Ep 6: Stop the Running (Toilet) and Master the Throne: Plumbing 101 with the Handyma’ams
What do Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice, the Hamilton soundtrack, and the toilet in your downstairs bathroom have in common?
Absolutely nothing.
But on this week’s episode of the How to Handyma’am podcast, we managed to cover all three.
After a chaotic debate about our favorite movies (and why low-rise jeans in the 2000s were a mistake), the trio—Samantha, Emily, and Arly—pivoted to a topic nobody wants to talk about until it’s too late: The Toilet.
Plumbing is intimidating to most DIYers. The stakes feel high because water damage is expensive and, frankly, gross.
But as Licensed Builders, we are here to tell you a secret: The toilet is one of the simplest machines in your entire house. It operates on gravity and water pressure. There are a finite number of things that can go wrong, and you are capable of fixing most of them.
Here is your crash course in mastering the porcelain throne, straight from Arly’s episode curriculum.
Anatomy Class: It’s Not Magic, It’s Gravity
Before you can fix it, you need to know how it works. Almost all the "mechanics" happen in the Tank (the back part).
Important Note: The water in the tank is clean, incoming water. Don't be afraid to put your hands in there to adjust things!
When you push the handle, it lifts a lever inside. That lever pulls a chain, which lifts up the Flapper (think of it as a silicone pancake at the bottom of the tank). All that water rushes into the bowl, gravity takes over, and sends everything down the pipe.
Once the tank is empty, the flapper closes, and the tank refills until the Float Ball (the little life preserver in there) rises high enough to shut off the water valve.
Simple, right? So what goes wrong?
Troubleshooting Problem #1: The "Runner"
Is your toilet constantly trickling? Does it randomly "ghost flush" in the middle of the night?
A running toilet is annoying, but it’s also flushing your money down the drain on your water bill.
The likely culprit: The Flapper isn't sealing properly.
Check the Chain: If the chain connecting the handle to the flapper is too tight, it might be holding the flapper open just a tiny crack, letting water escape.
Check the Flapper: Over time, rubber and silicone warp or get hard. If it’s old, it won’t create a perfect seal. Replacing a flapper takes $10 and five minutes.
Troubleshooting Problem #2: The Wobbly Base (and Leaks)
If you have water pooling on the floor around the base of your toilet, this is a "stop using it immediately" situation. That water is not clean.
The toilet is sealed to the sewer pipe in your floor by a Wax Ring. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a giant donut made of soft wax that gets squished to create a waterproof seal.
If your toilet wobbles when you sit on it, that rocking motion can break the wax seal. Once that seal is broken, water escapes every time you flush.
The Fix: You need to pull the toilet up and replace the wax ring. It’s a messy job, but very doable. (Emily’s Tip: If you pull the toilet, take the tank off first. Carrying the items separately is much lighter!)
The Golden Tip: Samantha’s "Bucket Test"
If your toilet is flushing poorly or acting sluggish, how do you know if the problem is the toilet itself or a clog deep in your pipes?
Samantha shared the ultimate low-tech diagnostic trick: The Bucket Test.
Fill a 5-gallon bucket with water.
Dump the entire bucket quickly straight into the toilet bowl.
The Results:
If it flushes perfectly: The problem is "upstream" in your Tank. Your toilet isn't delivering the water fast enough (maybe the flapper isn't opening all the way or water levels are too low).
If it sits there and drains slowly: The problem is "downstream." You have a clog in the gooseneck of the toilet or in your home's pipes.
Got a plumbing mystery? Join our Facebook Group and post a video of what your toilet is doing. We’d love to help you troubleshoot it!
Transcript
0:00:00 Arly: Welcome back. Welcome, welcome. Um. We missed you. Welcome to How to Handyman, the podcast, where we flesh around and find out. In this episode, we talked about our favorite movies, and then we give you a couple of tips on how to troubleshoot with your toilet. Yuck. And for sure, um, we have been in the construction business for multiple years now, and we have done everything the hardest possible way. But now we started this podcast so that you don't have to. That's right. I'm Arley, I'm Emily. I'm Samantha and this is how to handyman. Yay!
00:00:41 Emily: And this episode is dedicated to oh, this episode is dedicated to my best friend Elora, who had my first niece this year. And her. She is gonna raise one hell of a woman, and I'm lucky to know her. Okay, I have a chatting topic. Okay. What is it? I love movies, and you guys love movies. Love em. Charlie, what's your favorite movie?
00:01:12 Arly: Um, it. I think it's how to lose a guy in ten days. Maybe twenty seven dresses.
00:01:20 Emily: Do you ever want Andy's dress? The yellow one?
00:01:24 Arly: Oh, yeah.
00:01:25 Emily: Yes, but that only works.
00:01:26 Samantha: On someone who is built like her.
00:01:31 Emily: Arly
00:01:32 Samantha: Arlie has more curves than her.
00:01:33 Arly: Oh, and I'm a short little girl.
00:01:36 Emily: True. Yeah. The yellow. But it's really good with your hair.
00:01:39 Samantha: Beautiful.
00:01:40 Arly: When I watch movies of the two thousand and I'm like, why did we have low rise jeans? Yeah, I just keep asking myself that.
00:01:50 Emily: Why didn't you just have to pull your pants up all day.
00:01:53 Samantha: All the time? Well, you just can't bend over, ever.
00:01:56 Emily: Well, it's just like. Even, like the hips. Go in above them and like my hips hold my pants up.
00:02:03 Arly: I mean, I get it.
00:02:05 Emily: Or you can be. Lucas is always like, maybe if you wore a belt.
00:02:09 Samantha: No low, low rise jeans that were actually great for me because I'm built like this. I have a tiny little waist and then a very big behind badonkadonk. So if.
00:02:19 Arly: Yeah, but then you're like. You're like, my waist is the smallest part of me. So if my the top of my pants sit there, then they don't fall down. But if.
00:02:31 Samantha: It doesn't work.
00:02:32 Arly: Shorter than that.
