Toilet repair is something that sometimes needs doing.
Our house has a smart water meter.
We received notification from the water company, that we might have a water leak.
On reflection, at the news, we realised that our toilet was continually making a noise.
The noise sounded like constantly running water.
Therefore I decided to investigate this as a likely cause of our reported leak.
Access
The toilet mechanisms are accessed by removing the top of the cistern.
On our toilet, the dual flush button is on the top.
The button, therefore, prevents the top from being removed.
Removing the top of the toilet cistern is achieved by turning the outer edge of the metal button surround.
The outer edge needs to be turned in an anticlockwise direction.
Inside
Once the button surround has been turned enough, it can be removed.
Once the button has been removed, the toilet cistern top can be removed.
To remove lift carefully upwards.
Once the top is removed, you can see the internal flushing mechanism.
What was immediately clear upon initial inspection was that there was continuous water flow.
The water flow was coming from the entry fill valve.
Fixing
The water is turned off.
This is done by turning off the nearest valve tap, to the toilet.
In our case, there was an isolator valve near the toilet inlet connection.
The next task was to drain the water out of the toilet cistern.
Firstly flush the toilet, before continuing toilet repair.
This drains most of the water out of the toilet cistern.
As the water supply to the toilet is turned up, the cistern does not fill back up again.
If your cistern DOES fill back up again, then you still have the water supply connected to the toilet.
Assuming that the cistern did drain, you can now completely empty the cistern.
I did this by putting a bowl underneath the inlet connection and loosening the holding nut.
By loosening the holding nut, water escapes out, and into the bowl.
An alternative would be to carefully undo the pipe connection to the toilet inlet.
Once you have drained all the cistern water out, you can start to remove the ‘entry fill valve’.
Firstly ensure you have removed the supply pipe to the valve.
The valve is then removed by unscrewing a nut.
On our toilet, it is on the bottom of the cistern, but it can also be on the side.
Once the nut has been removed, pull the valve vertically to remove it.
Replacement
Fitting the replacement valve.
My best advice is to follow the manufacturer’s instructions.