Is this simple enough that I can do it myself? The flush handle broke off. The innards may be 30+ years old and their time had come.
Do I just go to Home Depot and buy some kind of kit and then follow the directions? It’s a low-flow toilet with a small-ish tank.
Yes very simple.
Just go and buy a new resevoir. Should all be standard so no matter what you buy, it will fit. Setting it up is pretty straight forward two bolts and the water line.
Forgot to add: Don’t over tighten the bolts, you may crack the tank. Or even worse cause a hairline crack you don’t notice right away and the tank gives way while your away.
No reason to replace the whole thing. Just “the innards”. This is a pretty easy DIY project. You can get all the parts at Depot, or any hardware store.
I agree with the other posters - you definitely don’t want to hire someone to do this. A kit to replace everything in your tank costs something like $20. This was the first do-it-yourself project I ever did. It took me longer than it should have because I had no idea what I was doing at the time, so don’t get discouraged if it seems to go slowly.
If I can do it, anyone can. May as well get the whole kit; it’s not that expensive and you’ll have all new innards. You’ll be taking upper-deckers again in no time!
Do yourself a favor - before heading to the store, take the lid off and snap a pic or two of the insides and take a note of the maker - usually their name will be either inside the tank or the underside of the lid, or in the top of the bowl between the seat and tank. Most toilets are utterly generic inside, but there are a few notable exceptions (Kohler, in particular) that need unique parts.
However, if it’s just the flush handle that broke, you can replace that for about five bucks and not even need to shut off the water.
Be sure to take the old flush handle and fittings with you to Home Depot. That way you can get exactly the same new fittings to install.
But yeah, this is DIY101. If you buy a complete kit it will set you back maybe $25 and will come with all parts, instructions and pictures.
First, figure out how to turn off the water to your entire house. Then do it and check that it has been done by say turning on the bathroom faucet. The reason for this is sometimes those valves behind the toilet near the floor can be pretty corroded internally/externally and perhaps behind the wall where you can’t see it. Also, those valves can be pretty dicey to open/close because they have been left open and not turned for many years on end. These conditions can lead to a small but no zero chance of a pipe/valve breaking or leaking when you go to turn the water off in the bathroom. After the water is spewing everywhere is NOT the time to find out you don’t know where the water turn off is or that you can’t turn it off because it requires a special tool.
Exactly. It’s an easy job. It will only take a half hour, at most… Unless you have “assistants” like mine.
Why not turn off the valve at the back of the toilet, then flush it? If the valve is corroded, then the tank will start to refill.
Or am I missing something?
Look into any rebates Texas may be offering to replace your current toilet with a low-flow model. Here in Georgia it’s $99.
Because THAT valve can break or start leaking, or the pipe is attached to can when you turn that valve. Its a pretty low probability event but it can happen. Also I’ve encountered a few valves that were so old you could NOT close them or were so hard to turn I was afraid of breaking something so turning off the whole house water was the only way to go in the first place.
The only thing that may be at all difficult is removing the old bolts. If they are metal, they may well be corroded tightly in place. Don’t get wrench-happy trying to get them off if that is the case. Penetrating or Liquid Wrench-type products are your friend in that situation. Give it time to soak in and they’ll eventually come loose. The last couple toilets I fixed had this problem and I used a dremel tool with a cut-off disk to cut the nuts off the old bolts. It’s quick, but I wouldn’t recommend buying a dremel just for this job. Your new kit should have plastic bolts and nuts, so the problem won’t happen again in future repairs.
I just went through this. I tried to change the valve to the toilet that turns off the water as it didn’t work. That ended up being a major job. I bought a complete replacement kit for the inside of the tank and it didn’t quite fit (it said fits almost all toilets). I had to modify it to fit. To make a long story short, it took forever. It required crawling under the house ( to replace the line with the shutoff valve on it) not to mention disassembling the top half of the toilet.
My advice, fix what’s broken, nothing more. If it’s worked for 30 years, and it’s still working, it’s probably much better quality than what they are selling today.
Well, I did it too (specifically, replacing the fill valve), but I didn’t find it all that easy… I like to do minor fix-it stuff around the house (I don’t do electrical work or major plumbing), and this was one of the more complicated projects. I succeeded in the end, but only after getting stuck a couple of times. Probably took me between one and two hours.
BTW, low flow toilets are evil. Bad idea. Don’t save water when you have to flush multiple times. But that was here when we moved in 20 years ago.
This thread started out sounding like this task would be simple and then got more and more scary. The handle broke off because my well water has been corroding it for all of those 30+ years. The innards are all dark red from the iron in the water. I had a new water softener put in a few months ago, so that shouldn’t be a problem in the future. I have every reason to assume the water has corroded the valve that turns off water to the toilet, as well as the bolts holding the innards in place. I don’t want a new tank, just new innards.
The suggestion to take a picture of everything was an excellent one. I believe it is a Kohler, but being a girl, I don’t stare at the back of the toilet when I’m using it. If I do happen to be facing the back while I’m using it, then I’m on my knees worshiping the Porcelain Goddess.
I’m not at home right now, but I’ll look at the whole apparatus more carefully and maybe even post some pictures here!
Thanks for all the help and encouragement.
I just did this about 2 months ago. I had a problem crop up last summer and I bought the Fluidmaster Complete Repair kit at Walmart for $20, but it wasn’t until the toilet wouldn’t flush at all last March that I finally got around to repairing it. Like you, my toilet components were old and corroded, so I figured that instead of just replacing what was broken, and wait for some other ancient part to break in 6 months, I’d replace them all. The instruction sheet listed the tools needed and said the job should take about 20 minutes, and it MAY have if I was working on a brand new toilet, or if I’d ever done anything like this before. In fact the job took most of the day, (because I had to take frequent breaks due to rising frustration) removal of the tank from the toilet to replace the flush valve and rubber gasket, (My God, was that thing heavy!) 2 trips to Home Depot for tools, and finally a hacksaw to cut the old flush valve off since it was corroded and locked solid.
I think that had I known going in what the job would require I would’ve called someone, but once I’d gotten started I felt it was too late. But afterward, when I turned the water back on and the toilet refilled without leaking, and it flushed perfectly the first time I must say the sense of pride and accomplishment I felt, coupled with the knowledge that now I can fix a broken toilet were immeasurable. 
I’m at Home Depot looking at something called
HydroStop Flapperless Toilet Repair
Know anything about this or care to google?
Box says “Replaces flapper, chain & handle. Installs on minutes. No tools needed.”
It looks like you seat the thing down in the drain hole that the flapper sits in (after removing the flapper and attached parts). You anchor it to the tall overflow thingie-- excuse the highly technical language.
It’s $11.98.
Never heard of one, but that will just replace the flush valve. If you want to replace all the innards, you’ll also need a fill valve which is the thing attached to the incoming water line.