Last week the toilet stopped flushing. Maintenance came over and saw the tank was almost empty. So he put in a new thing and it works. The water level in the toilet bowl was lower than it used to be. Now it’s lower than that. Is this a bad thing?
See if you can adjust the float level. There’s an adjustment screw, usually you can turn it by hand, whether on a vertical linear float, or the arm type.
I have a similar but different problem. The bowl fills to the right level, but over the course of a day, the water level in the bowl drops until there is almost no water left in it. That sounds to me like a leak somewhere, however when I go into the crawl space I don’t see any leakage, and none of the other toilets in the house have that problem. Where is all of that water going? Any ideas?
If it’s not a leak than it might be a clogged vent. Basically, your toilet is acting like the vent and drawing air (and water) down the drain. Weird gurgling noises anywhere?
No gurgling noises whatsoever.
The float level adjusts how much water gets dispensed into the tank, but there’s a standpipe that limits the max possible height. If the water doesn’t shut off, the overflow goes into the standpipe, which leads to the toilet bowl.
In addition to filling the tank, there’s typically a separate hose that’s pouring water down that standpipe to bring up the water level in the bowl. This is flowing the whole time the tank is also filling. If you want more water in the bowl, look for an adjustment that changes the flow rate of water from this separate bowl-filling hose.
Here are some troubleshooting steps I found that might help. I don’t know if there are many more options besides leak and clogged vent.
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Run your faucets. Make sure your toilet is full first. Then run your sink and tub faucet.
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Listen for gurgling. If your drains are drawing air through your toilet, you should be able to hear gurgling as air passes through.
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Decide what you heard. If you hear gurgling, then the vent is very likely at fault; if not, continue.
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Turn all faucets off. You will need to avoid using water until you finish the test.
- Refill your toilet. Just make sure it is at its full level and mark its location.
- Wait a while. You should wait an hour or two.
- Look at the water level. If the water level is lowered with no other drains being used, then it is leaking through a small crack.
I adjust mine to shut the water off about 3/4 of an inch below the top of the standpipe.
It may be that American toilets are different, but I have travelled quite a bit (but never to N America) and all toilet bowls are pretty much the same. The water level is determined by the ‘hill’ at the back. When you flush, there is a sudden gush of water the washes anything in the bowl over the ‘hill’ at the back, leaving clear water in the bowl.
This is not adjustable. If the level drops over time, it must be broken - a simple leak in the waste pipe would not suffice, and the bowl is designed to be proof against siphon action.
I have never personally encountered a toilet with a leak in the bowl or in the toilet’s portion of the waste pipe (but then I’m not a plumber either), but I have seen many cases where a clogged vent in the stack has caused toilets to lose water from the bowl. Something else needs to be draining at the time (bathtub, kitchen sink, laundry, etc) for the plumbing system to draw enough air in to siphon out the water from the bowl, but it can and does happen. Another common symptom that accompanies this is the smell of sewer gas from the sink drains, since the water in the sink’s P-trap or S-trap will often get siphoned out as well.
As @Folly said upthread, if the bowl is losing water when nothing else is draining, then it’s a leak, not a clogged vent. A clogged vent is only going to cause water to be siphoned out of the toilets and sinks when the system is pulling in air, i.e. when something else is draining.
If there is a leak, it’s inside the toilet, as there isn’t water inside the drain pipe unless the toilet is flushing. All of the water is either in the tank, in the bowl, or in the bowl’s side of the waste pipe internal to the toilet (aka the bowl side of the toilet’s built-in P-trap or S-trap). See this diagram:
The whole point of the water in the bowl and the purpose of the ‘S’ bend is to stop foul smells from the drain.
In 1775 Scottish inventor Alexander Cumming was granted the first patent for a flush toilet. His greatest innovation was the S-shaped pipe below the bowl that used water to create a seal preventing sewer gas from entering through the toilet.
Who Invented the Flush Toilet? | HISTORY
Before that The first modern flushable toilet was described in 1596 by Sir John Harington, an English courtier and the godson of Queen Elizabeth 1
His design had a valve in the waste outlet which could be closed at night to "~~ always remember, at noon and at night emptie it and leave it halfe a foot deepe in fayre water. This being well done, your worst privie may be as sweet as your best chamber"