Last week we noticed the upstairs toilet was leaking, slowly, around the base, soaking the corner of our bathmat. We debated calling the plumber, but that seemed like a big step for such a small amount of water. I had never called a plumber before. Besides, our first thought was that it might just be sweating in the summer humidity, so professional attention might be unnecessary.
When the leak kept up on a cool day, the sweating theory fell into doubt. I turned off the water supply to the toilet while we deliberated.
I devised a clever way to diagnose whether it was truly a leak. I bought some food coloring and put a few blue drops in the bowl, figuring that if the leak was from the bowl, the leakage would be blue too. A couple of side notes:
- we weren’t sure if food coloring would stain porcelain (or our tile once it leaked out) so we used blue, under the assumption that blue stain would be the least problematic. It turns out that it did not stain.
- there is aesthetic/entertainment value in dripping a few drops of food coloring into a container of still, cold water. The pattern the drops make as then enter the water then spread, is beautiful, even if it is in a toilet.
The results were negative–no blue water on the floor. Maybe, I thought, we are back to square one. Meanwhile we were keeping lights on at night to ease the late night trips to the downstairs, non-leaky, loo.
At the same time it kept gnawing at me–admonitions from wise elders that water is your worst enemy, water is responsible for XYZ damage, etc. I relented and called a well-respected local firm on Tuesday. Over the phone they suggested the problem might be a cracked wax seal–that’s the seal between the bowl and the “out” pipe. They were not interested in my food-coloring diagnostic technique.
Before the plumber came today, I was cleaning up and realized the leak might be from the tank. A feel around the back, a few drops of food coloring in the tank that turned the floor blue, and finally the plumber, all confirmed this. The plumber installed a new new tank-to-bowl kit–nuts, bolts, washers, and seals, and we are out $113 and have a working toilet again.
0 Responses to “Leaky Toilet”