Toilet – Stuff!

updated 8/7/2022

What: Kohler Highline Classic K-11499-0 (bought and installed May 2017) toilet fill valve (Fluidmaster Universal 400A OE part – came with toilet) issues

Problem: Months of slow-filling toilet along with a loud squeal noise when float raises with water level. It finally quit filling altogether.

When: August 2022

Supplies: 242 Toilet Replacement Seal, a cup

Cost: Around $4 and gas

Time: 10 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Process

1. Turn off the water supply (bathroom got a nice cleaning after this)

2. Grab the fill valve cap and twist left to unseat it (you might have to grab the stem of the whole valve to prevent the entire valve from spinning. Here’s a video)

3. Now to unhook the cap from the float. Give it a nice, careful tug, being aware that it is plastic.

4. Examine the fill valve seal for debris. Remove it carefully and inspect underneath for debris. Clean it out. In my case, there was debris underneath that was causing a blockage and therefore no water. It must have been there for a while and then finally occluded the opening.

5. Similarly, inspect the cap-less top of the fill valve for debris.

6. Now that everything is off, let’s go ahead and flush the fill valve itself. Apparently, over the years pieces of Teflon tape, or minerals or other debris can accumulate in the valve. Fluidmaster sets the lifespan of a fill valve at around 7 years (mine is about 5 years old). SO, grab a cup and place it upside-down over the fill valve.

7. Turn on the water supply and flush for about 10-15 seconds (according to Fluidmaster)

8. At this point, you would replace everything and test it out. It was no longer filling slowly after the debris was removed, so BOOM, solved. BUT…the float mechanism no longer worked…as in, the fill valve kept filling without stopping. Oh, great. I busted it somehow. Removed everything again and found that the original seal looked kind of chewed up around the float pin.

9. Turned the water supply back off, and ran out to the store to grab a 242 Toilet Fill Valve Seal (and other stuff just in case, so I wouldn’t have to run out again, but didn’t need them in the end)

10. Had remove it all again and here is an image of the old seal. If you look at the center, you can see how rough it looks where I tried to push it in with my fingernails and probably from general wear and tear

11. Here’s a side by side of the old seal and the new one

12. Slide the seal onto the cap

13. Now to reassemble it all. Line up the cap assembly with the float assembly stem groove and snap it in

14. Place the now-attached cap back on the valve. Remember that you have to turn right to replace it, so place the cap accordingly so that none of the parts interfere with each other

*Let’s twist again! Like we did last summer!*

15. Twist it to the right and, YAY, it’s back on!

16. MOMENT OF TRUTH. Turn on the water supply. You should immediately hear the water filling up. Now lift up on the float mechanism. If the tank quits filling, you are DONE, and it is REPAIRED! GREAT JOB!

Lift up on the float and BOOM! Hallelujah!

05/06/2017

They say that it is one of the easiest DIY projects you can do. Even knowing the relatively simple anatomy of the toilet and the whole process, I was still daunted…mostly by the unknowns. Turns out, they’re right. For the most part. So here, I’m going to detail the process I went through.

The Problem: A leak. Not from the easy to repair places either. It was from between the bowl and the tank somewhere and had been like that for months. No amount of patching could do anything to it. Trying to ignore the problem, I’d left a container to catch the water and until this past week the dripping had been once every hour or so. Going from that to a full container in 10 hours meant…OH YEAH…time to do something about it. Not to mention, the water bill had certainly been taking a hit, and on top of it all the smell!!

20170506_113626 — You can see here my problem

The Research:YouTube would of course be the first place for most people to turn to, but having been a subscriber to Family Handyman magazine, I turned there first and lo and behold they have several guides! And not just a guide either, but guides in case something goes wrong. I recommend checking out the articles here.

The Materials: Read the articles found above. The most important part before searching for a new toilet is measuring the area and the rough-in (distance from the wall to the pipe which is about the bolt). I made the mistake of measuring everything except the rough-in. Thankfully mine was the standard 12in, and not the hard to find 10 or 14 inch ones. Most of the tools necessary you’ll probably already have around the house.

The Procurement: As a dummy who didn’t measure the right measurement, we went to look, and it was all for the better anyways because for some reason everyone wanted to replace their toilets at the same time. There were no toilets left, really. So instead, I gathered the minor materials I needed, including a no-wax ring. Eventually went and got my toilet with the help of my brother because darn it all those things are heavy.

The Process: I love demo. That has got to be my favorite part of doing any project like this. The instant I went to remove the tank from the bowl, the bolts connecting the two fell before I could do anything. Hmm. I think I found what the problem was.

The old tank innards. My attempt at patchwork which was covering the previous owner’s patchwork attempts.

20170506_120233 — Shifted the tank just a little and *bang* one of the tank bolts just fell off on its own.

The right tank bolt fell on its own and the left one was still stuck in there despite the tank having been removed already.

20170506_120710 — Completely corroded. No wonder. Means it has been leaking for a very long time.

20170506_122002 — After much effort. This and the placing of the toilet were the hardest parts.

Placing shims. See the plastic bits on the floor there.

As usual I always get hang-ups when doing a DIY project because it’s never exactly like they tell you on the guides. Instead of it being caulked to the floor, it was grouted and the people before us (this is how I know this has been a problem) put caulk on top of THAT. Well. Grout isn’t
the easiest thing to get rid of. Thankfully I have POWER TOOLS.

The wax ring was mostly intact, and it literally was just a ring of wax. I had to scrape it off with a putty knife and then tried to wipe the flange as well as I could. Which brings me to my next surprise which is that the flange wasn’t like in the guides along with the fact that the hole was not that pretty. Oh well. It worked fine.

The next part made me really glad I wasn’t doing this on my own (I was all up until that point). Those parts are really heavy and even more heavy put together. The shims were really a very integral part of this, and you should follow the instructions when it says to shim the toilet before you put the wax/no wax ring on. And by that, I mean, shim it, level it, and then cut the shims before. Oh, and using the shims properly would help too.

Then Boom. VOILA. It is DONE.

I must say that the chair height is very nice. The elongated portion I didn’t need as much, but it’s nice too. Took the opportunity to paint the wall behind the toilet and finished up my paint too. I had bought a ton of extra supplies just in case (I always seem to make multiple store trips and didn’t want to do that this time) so now after it all (and so far, so good…) I need to go return everything.

Taking out the old tank. Lots of corrosion.

The best part about all of this? I used a gift card I’ve been saving since Christmas because I knew it’d have to be replaced and to my surprise, I didn’t need to spend any more than that!!

Here’s a side-by-side comparison.

The Verdict: Overall it wasn’t bad. I didn’t run into significant issues, just some minor unexpected ones…nothing power tools can’t fix. The guy said that if you’re lucky it would take an hour start to finish, but of course it took me much longer. I went shopping around 10am and finally was done cleaning up around 3pm. I would say that it is one of the easier projects I’ve tackled. Having the right and quality tools always makes everything easier.

Tag: Toilet

DIY: Toilet Fill Valve Seal Repair

DIY: Toilet Replacement