00:02:32 Samantha: Because whenever I wear pants that go up to my waist, there's a giant gap in the back because they aren't really shaped like this.
00:02:40 Emily: They make pants that have like a cincher in them.
00:02:43 Samantha: They do. I just wear mid-rise now. It's a good compromise. You still can't go out in the field and do work in blue jeans, because you'll end up with plumber butt.
00:02:52 Arly: Yep. Unless they're high waisted.
00:02:54 Emily: Anyway, moving on, Samantha, what's your favorite movie?
00:02:57 Samantha: Uh, my favorite old timey movie is clash of the Titans.
00:03:00 Emily: The one with Maggie Smith.
00:03:02 Samantha: Yeah, the old one with, uh, with the claymation and the kraken and the.
00:03:09 Emily: Oh, a new one. The CGI ruined it.
00:03:11 Samantha: No, I. The old one is the best.
00:03:14 Emily: Oh, the damsel Andromeda.
00:03:16 Samantha: Yes. I love that one so much. Every time. This is a weird thing. Every time I would vacuum the house, that movie would come on. I turn the TV on, start vacuuming. There's clash of the Titans. Love it so much. But my favorite modern day movie is Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley. And. What's his name?
00:03:35 Emily: Uh.
00:03:36 Samantha: Matthew McFadden.
00:03:38 Emily: Yep.
00:03:38 Samantha: Matthew McFadden.
00:03:39 Emily: Um, when? When she's like, no, no, no. Only call me Miss Darcy when you're incandescently happy. I love that. Mr..
00:03:50 Arly: Mrs.. Darcy I love story stutters, stutters, and he's like, I, I love you. I remember when I was. I never watched that movie before. And then you got sick. And Samantha was like, do you want to come? And so I went with seeing it in theaters for the first time is legendary. It was legendary. But I was like, I wish Emmy was here. Then I went by myself when I felt better. I know, but it would have been so fun if the four of us could have. That is fun. It was a great experience.
00:04:18 Samantha: What's your favorite movie?
00:04:21 Arly: It goes between two. Uh, first one, Princess bride, a classic. Um. You wish. And also, uh, anybody got a peanut? And also inconceivable. And then when he goes, I don't think you know what that word means.
00:04:40 Samantha: I love that part.
00:04:41 Arly: And just like. Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.
00:04:44 Samantha: You killed.
00:04:44 Arly: My father. Prepare to die. Do you happen to have six fingers on your right hand? We just quoted the whole movie. I know that movie. So good. I don't actually think this, but sometimes I wonder if Lucas, my husband for the viewers, doesn't like watching it with me because I quote it the entire time.
00:05:01 Samantha: I'm sure that's true.
00:05:03 Arly: She's probably like, no, I think he finds it endearing. Maybe. I just think that.
00:05:07 Samantha: I love the point in Pride and Prejudice where the cranky old aunt comes in the middle of the night and wakes her whole family up, and she's just very like Keira Knightley, just very reserved. And then she said, you have now insulted me in every possible way and can have nothing further to say. I must ask you to leave. I was like, yeah. And she was like, I have never, never thus been insulted.
00:05:28 Arly: That's literally how people who are mean and then you're mean back to them and they're like, what have you done? You're like, can you please stop?
00:05:35 Speaker 4: And they're like, this is ridiculous.
00:05:39 Arly: And then my second favorite movie is Ella Enchanted.
00:05:42 Samantha: I love that movie. I know it's kind of campy, but it's supposed to be, I think, me somebody to.
00:05:48 Arly: Love me somebody. And the snake is like, coming through. And then the snake gets stepped on by. Find me somebody to love. Which has a fifty one percent on Rotten Tomatoes. And I will go to my grave. That's actually gonna be on my gravestone. Ella Enchanted deserved more than fifty one percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
00:06:15 Samantha: But we have to mention one more that's relevant and timely, which is Hamilton. Oh yeah. Disney version. Okay, I will admit, for like nine years after Hamilton came out, it's been out ten for like nine years.
00:06:28 Arly: It's been out ten and it came out in twenty twenty. So for five years.
00:06:32 Samantha: It came out in twenty fifteen.
00:06:34 Arly: Yeah. But you watched it in twenty twenty.
00:06:36 Samantha: For five years. For five years I would be like I don't I don't really understand how interesting a musical about a founding father could be. And so I was like, I am not going to listen to that. And then we went into Covid and Disney was like, you need some stuff in your houses like you for sure, you people need some stuff. And then it came out on Disney Plus and oh my gosh, from like the second.
00:07:00 Arly: Syllable, twenty twenty. I remember when it was life changing enough to remember the date.
00:07:04 Samantha: It was so good. What was it? How does a bastard, orphan, son.
00:07:09 Arly: Of a whore and a.
00:07:11 Samantha: Scotsman on a.
00:07:12 Arly: Forgotten? Have you ever seen it?
00:07:14 Samantha: I have watched.
00:07:15 Speaker 4: It once.
00:07:15 Samantha: I think I made her watch it.
00:07:17 Arly: Oh.
00:07:18 Speaker 4: No. I watched it once in high school, live in Detroit. And it.
00:07:24 Samantha: You.
00:07:24 Arly: Bougie.
00:07:25 Speaker 4: Was great.
00:07:26 Arly: You saved bougie as we're going to Broadway this year. Yes.
00:07:30 Samantha: That's why it's relevant because I'm about to turn fifty. And the thing I wanted for my birthday is to go to New York because Leslie Odom Jr, who best actor in the whole thing and he was only in it in twenty fifteen, his curtain call was in twenty fifteen, but he's back for three weeks. So we're like seeing his second to last show with Leslie Odom Jr. And take your vitamin C, because you better not miss my show.
00:07:56 Arly: Um, yeah. Of all the things I think you'd like, like you have many interests. American history is really not one of them. And it is.
00:08:05 Samantha: It is in a storytelling way.
00:08:07 Arly: No, I'm saying prior to this, like, you love like Henry the eighth time and like English history, more modern history, more modern. That's less modern.
