes a lot consider getting a front loading washer as it uses much less water.

I would bet my money on leaks. While it’s really hard to run up your water bill a leak would certainly do the job, even a small leak can use up a lot of water in a short time. If you want to see if your toilet is leaking, add some food coloring to the tank and observe the bowl. If the water changes color, it’s leaking. The worst thing about a toilet leak is you never notice anything wrong until you get your bill.

Oh and a dishwasher saves water too, because hand washing dishes uses a lot more water than hand washing. This is because a dishwasher uses the same water and pumps it around, then does a quick rinse to clean it.

But given how cheap water is here nobody tries to save them, except when there are rations going on as it can affect your water availability.

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I have a second toilet which had the same problem, i decided to rip out the ballcock so it’d never fill again. It’s one of those ‘press button’ eco-flush things, which actually causes more leaks because the valves are shit. Anyway i left it long enough for the water in the U-bend to dry up.

Sadly one day i was fed up of hearing the sound of the shit of people above me flying past at high speed, so i filled up the U-bend again. Inconveniently, this was the same day my phone went flying and landed in this particular, previously dry toilet.

Cool story bro.

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Yeah but it has to heat the water itself, and runs its pumps for the hour or so it takes, and then has a drying cycle, so energy-wise (which is the real cost of clean water) its less efficient.

Especially when the drying cycle sticks on and it burns your house down :sweat_smile:

Sometimes I wonder if the excess water usage is caused by the cat.

They maybe open a tap when you are not around and close it as soon as you get there.

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If you take the lid off the toilet tank and you hear the sound of water running you’ve got a leak problem. There are three possible causes of water waste. The rubber flapper covering the discharge hole to the toilet bowl may not be sealing, which is an easy fix. More likely though the seals in the fill valve are worn and the buoyant force of the float is no longer enough to shut off water flow. You can lift on the float and shut off the leak flow but no matter how much you adjust the float position it won’t shut off the worn seals because the buoyant force just isn’t enough to seal. It’s time to replace the fill valve mechanism.

The third cause of water waste is interesting and often overlooked. As the fill valve is re-filling the toilet tank after flushing, some of its flow is diverted to the overflow tube in order to re-fill the toilet bowl to its normal pre-flush level. The toilet tank takes much longer to fill than the toilet bowl does but water keeps flowing into the toilet bowl via the overflow tube as long as the toilet tank is filling. The unnecessary water flowing into the full toilet bowl spills over top of the u-channel in the drain of the toilet and is lost. In order to eliminate this chronically wasted water it’s necessary to reduce the flow of water to the toilet bowl via a valve so that the toilet tank and toilet bowl fill at the same time.

Over and out.

Yea I think it was that valve that diverts some of the water to fill the bowl that was leaking, but after the water outage it stopped leaking. So I don’t really know what is the issue. I’m really tempted to just replace the entire toilet valve assembly to rule those out…

If you don’t hear water flow with the tank lid off I wouldn’t “fix” the fill valve. Next step is to turn off every water valve in your house and go to your water meter. Record the meter reading and return in an hour (or two) and see if the reading has changed. There may also be a little red star wheel on your meter dial which is a leak detector. If you see it rotating when everything is turned you’ve got a leak in your house pipes. Likewise if the meter reading has changed over the course of an hour or two. No change? No leak on your side of the meter.

Be careful with leaky toilets, things might escalate and you might get into more trouble than you wanted.

I started with playing with the valves trying to stop the dribble of leaking water. I bought a new floater thingy, but found the hole in my tank was too small. While trying to enlarge the hole, I broke off a sizeable piece from the tank. Since I had broken the tank, I thought I would remove the toilet and see how easy it was to replace. It did not fit back as easily as I expected, and I did not want to investigate how to fix it since it was absolutely disgusting inside, so I threw away the entire toilet.

End result is, I have a hole in the floor.

Fortunately, I have another toilet while I work to order a new toilet to put over the hole. Unfortunately, it appears that the hole’s distance to the wall is non-standard (19cm) and most of the standard options will not fit.

On that subject, does anybody know a reliable toilet guy?

I had a tiny ‘garden’ hose leak, ending up in 3000NT$ bill.

You should be getting a plumber if you are talking about changing toilet tanks or the toilet.

Go look on google for one in your area.

On another subject, there is usually a tap on the bottom floor outside, how does one prevent someone from opening it and leaving it open?

Just change the tap to a locking one, can get them from the 24H store.

Replacing a toilet is one of the easiest home repair jobs you can do - and to have one installed by a plumber is insanely overpriced (in Canada at least, where toilet and install is easily over $500US). I have replaced 2 in the last three months readying our home for sale, and have replaced them previously as well. They do require a bit of muscle, but other than that, watch some YouTube videos, it is not complicated really.

The main issue to be aware of is distance from the wall, size of toilet, and the hole in the floor. Of course, you have to turn of the water source, completely drain the thing, dry it out, etc… That , and if you intend to take some time between removing the toilet and putting the new on one, PLUG THE HOLE!!! There are nasty gases that come up that pipe.

Other than that, modern toilets are pretty much plug and play. Remove old one, clean up hole area (gross!!!), put on new wax ring, make sure everything is good to go with toilet (set up, etc.), then line up the screws and install.

On a side note, if you are renting, this is something the landlord should deal with, not you, as renter, imho.

Thing is, since he messed with it himself, he is responsible for getting it fixed. He could have informed the landlord of the leak and the landlord will either fix it, or he can call a plumber and the landlord will pay. Plus plumbers don’t cost that much in Taiwan… no way it would cost over 500US. But if the parts are nonstandard then it pays to have a plumber who knows how to make it work…

Also he could have just taken the parts to the shop to confirm that they fit properly.

I don’t do repairs on our apartment in Taipei unless I have no choice. Tradesmen in Taipei are too inexpensive and know the quirks of Taiwan construction standards better to bother. Had one install a Toto washlet bidet and the installation charge was pocket change.

There is one exception, AC installation was expensive, especially for larger units. I wound up doing it myself. I won’t do it as a job though because it would involve a lot of sweating in death defying heights.

Plus the pay is poor.

I also notice none of them would do it right too. I wonder if you do have the proper license and all that and work on commercial grade AC unit for large facilities, would your pay be higher?

Don’t know about commercial rates but I have AC maintenance and repairs done regularly and – other than equipment purchases which are pricey in Taiwan – labor rates are always dirt cheap.