I’m trying to replace a leaking toilet fill valve, but I can’t turn off the water to the toilet. The handle is attached to the hose leading to the toilet, and the entire hose turns when I turn the handle. I can’t fit enough of my body into the small space between toilet and sink, and when I’ve tried to hold the hose steady and turn the handle, I’m not strong enough to make it move. So I can’t even measure to see what size of fill valve I need, let alone make a replacement. What options do I have besides asking someone stronger to come and help? Should I replace the entire hose as well? I’m assuming that also seems pretty simple?
Are you sure it’s a turn valve and not a pull stop? Is it metal or plastic?
Yeah, it has instructions on it to turn to the right for off and left for on. It’s metal.
Sounds like it has seized. If the hose turns with the knob, it sounds like a compression fitting.
You would need to turn the water off and use two wrenches to hold the fitting and turn the compression nut to remove. Replace with a new 1/4 turn compression valve and get a new braided steel toilet supply line along with the new fill valve. The valve is likely 1/2” x 3/8” and line 3/8”x7/8”.
It is a DIY job, but it is a job that involves water. If you get it wrong, you can end up with costly water damage. Based on the questions you’re asking, I’m not sure I’d recommend you do it yourself. There may be unique challenges to changing the hose or valve. If you don’t feel comfortable with figuring out the solutions on your own, it may end up being a lengthy fix. And if you take the valve off, you’ll may have to the water turned off until you get it replaced without leaks. This is coming from a bit of advice from my own situation. Once I had to replace a valve which had a compression fitting, but I found out the pipe was damaged after I got the valve off and I couldn’t remove the fitting. I had to get the valve back on while I ordered a tool to remove the fitting. And the valve was leaking, so I had to have a bucket underneath it until the tool arrived. But I don’t want to totally discourage you from doing it yourself. You can do it yourself and save hundreds over calling a plumber. But be prepared for challenging situations to arise which may take a while to fix.
How should I be prepared for that? Or do you mean more in a mental sense? I have zero practical experience, and I kind of tend to get flustered and freeze up in minor emergencies.
The simplest approach would be to turn off the main shut-off valve for the whole house, replace the fill valve, then turn the house water back on. You’ll still have a toilet shut-off that doesn’t work, but that won’t be an issue until the next time you need to work on that toilet. This assumes the main house shut-off actually works, which isn’t a sure thing until you try it.
This is what it looks like, by the way. When I try turning the small handle, the entire metal thing rotates with it.
I’d been hoping that the fill valve would be an easy replacement, but it would also involve going to the hardware store, which closes in an hour, and I can’t measure the size I need with the water on.
Between that and what an above post pointed out, I think I’m going to delay until I can get an earlier start, at the least.
Beware!
If you have turned the entire shutoff-valve, you may have created a leak. The compression washer is designed to seat by deforming, and moving it may unseat it. Watch for drips.
Huh, I’m pretty sure that’s a ball valve, which is much better than the older multi-turn shut-offs. You just need to turn it a 90 degrees to shut it off. If the whole body of the valve turned, that seems like there may be damage to the valve. If you can get a wrench around the body of the valve to hold it while you turn the handle, it might work. I’m worried about the fact that the whole valve turned though; that shouldn’t happen. At a minimum I’d put some paper on the floor under it to detect drips. I’d be somewhat inclined to get a plumber involved, especially if you see any drips.
Okay, you’ve gotten really good advice above, but:
- You’re going to have to turn off the main water feed into the house (down by the street in a black utility box).
- Run the kitchen sink until water stops flowing.
- Spray the assembly with a lubricant (usually some sort of penetrating oil - ask at your local hardware store).
- Put a wrench on the flange marked 1/2 coming out from the wall. This wrench should clamp tight, so it should be a channel-lock or plumber’s wrench.
- Put another wrench on the part with the valve. That’s the one you want to turn lefty-loosey. The first one should be held still.
- Take the hose that goes to the toilet tank off.