00:08:17 Samantha: More modern than than the eighteen hundreds. Oh, no it's not.
00:08:21 Arly: I was.
00:08:22 Speaker 4: Like, I'm like that.
00:08:23 Arly: Backwards. I forgot that was a very long time ago.
00:08:27 Samantha: Seventeen seventy six. Never mind. Cut all that out even though you won't.
00:08:34 Speaker 4: Now all I have stuck in my head is seventy six trombones at the back. No no no no no.
00:08:41 Arly: Apparently this is a musical podcast. Yes it is.
00:08:45 Speaker 4: Shout out to, um, Amanda, who was my choreographer and music man.
00:08:51 Arly: It's like you're in a musical.
00:08:53 Speaker 4: I was in four musicals. Thank you. Dang, girl. I was in Oh La Homa. Thomas, actually, our editor, who is my brother, was the assistant director.
00:09:05 Arly: Oh.
00:09:05 Speaker 4: In, uh.
00:09:07 Samantha: He knew what he wanted to do all the time.
00:09:09 Speaker 4: I was a cowboy. Oh, the hammer and the cowboy can't be friends. Oh. The farmer. And then I was in, uh, Music Man, and I was like, one of the girls in the togas or whatever.
00:09:23 Arly: I haven't.
00:09:24 Speaker 4: Seen.
00:09:24 Samantha: I haven't seen it either.
00:09:25 Speaker 5: Shush shush shush shush shush shush shush shush.
00:09:27 Speaker 4: Um, and then we did a musical called, uh, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which, honestly, to this day, I still don't think I understand. And there's a.
00:09:38 Samantha: Mystery. Still. It's still a.
00:09:41 Speaker 4: Mystery. Somebody died, but I think it wasn't. They really. It was like a play within a play, and it's anyway whatever.
00:09:49 Arly: It's like inception.
00:09:50 Samantha: What was the fourth one?
00:09:52 Speaker 4: The fourth one was hello, Dolly! And I was a waiter. Hello, Dolly. And I was dancing in all of them because I was a fantastic dancer in a very loose term.
00:10:05 Samantha: A loose.
00:10:06 Speaker 4: Loose definition of that word. But I was always. I always played a boy because you got the better dancing roles. So.
00:10:13 Samantha: Oh.
00:10:14 Speaker 4: I was a boy for. Two and a half of the three years, so.
00:10:20 Samantha: Well, I was in one musical in high school. Aunt Lisa and I were in it together. It was bye bye Birdie.
00:10:25 Arly: Lisa is Samantha's best friend. Yes.
00:10:27 Samantha: I cannot sing. Not even a little. I can still remember my audition where you have to sing a cappella. I can't when I think about it now.
00:10:39 Arly: Give us a sneak peek.
00:10:40 Samantha: And it was Aunt Claudia. What was it?
00:10:43 Arly: Who's another one of my mom's friends.
00:10:45 Samantha: I'll have to think of it. It was. And the song was You're the Inspiration by Peter Cetera. But I can't think of it now. You're the inspiration. You see, I used to punish them in the car. Like, if they wouldn't behave, I'd be like, I'm gonna start singing. And then they would shape up.
00:11:03 Speaker 4: They were like, Please God, do not do this to.
00:11:05 Samantha: Us at my wedding. So my brother Joe walked me down the aisle at my wedding, and then he went and sat next to my mom in the front aisle. And then, like at the reception, he was like, you know, I figured out why none of us can sing. He was like, sitting next to mom. He's like. It became very apparent why none of us have any of those skills. Yeah, well, we've been messing around.
00:11:36 Arly: Yeah.
00:11:36 Speaker 4: Speaking of trash singing, let's talk about toilets.
00:11:43 Samantha: Everybody needs some. Nobody wants to touch him.
00:11:46 Speaker 4: Yes. There's the toilet, the throne, the poop chute. What are we gonna call it?
00:11:52 Arly: None of those, please.
00:11:54 Samantha: The.
00:11:56 Arly: Did you know it's a myth that the person who created it last name was crapper. I thought it was Thomas Crapper. No, he did not make it.
00:12:03 Speaker 4: Thomas crapper. Just kidding.
00:12:07 Samantha: Shout out to Thomas Crapper.
00:12:08 Arly: He's gonna be like, I'm getting bullied.
00:12:10 Samantha: Otherwise, it wasn't for Thomas Crapper. We'd be still using buckets.
00:12:14 Speaker 4: Okay. I had a professor in college. While we're talking about toilets really quickly. Is that.
00:12:19 Arly: Damn.
00:12:20 Speaker 4: Um. He told us that he knew so much about a culture when he would go to a new place, and he would use their toilets based on how their toilets were. He could tell a lot about what the culture was like. So, like, I guess in Germany they have, like, toilets where you can, like, turn around and like, look because they like to, like, examine what they have just excreted.
00:12:48 Arly: Oh, why did you excreted those.
00:12:52 Samantha: German listeners tell us if her teacher's a liar.
00:12:54 Arly: I'm sorry. Well, if.
00:12:56 Speaker 4: He is a liar, D bird, you're a liar.
00:13:00 Samantha: Oh, he knows a lot of stuff.
00:13:02 Arly: He.
00:13:03 Samantha: I don't think he's a liar.
00:13:04 Speaker 4: So he was talking about all of the different toilets, and he was like, some of them are like a hole in the floor. And then you just, like, squat over the hole. And I was like, that takes a lot less construction.
00:13:16 Arly: That's just a hole.
00:13:18 Samantha: Yep.
00:13:18 Arly: But I feel like you wouldn't even need this episode if you just had a hole. Yeah.
00:13:22 Speaker 4: So if you don't live in America and you just have a hole in your floor.
00:13:25 Samantha: This episode will not help you.
00:13:26 Arly: This episode is.
00:13:27 Speaker 4: Not entirely.
00:13:28 Samantha: For you. Come to the Digging Holes episode.
00:13:33 Speaker 4: Our next episode.
00:13:34 Arly: About.
00:13:35 Speaker 4: Toilets.
