Toilet Repair: Almost Nothing That Goes Wrong Is the Toilet
Free to homeowners — the contractor pays us for the introduction, you never do.
Short version
A toilet is two parts that fail and one fixture that rarely does. The flapper and the fill valve account for most faults, both are inexpensive parts, and food coloring in the tank tells them apart in ten minutes without any tools.
Go straight to the one that sounds like yours:
- A Toilet That Runs: What Is Actually FailingA toilet that runs is one of two parts, and telling them apart takes ten minutes and a bottle of food coloring.
- A Toilet That Will Not Flush At AllNothing happening when you press the handle is a different fault from a weak flush.
- A Weak Flush That Needs Two Goes
- A Toilet Leaking at the Base
- A Toilet That Rocks or MovesA toilet that moves when you sit on it is destroying its own seal.
- How Much Water Your Toilet UsesEPA puts pre-standard toilets at 3.5 to more than 5 gallons a flush against 1.6 today.
- If You Rent, Your Toilet Is Not Your RepairA toilet in a rented home is almost always the landlord’s to fix.
- You are never chargedContractors pay us when we route them a call. There is no cost to the homeowner, ever.
- Every figure names its sourceThe numbers on this site come from public data and the page says which, so you can check them.
- We say where we coverCalls are routed by ZIP code to independent contractors.See the coverage
- We say when not to callIf the fix is a few minutes of your own time, this site tells you that instead of selling you a visit.
A toilet is a piece of glazed ceramic with no moving parts, bolted to a tank containing two that move constantly. That is why most repairs are parts, and why the ones that are not are worth knowing about.
What this site is
Tank and Bowl is a referral service, not a contractor. We connect homeowners with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands. Every state page sets out who licenses plumbers there and where to check, so you can confirm before work begins. We carry out no work, we sell no fixtures, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call.The four faults
A tank that runs is the flapper or the fill valve, and EPA publishes a ten-minute test with food coloring that tells you which. A handle that does nothing is usually a chain. A flush that needs two goes is the water level, the chain, or a fixture that was made badly. Water on the floor is four possibilities and one of them is condensation.
Source: US EPA WaterSense, Fix a Leak Week.
The one that is not about convenience
A toilet that rocks when you sit on it is working the seal underneath it, and that seal is the only thing between the drain and your floor. It is the fault people live with longest and the one that does structural damage.
Why the age of the fixture matters
EPA states that the Energy Policy Act of 1992 set the maximum flush volume for tank-type toilets at 1.6 gallons, and puts pre-standard models at 3.5 to more than 5.0 gallons. Toilets are nearly 30 percent of a home’s indoor water use — more than anything else inside the building.
So on an old fixture, what it costs to run belongs in the repair-or-replace arithmetic, and usually gets left out.
Source: US EPA WaterSense, tank-type toilet supporting statement; US EPA WaterSense, Residential Toilets.
And who is actually paying
Across the 57,927,284 occupied homes we cover, 62% are owner-occupied. For everyone else the toilet is part of the property and the repair is normally the landlord’s. We say so rather than sell to people who cannot buy.
Where we route calls
Tap your state for the towns and ZIP codes we route in, and the figures behind them.
- Arkansas
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Maryland
- Maine
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Mississippi
- North Carolina
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- Nevada
- New York
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this site is public and attributed. You can go and check any of them.
- HousingUS Census BureauAmerican Community Survey 5-year estimates — the housing figures on every town page, and the table each one comes from is named on the page.
- WaterUS Environmental Protection AgencyFederal drinking-water and plumbing rules, and the public water-system records behind the coverage pages.
What happens when you call
No form, no quote tool, no waiting for an email.
- You tell us what the water is doingOne short conversation. If it turns out to be something you can fix in five minutes, we will say so.
- We route the callWe match your ZIP code to an independent contractor who already covers your area — not a call center three states away.
- They quote, you decideWe do not set prices and we never charge you. The contractor pays us for the introduction.
- 4,445towns with a page of their own
- 39states we route calls in
- $0what a homeowner ever pays us
What to do first
Four things worth doing first. They cost nothing and they can keep a small problem small.
- Shut off the water closest to the problemUnder a sink or behind a toilet there is usually a small valve on the supply line. Turning it clockwise stops that fixture without shutting off the rest of the house.
- If you cannot find it, use the mainUsually where the supply enters the building — a basement wall, a crawl space, or a covered box near the street. Then open the lowest tap in the house, which drains the standing water out of the pipes instead of out of the leak.
- Water and electricity: stay out of the roomIf water has reached an outlet, a panel or an appliance, switch that circuit off at the breaker before going near it. If you cannot do that safely, do not go in, and say so when you call.
- Photograph it before anything is movedInsurers ask for it, and a contractor can tell more from a photograph of the leak than from a description of it.
And one case where the answer is not to call us. If the water is surfacing on the street side of your meter, that is the utility's line and not yours. Report it to your water utility — they do not charge a homeowner to repair their own main.
If the dye test pointed at the flapper, that is a part, not a fixture.Worth saying on the call, because it changes what somebody arrives with. We connect you to a contractor covering your area and you are never charged. Toilets head this site, but any plumbing job is welcome.
Call (888) 525-3450