- Go to the hardware store and get a new valve, plus associated fittings/compression valves/o-rings/etc. and if it’s NOT a compression valve, plumbers tape (pink plastic stuff you wrap around the threads before install - the hardware person can show you how and is a great resource since he’ll be selling you the parts). And get a new hose to go your tank (the braided steel option talked about above would be my recommendation).
- Install according to instructions from the part and the hardware person (honestly for this type of fix, pay the extra and go to Ace Hardware or your local equivalent - do not go to Home Depot or Lowe’s unless you know that staff there is competent).
- Turn the water on and check carefully for leaks. Check again in 20 minutes. Check again. (A piece of facial tissue is great for this - put it under the fitting and the lowest point of the hose connecting the fitting to the toilet, if it stays dry, you don’t have a leak). If you have a leak, start with the hose, disconnect and reinstall. Repeat the test. If that doesn’t work reinstall the valve (be sure to use new tape after cleaning off the old tape) and try again. If that doesn’t work, call a plumber. If it does:
- Throw the old shit away.
- Have a beer/wine/cocktail/joint - your choice and multiple choice is allowed!
That appears to be a shark bite valve. That is, it’s not a standard compression fitting, a sweat fitting, or a threaded fitting.
I don’t have any experience with shark bite fittings, so I don’t know if the valve body rotation around the pipe is normal or not. But if you use a wrench to hold the valve body in place, you may be able to move the valve handle the 1/4 turn needed to shut off the valve. In which case, problem solved.
Anyone have hands on experience with shark bite fittings?
Ok, a quick Google search says the the valve rotating around the pipe is normal for shark bites. The OP just has to get an adjustable wrench on the valve body to keep it from rotating while he turns the handle. It might be hard if space is tight, but this doesn’t look impossible, just difficult due to the limited space.
Oh, you may want to try moving the valve handle in both directions. It only moves 90 degrees, but I don’t know if that clockwise or counterclockwise.
Fortunately, you don’t have to take the hose off to find out the fill valve size. The label on the hose in your pic has the size of the bottom connector. It’s 7/8". If you need to hold the valve body, one way is to put both hands around the toilet like a hug rather than trying to get both hands on one side. It may be easier to have your second hand come in from around the back rather than have both hands side-by-side.
If you can turn the valve off, it should be a quick job to change the fill valve. But start home repair jobs on a Saturday morning rather than a Sunday evening. Trust me, that’s a lesson you don’t want to learn on your own!
If I understand correctly, that’s the size of the hole that the water goes in, and the fill valve size I need is the size of the hole that the water goes out, which is usually 2-4 inches.
The discussion above and elsewhere is making me inclined towards a plumber, but we’ll see. Thanks for the advice so far!
In order to avoid this, anytime I’m working on our plumbing, I’ll put in an additional shut-off. If I have to I can shut off the entire house, but I can usually shut off just one feed.
Are you replacing the flapper or the fill valve? The flapper is the rubber thing at the middle bottom and the fill valve is the column on the left:
If it’s the rubber flapper in the middle, you can replace that without turning the water off. Flush the toilet and then replace the flapper even though the fill valve is running. It should just be a minute or two. You can take the existing flapper off, measure it, and then put it back on. Then buy the size that you need.
Replacing a flapper is pretty easy and something you should try to do on your own.
If you put a wrench on the valve body itself, and let it rest against the floor (or the tank, depending on which way the valve handle wants to turn), then you can use another wrench for leverage on the valve handle and see if you can get it to turn.
If you find the valve, and it’s actually inoperable, and it’s a shark bite fitting, you can get a tool like this that allows you to remove the shark bite fitting. This one is for 1/2" connections, but they also make them for 3/4" and 1" connections. It would require turning off the water to the whole house, most likely (as another poster commented above, when I redo plumbing I put in valves everywhere so I can isolate individual circuits). And yes, replace the hose at the same time.
I’m fairly sure that the words spoken to me by those who diagnosed was “fill valve.” It seems to be backed up by my reading, which says that they need to be periodically replaced anyway and the current one uses a floating ball, which is apparently not generally used anymore.
When I work on a toilet tank I buy a kit that has everything in it and replace all the toilet’s “guts” at once.