00:13:36 Samantha: Will.
00:13:36 Arly: Be.
00:13:36 Samantha: Called toilets.
00:13:38 Speaker 4: And.
00:13:39 Samantha: I'm doing air quotes. Air quotes.
00:13:41 Speaker 4: Around.
00:13:41 Samantha: Toilets.
00:13:42 Arly: The worst toilets are in national parks during the heat of summer, and there all the composting toilets. And then you like, open the door and you're like.
00:13:50 Samantha: Full of.
00:13:50 Arly: Flies.
00:13:51 Samantha: No, I had to pee so bad in Zion National Park, and I was like, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it. I walk in here and there are four million flies. I was like, nope, don't gotta go that bad. Uh, okay. Okay.
00:14:06 Arly: But shout out to the national parks. Oh.
00:14:08 Samantha: So great. Love them. Okay, so there's.
00:14:12 Speaker 4: There's a couple of different kinds of toilets, but we're gonna.
00:14:14 Samantha: Well, why are we talking about toilets anyway?
00:14:16 Speaker 4: Okay, well, we're talking about toilets, because first of all, if you live in a house, you have a toilet. And if you do not talk to your landlord or find a new house because you need a toilet. Um, and they are really simple things. And if you know how to take care of them, then you probably won't ever have to call a plumber to do something like that for you.
00:14:39 Arly: Love our plumber. Shout out Tim! I'm so sorry.
00:14:43 Samantha: I mean, plumbers are worth what they charge. They they deserve to get paid. That. But you don't always have that kind of money. So like when we when the girls were young, we had twins. Emily's a twin. When they were young, like, we never had any money.
00:14:57 Arly: So be scared.
00:14:58 Samantha: Putting, like, three hundred dollars out for a plumber. So, like, learning to fix your own things can allow you to use those resources for other things.
00:15:04 Speaker 4: Yeah. And there are certain things that you need a plumber for. You need like a qualified person. Because when you're dealing with something like water in your house, uh, messing up can get expensive. And sometimes I don't know if dangerous is the right word, but perhaps, um, when it comes to, like, moldy and, like, soggy and whatever. But, um, there are a lot of things that, you know, a plumber, it they deserve the money that they charge, for the most part, but sometimes you really don't need them. Um, and if you don't know anything, you do know them. But if you have a couple of basic things, you you can figure out a lot of toilet stuff by yourself. Um, so there's a couple different types of toilets we're going to focus on basically just one of them. So there's macerating toilets, which are kind of like, um.
00:16:00 Arly: They make your stuff into a poop smoothie and then they shoot it away. Yes.
00:16:05 Speaker 4: It it works on kind of like a different system.
00:16:08 Arly: Than regular toilet is below.
00:16:11 Samantha: The drain line is lower than the drain line. So you have to.
00:16:15 Arly: You.
00:16:15 Speaker 4: Basically have.
00:16:15 Arly: To like.
00:16:16 Samantha: Shoot it everything and then pump it up.
00:16:18 Arly: Slowly.
00:16:19 Speaker 4: Because your, your whole plumbing system is based on pressure and gravity. Yep. And so when you have like a toilet below the or really like a lot of plumbing underneath that drain level, you have to figure out a way to get that back up.
00:16:34 Arly: Or even drain level.
00:16:35 Samantha: Yeah, it can be hard.
00:16:36 Speaker 4: Yeah. So if you're putting in a toilet in, like, your basement or something and you don't have any plumbing in your basement, you might need a, like a more expensive toilet, like a mass riding toilet, which I think those things are really expensive. Or at least they can be.
00:16:51 Samantha: But we're not talking about that.
00:16:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, we're not really talking about them. Uh, there are two different types of toilets. There's gravity fed and then there's pressure assisted, which if you open up your tank and you have a black box in the tank, that's a pressure assisted, uh, toilet. And if you open up your tank and there's like, you can see the water that's in it, like, and then you can see like the little floaty things or whatever that's in there, that's just a regular gravity, uh, fed toilet. And that's mostly what we're going to be talking about. That's the main type of toilet that people have in your house. If you have like a black box in your toilet, it's just like, so you use less water and you have like kind of a harder flush. So if you have like older piping or if you had some issues and one was put in, then you have one. But for the most part you'll always have just a regular gravity fed toilet. Yeah. So most of the like anatomy of a toilet happens in the tank. So I'm just gonna talk through some of the main anatomy of it, just so that when I'm describing some of the issues, you understand what parts I'm talking about. So everybody's seen the toilet handle. And if you haven't gross, you should definitely know what the.
00:18:06 Arly: Buttons at the top.
00:18:07 Samantha: Handle or button.
00:18:08 Arly: Okay.
00:18:09 Speaker 4: Handle or button. This anatomy only works for the handle though. The button is like a lot of that stuff is kind of hidden, so it's not quite as obvious.
00:18:18 Samantha: One or two.
00:18:19 Speaker 4: Yeah, we can talk.
00:18:19 Arly: About that later.
00:18:20 Speaker 4: So you have the handle on the outside and that's connected to like a lever. And the lever is connected to a chain. So when you flush you pull down the handle and the lever goes up and it pulls the chain up which pulls this flappy guy up. It's basically like a pancake. Like a silicone pancake in the bottom of your tank that rushes all the water from the tank into your toilet. And then because your, uh, like, your plumbing system is based on electricity or electricity, on plumbing and.
00:18:55 Arly: Pressure, please don't mix water and electricity. No no no no no.
00:18:59 Speaker 4: Uh, it's based on gravity and pressure. Then the water rushing into it pushes the water that's in the toilet down and out, and then it closes the flap. And then the water from the valve, like your clean water into the tank, fills back up. And then you have, like, your little Bobby guy, which is called, uh, float ball. Uh, and it's basically like a little life jacket. And that mechanism kind of works the same way as like, well, it's like the opposite way of your sump pump where like it reaches a certain level and then it starts pumping out and then your that ball goes down. It's like the opposite. Um, so once it fills all the way back up, then it turns off and, and it stops the water from coming in.
