A constantly running toilet can lead to flooding. Too much flooding could mean that you have a great deal of water damage inside or outside your house.
When your toilet becomes clogged, a constantly running toilet can quickly lead to a bathroom flood as water, constantly filling the bowl, has nowhere to go. Depending on why your toilet is constantly running, you can face a number of other problems, too.
A continuously running toilet can waste up to 200 gallons a day or more depending on the volume flow down the drain. This can cause a terrible increase to a family's typical water use, so fix toilet leaks as soon as possible. Some leaks are easy to find, such as a dripping faucet or running toilet.
However, a crack in the bowl or tank can lead to water leaking directly into your floor, destroying hardwood, tile, carpet and even the subfloor underneath. If that happens, you've got a major — and expensive — remediation problem to deal with.
They all cause wasted water. Depending on the water pressure to your house, a running toilet can leak over one gallon of water per hour. This is almost one unit of water a month. If left undiscovered, a running toilet can waste almost 13 units of water a year.
If your toilet bowl is leaking, it's smart to turn off the water at the shutoff valve. You will usually find it behind your toilet.
Bathrooms: High efficiency toilets use 1.28 gallons per flush or less, non-efficient toilets use up to 5 gallons per flush. A silent toilet leak can be as small as 30 gallons per day (GPD). Larger leaks can be up to 6 gallons per min, equivalent to 11 billing units (BU) per day.
The steady flow of water from a leaky toilet or faucet day and night can quickly flood your septic tank as well as the ground around the drain field, making it impossible for water to flow out of your septic system, eventually leading to septic system failure. This is referred to as hydraulic overloading.
Malfunctioning toilets are another common cause of bathroom floods. If your toilet constantly makes noise like it's continually being refilled, it's malfunctioning and will likely cause flooding.
If you suspect your toilet keeps running because of a major leak or damage to the bowl, gasket, flushing mechanism, or pipes, call a plumber right away. Be wary of easy, DIY solutions that might make problems worse, costing you more time, stress, and money in the long run.
Among the most common causes for a running toilet is overflow water leaking down into the bowl from the tank via the overflow tube. This happens when there's too much water in the tank. You can adjust the water level by adjusting the height of the float.
A running toilet may just seem like a nuisance, but it can lead to other, more significant problems, like wasting water or causing damage to your home through flooding.
In rare cases, toilets can overflow without being flushed. Extreme pressure on the system from the sewer can create this problem. So can back-up from a water source that is higher than the toilet, like a washing machine drain. The most common answer is that the toilet was actually flushed.
According to Fixr, the average toilet valve repair cost is between $75 and $200 to replace a flush valve or up to $400 to fix a constantly running toilet.
Running noises when no one flushes could mean a variety of things: The valve in the tank allows water to escape into the bowl. The flapper chain in the tank is too tight and prevents the valve from shutting all the way. The float in the toilet tank is set to a high mark, causing the toilet to run constantly.
If your float is too high, water will constantly drain into the overflow tube, which can make it sound like your toilet is constantly running. Take the lid off the toilet tank and watch the overflow tube. If water flows up into the tube after a flush, lower the float until the problem is resolved.
If water is rising in the bowl immediately after you've already flushed, that means a clog is blocking the water from moving through the toilet drain. If you flush again, there will be even more water that's unable to make it past the clog, and you'll end up with even more flooding from the toilet bowl.
Here are the risks you're running if you don't apply toilet overflow cleanup and restoration services promptly: Damage to permanent parts of your structure – When contaminated water seeps into places that are supposed to stay dry, it can cause significant damage to wood and metal parts of a building.
While leaky sinks and pipes can cause damage to your home, there's a vast difference between a tiny leak that's dripping and a considerable leak that quickly fills buckets of water. A large volume of leaking water is generally considered a plumbing emergency.
Due to the large amount of wasted water, a running toilet can cause your utility bills to skyrocket. It's best, then, to have your toilet examined by a plumbing expert as soon as possible. The longer you avoid tackling the issue, the more expensive it can become.
Leaking Around the Base of Your Toilet
The worst-case scenario is that the toilet leaks through the floor and causes damage to the room underneath. For this reason, it's best to involve a plumber to pinpoint the cause of the toilet leak and provide a quality solution.
The water from a toilet leaking on the floor can damage the floor itself or the ceiling below. To make matters worse, the water is of the dirty toilet variety, so cleaning it up is of the utmost importance.
When water continues running from the tank to the bowl, that's not a good sign. Other than the irritating noise, a running toilet wastes water. While a running toilet may not qualify for an immediate replacement, you shouldn't ignore it. Running toilets are usually caused when the flapper valve doesn't seal.