Running toilets and dripping taps in Stevenage, Hitchin and North Herts

Why does a toilet keep running?

Water is being let in faster than the cistern can hold it, or it is escaping into the pan as quickly as it arrives. In most cases one of two parts is to blame.

• The fill valve lets water into the cistern and should shut off when a float rises. If the float is set too high, the seal is worn or grit is caught in the valve, it keeps letting water in.
• The flush valve sits at the bottom of the cistern and lifts when you press the button. If its seal is worn, warped or coated in scale, water seeps past it into the pan all the time.

How can I tell which part has failed?

Lift the cistern lid carefully and look. If the water level is right up at the overflow and still rising, the fill valve is the likely culprit. If the level is lower but you can see or hear a trickle in the pan, the flush valve probably is not sealing.

Older toilets often have a lever handle and a siphon instead of a push button. When those flush weakly or need several tries, a worn diaphragm inside the siphon is a common cause.

Where does the overflow water go?

Many older cisterns have an overflow pipe through an outside wall, so a running cistern shows as a steady drip or stream outside. Many modern cisterns have an internal overflow that sends excess water into the pan instead, which is why a constant trickle into the bowl is easy to miss.

Why do taps drip?

A tap closes against a seal. Older taps that need several turns to close use a rubber washer that hardens and wears. Taps that close with a quarter or half turn usually have ceramic discs inside a cartridge, which can be scored by grit or jammed by scale. Mixer taps may have a single cartridge that controls both flow and temperature.

A drip from the spout usually means the main seal has gone. Water around the handle or the base points to worn O-rings or a loose body.

Does hard water make it worse?

Yes. Water across much of Hertfordshire is hard, because a lot of it comes from chalk. Hard water leaves limescale on washers, discs, valve seats and flush seals, so parts stop closing properly sooner than they would in a soft water area. Scale on a tap spout or in the cistern is a sign it is building up inside too.

Can I stop the water while I wait?

Most toilets and many taps have an isolating valve on the pipe beneath or behind them. Turning the slot a quarter turn, so it sits across the pipe, stops the water to that fitting only. If there is no valve, or it is seized, the main stopcock will stop everything.

Avoid forcing a stiff valve or a corroded tap head. Old fittings can snap, and a small drip then becomes a flood.

Repair or replace?

Washers, cartridges, fill valves, flush valve seals and siphon diaphragms can usually be changed without replacing the whole tap or toilet. A plumber may suggest replacing the fitting if it is badly corroded, if parts for it are hard to get or if it has failed more than once.

If you are choosing a new tap or cistern, fittings connected to the mains must meet the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999, which aim to prevent water being wasted, misused or contaminated. The plumber can tell you whether the fitting you have in mind is suitable.

What if the toilet will not flush or drain?

A flush that will not work at all usually comes down to the handle linkage, the button or the flush valve. A pan that fills up and drains away slowly is more likely to be blocked. If sinks and the bath are draining slowly as well, the trouble may lie in the drain outside, which is often a drain clearance job and not one for a plumber.

What should my enquiry say?

• your postcode
• which fitting it is: toilet, cistern, kitchen tap, basin tap, bath tap or shower
• what it does: drips, trickles, overflows, will not flush or will not turn off
• whether you can isolate it
• roughly how old it is, if you know
• whether you have bought a replacement already