00:19:45 Arly: If you know how a siphon works, toilets are basically big siphons. Yeah, like when the water rushes in, it basically gets the water level over the hump of the back end of it, and the gravity of that pulls everything in.
00:20:00 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. And then you have like these two like cylindrical items in the back of your tank too. And they're called different things depending on what it is. But basically they just assist in like the, the siphon of it and refilling your toilet. So some of the most common things that happen with your toilet is if your toilet is running. So that's like when you.
00:20:24 Arly: You better go catch it.
00:20:27 Speaker 4: Yes, you better go catch your toilet. Run along, run along. So if you hear your toilet all the time. And you hear like kind of this trickling. That means your toilet is running. Which means that the water.
00:20:36 Arly: Also means your water bill is going to be. Yikes. Yes. Yeah. It's like you're.
00:20:40 Speaker 4: Almost, like, constantly keeping at like a half flush. So it's not stopping and taking a break, which doesn't always mean that there's like something bad is going to happen or anything but your water bill. And then also, I think it's incredibly annoying. I, I really don't like when we're in a customer's house and their toilet does that. I always fix it because unless I can't, because it bugs me so badly.
00:21:08 Arly: So how do you fix it?
00:21:09 Speaker 4: Well, there's a couple different things. It's either your chain is like an improper length, so sometimes it can be, uh, too short or too long, or sometimes if you look in the back, depending on what kind of chain you have, it might be like kind of twisted, and then it shortens it.
00:21:27 Arly: And the chain is what connects the lever to the flapper. Right.
00:21:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. So if it's too short, then it's all like, even when you haven't flushed it, it's like still holding it up a little bit. And the flapper doesn't seal.
00:21:41 Samantha: Yeah.
00:21:41 Speaker 4: So water keeps.
00:21:42 Samantha: Going out of the bottom of the tank and then keeps filling and filling and filling.
00:21:46 Speaker 4: Yeah. And it could also be, uh, your, uh, ball float has an issue either like it's stuck on something, so it's telling the siphon that it's not done yet and it has to keep filling. Um, and you have like an overflow valve in your toilet. So even if there's enough water in the tank, if your float ball doesn't tell it to stop, it'll just keep filling up in the overflow, and then it'll go into the overflow valve and out. So it'll just keep cycling that water. Um, so the ball might be stuck on something, uh, because there's other things in the back of your toilet if you've looked back there so it could be stuck underneath something or jammed against the side. I think it's called the float ball. Uh, lever. Um, and those can be adjusted to like the length of them. So they might be, uh, just too far out that they're hitting the side of your tank or they're too close, that they're not going down or up enough or whatever.
00:22:43 Arly: Mine's like a ratcheting one. And so you just use a Phillips head screwdriver to adjust it, to adjust it, and it has a plus or a minus. So if your water level isn't high enough, I just.
00:22:54 Speaker 4: Yeah. Um, so then there's leaky toilets, which can be a couple different things. So you can either have a leak in your shut off valve. So the, there's a couple points of connection where you could have leaks and that's on your shut off valve to the toilet connector or from the toilet connector to the tank. Yep. And then the tank to the toilet. Yep. Or the toilet to the toilet.
00:23:25 Arly: Yeah, yeah. Which I'm sorry, but yeah, if that's yours. That one is for you.
00:23:30 Samantha: That's not.
00:23:31 Arly: Great.
00:23:31 Speaker 4: So if you have a leak and it's not obvious where it's coming from, clean up all your water and then put maybe a paper towel down. Or if it's going to be very obvious, like where it is leaking, because if you put something down, it'll drip in that one location and you'll be able to pretty quickly tell where that drop is coming from. Yep. Um, so if you have one that's, um, between your shut off valve and the.
00:23:59 Arly: The hose.
00:24:00 Samantha: That feeds your toilet.
00:24:01 Speaker 4: Yeah. The hose, then we can you can either tighten that. Sometimes you have to loosen it. If it's tightened too much. That's happened to us before. Um, or maybe there isn't Teflon tape in there. Plumbing tape when there needs to be. Um, same thing goes for the hose to the tank and then the tank to the toilet is a different mechanism. So basically it has bolts that the heads of the bolts sit inside of the tank and then you have like these rubber washers in between the tank and the bolts, and then the tank and the toilet. And then you have the.
00:24:38 Samantha: Nuts.
00:24:38 Speaker 4: Nuts underneath and you like, screw them up. Sometimes those just get loose over time. Yeah. Uh, and if you're leaking in there, you can just tighten them and easy going. Um, and.
00:24:50 Arly: Sometimes the rubber gets hard and then it doesn't form a seal. Yeah.
00:24:54 Speaker 4: So you might just need to replace like the, the rubber washers or gaskets or whatever. And then you have the connection between the toilet and the floor. So I used to think that the bolts are what kept it sealed, but it's actually underneath the toilet there's this wax ring. So basically it's kind of gross. It's basically like a soft candle that's shaped in like a doughnut.
00:25:21 Samantha: Yeah, but giant.
00:25:23 Speaker 4: With a giant hole, and it sits at the base of the toilet to connect the ceramic of the toilet to the drain in your floor. And basically you put it on there and then it smushes out and around. So it creates this really like good seal. And if you and then you tighten down your toilet so it doesn't, you know, tip over, wobble around or whatever. Um, but the bolts are not what keeps it waterproof. It's it's the the wax. The wax. And if you do have a lot of wobbling, if your bolts aren't tightened enough or if you have, like, an unstable floor, maybe, uh, or if you are a very large person, you know, your toilet might not last as long because, uh.
00:26:11 Samantha: They just move over.
00:26:12 Speaker 4: They just move a lot of time. And if you are, if you like, use your toilet more often, or if you are a bigger person, then it just shortens the lifespan of how long you have before your bolts loosen so you can tighten those. You can change out your wax ring, which would be like a five minute YouTube video that you could watch in five five dollars. Yeah, a wax ring is very cheap. The other thing that could lead to leaking is, uh, cracks in your porcelain or the ceramic toilet or whatever you have. And that could be from tightening the tank too tightly to the bowl or the bowl to the floor.
00:26:52 Samantha: That's one thing that's true of a toilet is everywhere. There are connections. All four of those connections is that a toilet in particular is something susceptible to being over tightened?
00:27:01 Arly: Yeah, a lot of like, um, the water lines usually say like hand tighten only.
00:27:06 Samantha: And then like one turn with a wire.
00:27:09 Arly: If anything ever says hand tighten only, it means that it doesn't want you to use the torque of some sort of device.
00:27:15 Samantha: And any plastic nut is hand tighten only.
00:27:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. Um, so those are your main points of leakage. And if you have a clean water leak, which is all of the leaks except for the wax ring leak, you can get away with maybe taking a little bit longer. But if you have a leak between your toilet and your wax ring and your floor, you need to stop using that toilet if you can and like, remedy that pretty quickly because it gets yucky.
00:27:50 Arly: Yeah. And if you think about the waste that's coming out of that, our floors are usually even if you have tile floor and stuff underneath that there's usually plywood, wood, something porous, something porous. And once that starts getting in there it gets really nasty. Yeah. There is one location we didn't talk about, and I don't want to get too in the weeds of toilets, but, uh, as well as the bolts between the tank and the bowl of the toilet, there's also the rubber flange that is the connection for the water. and the only reason I mention it is we had a client who every single one of her toilets were installed when the house was built, and every single one of those went out within like a year span of.
00:28:31 Samantha: Like five toilets. All had the same problem.
00:28:34 Arly: Yeah, it's the same thing as.
00:28:35 Samantha: Rubber.
00:28:35 Arly: Bullets. The rubber bolts that you the gaskets. It's basically just a big one of that. Yeah. That goes in like under the flapper. But in between the two pieces of.
00:28:45 Samantha: Porcelain, the center bottom of your tank.
00:28:47 Arly: Yeah. And so that would be where, if you like, are seeing like water, like coming out of the tank area, like near where the seat is attached. That's probably where you got it going on. So it can kind of look weird trying to figure out where stuff goes. So if you have a leak in your toilet and you're like, what the heck, where do I even start? If you send us a video, we might be able to.
00:29:09 Samantha: Tell you where it's coming from.
00:29:10 Speaker 4: Yeah, we can try. Um, if you're worried that if you have, like, silicone around the base of your toilet and you're worried that maybe it's coming out of the bottom, a great tip that I have is, first of all, if you have linoleum flooring, you can usually tell because the water that seeps out into the wood will usually discolor your linoleum. So if you're looking around your toilet and your linoleum is kind of discolored in the area surrounding your toilet, you might have a leak under there. And I would say.
00:29:44 Samantha: You almost certainly.
00:29:45 Speaker 4: Almost certainly have a leak. And the longer that goes on, the worse that it's going to be. Um, I think toilet repairs, we do a lot of them, and it's easy to fix when it's not that bad.
00:29:59 Samantha: When it's just the toilet. Any toilet fix is fairly simple, but when your subfloor has turned into mulch, that becomes more expensive and more complicated.
00:30:09 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's much harder to do it by yourself, and it's much more expensive to pay somebody else to do. Um, but we use our toilets all the time, and if you have a toilet that you don't use that often, maybe use it like once a week, just go down there. Yeah. Go, you know, to your basement or something, wherever it is. And just use that like once a week or something.
00:30:28 Samantha: Yeah.
00:30:28 Speaker 4: Give it a good check. Make sure. Um, but you can always get the silicone out from around and kind of see if there's water hanging out. If the other side of your silicone is wet and yucky, then your silicone has probably failed and your toilet under there is, you know, you need some intervention.
00:30:49 Samantha: Yeah. It's interesting the purpose of so we went back and forth like, do you caulk your toilet? Do you not caulk your toilet? And caulk.
00:30:56 Arly: Says to caulk.
00:30:57 Samantha: It. Caulking around the bottom of your toilet serves two purposes. One is it helps secure your toilet to the floor so it helps you get a lot. You get more time before you get a wiggly toilet. And the second is actually to keep the gross stuff from the floor, like from mopping the floor. Or if you have boys in the house, particularly those that are potty training from getting yucky stuff to go under the toilet like we always thought the cork is like to keep the yucky stuff from coming out from under the toilet, but it's to keep the yucky stuff on the outside from going under the toilet and sitting under there and you can't clean it.
00:31:28 Arly: So your toilet shouldn't be producing yucky stuff under it. Right.
00:31:32 Samantha: So we we struggled a lot because we thought, well, how do you know it's leaking underneath if it's siliconed closed? Which is a valid point. But code requires you to do that and we're licensed. So we have to follow code. But what we do and I know a lot of others do, is they just leave a one inch gap in the very back of the toilet. So that's not someplace that, like gross stuff from the front of the toilet is going to go under. So it's pretty safe. But it gives a place if your toilet's leaking, it gives a place for it to escape. So you'll know before your floor is rotted.
00:32:01 Speaker 4: Mhm. Um, yeah. That's, uh, it's really important to check up on your toilets and, uh, be sure, because if you live in a house, even if you're by yourself, you're probably using your toilet to, to, you know.
00:32:17 Samantha: eleven.
00:32:18 Speaker 4: eleven times a day, depending on like if you.
00:32:20 Samantha: Have babies.
00:32:21 Speaker 4: Already. If you live at home, you know, if you work from home or whatever you're doing. But, um, that's every time that you flush it, more water seeps. And every time that it sits there, it just seeps. So it's important. Oh, sorry. My alarms going off.
00:32:37 Samantha: Oh, Charlie's getting alarmed.
00:32:39 Speaker 4: Um, it's important to keep an eye on those things because it's super preventable to check up on your toilets, but it's a very big hassle to do something bigger than just replacing it.
00:32:52 Arly: Yeah, and a lot of repairs with the toilet. You'll know if it didn't work immediately. Yeah, it's a pretty.
00:32:57 Speaker 4: Quick.
00:32:58 Arly: Like.
00:32:59 Samantha: Yeah, if it's.
00:32:59 Arly: Leaking.
00:33:00 Speaker 4: At.
00:33:00 Samantha: The shut off valve and you give it like a tiny little tighten, it should quit leaking. You would know immediately. And the same if it's leaking where the water enters the tank and you give it a tighten, it should quit leaking immediately, like most of the solutions. You'll know immediately.
00:33:15 Arly: Yeah, yeah. And my. When we were first starting, we weren't quite sure what we were doing much of the time. And so diagnosing problems, I actually I found it easiest to pull up a diagram of a toilet or whatever I was working on. And so then I could look at it and I could be like, okay, the water's coming out of here. So I have it on Google, and then I'm like, okay, that's where the tank meets the bowl. Okay, now I'm going to Google what part is where the tank meets the bowl. And then I'm going to be like, what does it look like when this gasket goes out? So I kind of like reverse engineered it in a way.
00:33:50 Samantha: Figuring out how it works. So you can understand all the potential failure points.
00:33:55 Arly: Yeah. So yeah, understanding how it works properly is really helpful. And toilets are one of the simplest, simpler things in your home to learn that way. And I think it's a great starting point for more intense, especially because.
00:34:08 Speaker 4: The tank is the clean water. Yeah, there's no poo poo water in it or peepee water. Unless you have some weird children there. It's clean. It's clean water.
00:34:19 Samantha: So you can mess around.
00:34:20 Speaker 4: In there.
00:34:21 Samantha: Try.
00:34:21 Speaker 4: Things and.
00:34:22 Samantha: It's not gross.
00:34:23 Speaker 4: Yeah. Okay, so.
00:34:24 Arly: You're like me and you want a cute toilet lever. You learn how to replace.
00:34:29 Speaker 4: Those, and that's pretty easy, too. Um, okay, so we have three more. We have bad flush, which is like a pour flush. And if you flush your toilet, it doesn't go like it kind of like is lazy or.
00:34:42 Arly: The lever, like, sadly, like, bounces back. Yeah.
00:34:45 Speaker 4: It's like, uh, yeah. Um, and that could be because of low water in your tank. Like, there isn't a lot in there. Uh, it could be a loose chain. So it's only it's not. The flapper isn't coming up far enough to rush that water in, because that drop in pressure, in that flush of water into it is what triggers that cycle. Yeah. Would you say your flapper.
00:35:09 Arly: Should be at like ninety degrees Basically when your lever.
00:35:12 Samantha: Should flip up that high.
00:35:14 Speaker 4: I think it depends on your toilet because some of the newer ones don't quite do that. Um, but the older ones probably around there.
00:35:23 Samantha: If your flapper goes up like an inch when you flush, you're not going to get a good flush.
00:35:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. Because it wants to go down and it wants to stay down because of gravity. But if it is pushed, if you pull it upward and then the water starts rushing, it won't close immediately because you want that flapper to be open long enough to get the water out.
00:35:43 Samantha: Of the tank.
00:35:44 Speaker 4: In your tank. Yeah. To flush through your toilet. Um, so it could be that. Or it could be, uh, the pressure in your plumbing system is off, and that can happen in, like, for a couple of different ways, but you actually. Which I didn't even know until, like, I don't know, a year or two ago that there's vents in your plumbing system. Oh, yeah. To kind of like the water.
00:36:10 Arly: The water goes one way and the air goes the other.
00:36:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. So like, if you have, like, gurgling and like stuff like that, uh, it's, it's a problem with, like some of your water pressure. Um, and you have like these vents and I think they come out the top of your house.
00:36:24 Arly: Yeah.
00:36:25 Samantha: So they're almost always buried in the wall.
00:36:28 Arly: Yeah.
00:36:28 Speaker 4: Yeah. And if you know you have a problem here, it's gurgling and then you're not getting that good of a flush. And, you know, there's a couple different things you can check off your list and be like, oh, I think this is a pressure pressure thing. And sometimes that's because there's a clog somewhere else. Like one toilet could be clogged and the other toilet's having problems because they're all connected. And that pressure can.
00:36:53 Arly: Plumbing is an ecosystem.
00:36:54 Speaker 4: It is kind of an ecosystem. Uh, so that is not super a DIY. There's a couple of things that you can do about it. Um, but sometimes it's like you need a plumber to, like, find the clog and like, do something about it. Or sometimes if you're living in like an older house, they might not have traditional vents. Like now there's a vent under my vanity sink. There's one under the sink in my kitchen. You know, there's there's there everywhere. But in like, older houses, you don't have one under your sink. Um, you don't have one under your bathroom sink.
00:37:32 Samantha: You may or may not have one in the wall. Yeah, yeah. So.
00:37:35 Speaker 4: Uh, you know, you maybe somebody who worked on your house beforehand wasn't a plumber and didn't know about venting, and they just added something or took something away and didn't, you know. So that might be something a little bit more intermediate. But there are a couple of like, DIY things that you can do, um, to fix that. Um, and with if you have low water, you can fix that by there's a, a little, uh, water fill valve, uh, adjuster. And you can adjust that. It's like left or right. Some of them are like up or down.
00:38:09 Samantha: You mean on the shut off valve?
00:38:11 Speaker 4: No. In your.
00:38:11 Arly: Tank. Tank?
00:38:12 Samantha: Oh, in the tank. So if you have like if.
00:38:14 Speaker 4: So, your your tank has a couple of different adjustments like we talked about how, um, like the chain is adjustable, the ball float and the lever ball float is adjustable. Your fill valve is also adjustable. So if you want like more water in your tank. So it has like a greater volume of water in your tank, uh, you can adjust that. Or if it has like a lot of water in the tank, you can also adjust that. So it has a little bit less. Um, so checking those couple of things and just kind of, uh. ING with it, is that the right word?
00:38:49 Arly: Yeah. And you can kind of, like, poke around with them and you can see the change as you're doing it and figure out which that's kind of how we do it. We are like, well, I wonder if it needs more water. I wonder if it needs less water.
00:39:01 Samantha: Yeah.
00:39:02 Speaker 4: And then the last common thing is a wobbly toilet or tank, so a wobbly tank will probably lead to leaking that you'll be able to see. Um, in kind of like the back side of your toilet, um, clean water. And that can just be tightened. A wobbly toilet itself can lead to the poopy water leaking, which is problematic.
00:39:24 Arly: Yeah, because if you think about how the seal works, if you lift up one side, you're breaking that seal. Yeah.
00:39:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. So those are things to check out. And those are, you know, the biggest problems that that we, we find I think.
00:39:39 Arly: And we're here for you in a crappy situation. You need it.
00:39:42 Speaker 4: But, um.
00:39:43 Samantha: I think we should each give one like tip that's helpful to a homeowner. And mine would be if you're trying to figure out where the problem in your toilet is, if you fill up a kitchen bucket of water and you pour it into the bowl, just pour it right out and your toilet flushes beautifully, then the problem is above that. Yeah, the problem is in your tank if you pour a bucket of water in and it still won't flush properly, the problem is down line. So it's in it's in your inside, your actual gooseneck of your toilet. Or it's your lines are plugged or. Yeah. So it's I want to say downwind but it's downstream basically. That's a great. So that's one any homeowner can do. Just fill up a bucket and dump it in.
00:40:25 Arly: A lot of being handy is diagnosing the problem. Yeah.
00:40:27 Samantha: Then you know where the problem is. So what's your tip, Emily?
00:40:31 Arly: Um, trying to think you, um, my tip or kind of PSA is that one thing that's really easy to change on your toilet is the toilet seat. So, like, when you move into a new home and you're like, oh, I wish I had a new toilet. Well, it's almost a brand new toilet if you put a new seat on it. And the I don't I don't know why. A lot of our clients have told me they think it's too complicated to change their own toilet seat. No, but it's like two, two bolt.
00:41:01 Speaker 4: There's like a Phillips head to. It's not even a flathead.
00:41:03 Samantha: Yeah, yeah.
00:41:04 Speaker 4: So. And now if you get them now. They're easier than they ever have been. Yeah. They really they came out with a couple different things that make them really easy.
00:41:11 Samantha: They used to the old ones used to actually have metal, nuts and bolts. But now they come all plastic.
00:41:17 Arly: Yeah. And you can actually take them off for cleaning now. Yeah. Super easily. So yeah, that's my thing. But also toilets are they seem kind of intimidating, especially because it handles kind of the nastiest stuff that happens in our house. But I just want to encourage you that it'll be okay.
00:41:35 Samantha: The great thing about a toilet is there a finite number of things that can be wrong.
00:41:38 Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:41:39 Samantha: So what's your what's your number one tip?
00:41:41 Speaker 4: My number one tip is before you work on your toilet, clean it. Before you have a plumber come work on your toilet. Clean it because you do your business somewhere and then your toilet when.
00:41:52 Samantha: We're fixing it.
00:41:53 Speaker 4: Yes. You're asking a person and though you are paying them, but still you're asking them to come into your bathroom in a place that you put your booty and you should clean it. Even if you don't like your plumber, you should still clean it because yikes, we're.
00:42:13 Arly: All up and personal, more so than you are when we're helping with your toilet. So but we. And then if this is your career, if you're a handy person, bring Lysol with you.
00:42:24 Samantha: We do? Yeah. We send our crews out with cleaning because it's less gross to clean a toilet and then put your face in it and change it than it is to just change it without cleaning it.
00:42:34 Arly: And there's often no way to do stuff to your toilet without having your face. You're so.
00:42:39 Samantha: Like your arms are around the toilet, your face.
00:42:41 Arly: Like when you carry it. It's very awkward to carry you very, very intimate occurrence with the toilet. Yeah.
00:42:48 Speaker 4: Oh, you know what? I actually have a different tip. We never do this, and I don't know why, but if you're gonna take off your toilet, take the tank off, okay? And there's no reason that we shouldn't do that. But every time we remove somebody to carry the.
00:43:05 Samantha: Heavy toilet out, we.
00:43:06 Speaker 4: Carry the whole toilet. We don't remove the tank first and.
00:43:10 Samantha: Then.
00:43:10 Speaker 4: Later. It's so much lighter. We never do it. We never think about it. But we should always do that. Because when we install it, it comes in two pieces. You have to put the bottom in.
00:43:20 Samantha: And then this is what we say. We've done everything the hardest possible way. And now we're doing this podcast so you don't have to.
00:43:26 Arly: Yeah. If if the toilets, one of the things that your husband or partner has been saying I'll fix that, I'll fix that. And then you take care of it. One weekend you might be able to carry it if it's in two separate pieces by yourself.
00:43:37 Samantha: Well, um, if people are really excited about what we're doing and they want to be able to learn more, how can they do that?
00:43:44 Arly: Um, if you go to How to Handyman at How-To, handyman on many things, on many platforms, you will find us and our content there. And then if you want to join our Facebook group where you can show us a photo of what's happening with your toilet, You can search How to Handyman group on Facebook. Um, and then if you want to send us an email with a video and you're like, help, what? Or if you want to send a horror story about toilets or you just want to say anything.
00:44:15 Samantha: We want it.
00:44:15 Arly: H t h m at my handyman com, which my handyman is our main business. That's how we.
00:44:24 Samantha: That's when we do handy stuff for other people.
00:44:26 Arly: That's where we're professionals. And, um, that at my handyman, you can see what we do there. So.
00:44:33 Samantha: Yeah. So we're always.
00:44:34 Speaker 4: Up to some kind of shenanigan.
00:44:36 Samantha: Thanks for hanging.
00:44:36 Arly: Out with shenanigan.
00:44:37 Samantha: Yeah, thanks for hanging out with us for toilet shenanigans. Yes, yes. And we love you. Flush, flush.
00:44:44 Speaker 4: What's the rush? Bye.
