Toilet Repair
A running toilet wastes thousands of gallons. A leaking base rots the floor.
Wes fixes toilets at the actual cause, not by swapping parts until something sticks.
What is actually wrong
Flapper, fill valve, or wax ring.
A toilet that runs after flushing has a worn flapper or a fill valve that stopped seating. Ghost flushing, where the toilet fills briefly without anyone touching it, is often a cracked overflow tube or a float set too high. Getting the diagnosis right before ordering parts matters.
There is a five minute test that separates the two most common causes, and you can run it before anyone comes out. Put a few drops of food coloring in the tank and leave the toilet alone for twenty minutes without flushing. If color shows up in the bowl, the flapper is leaking past and that is your problem. If the tank water level has dropped and no color reached the bowl, water is going out the overflow tube, which means the fill valve is not shutting off or the float is set too high. Telling Wes which of those you saw puts the right part on the truck.
Hard water is what kills fill valves on the Front Range. The valve relies on a small rubber diaphragm sealing against a seat, and dissolved minerals crust that seat until the diaphragm can no longer close on it cleanly. That is when a toilet starts cycling on its own at three in the morning. Flappers go the same way: the mineral film keeps them from sitting flat, and chlorine tablets dropped in the tank make it worse by attacking the rubber. Wes will tell you to keep the drop-in tablets out of the tank. They shorten the life of everything in there.
A toilet that rocks at the base or shows staining at the floor has a failed wax ring. Pulling the toilet, replacing the ring, and inspecting the flange is the fix. Wes checks the flange while the toilet is off. A corroded flange fixed at the same time saves a second call. Get it looked at.
- Running toilet diagnosis and repair
- Ghost flush diagnosis
- Wax ring replacement
- Fill valve replacement
- Flapper replacement
- Flange inspection and repair
- Tank-to-bowl gasket and bolt replacement
- Weak flush and clogged rim jet cleaning
Leaks at the base
The subfloor takes the damage before you see standing water.
Wax ring failure lets water escape during every flush and soak into the subfloor. You often see a soft spot underfoot or smell something before the floor is visibly wet. By the time it is visible, the damage has been building for weeks.
Older Littleton and Denver housing stock makes this worse than it has to be. A lot of those homes have cast iron closet bends with cast iron flanges, and after fifty or sixty years the ears where the closet bolts sit rust thin and break off. Once that happens the toilet can no longer be drawn down tight, so it rocks a little, which works the wax, which lets water out, which soaks the subfloor around the flange, which softens the wood the flange is screwed to. The whole thing feeds on itself. By the time the homeowner notices, the repair has grown from a wax ring into a flange and a patch of subfloor.
Wes pulls the toilet, replaces the wax ring, sets it level, and torques the bolts evenly. He checks the drain flange for corrosion or cracking that would cause the same failure again with the new ring. If the flange has broken ears, a stainless repair ring anchored into solid wood usually saves it. If the subfloor around it has gone punky, that section gets cut out and rebuilt before anything is set back down, because bolting a toilet to rotten wood just resets the clock on the same failure.
This is the point where the General Contractor license actually matters. Wax ring failures do not stay plumbing problems. They turn into subfloor, underlayment, tile, and sometimes the ceiling of the room below. Wes carries both a Master Plumber license and a Contractor license, so the drain work and the carpentry are the same job with the same person accountable for it. No waiting on a second trade to schedule around him, and nobody pointing at the other guy when something is off. If water made it downstairs, leak detection is worth reading.
- Wax ring replacement
- Flange repair or replacement
- Toilet re-leveling and reset
- Subfloor damage assessment
- Supply line inspection
- Shutoff valve check
- Cast iron flange repair rings
- Base caulk and shim reset
When replacement is right
Some toilets are past the point.
A toilet with a cracked tank or bowl, one repaired multiple times, or an older low-flush model with chronic performance issues is often better replaced than repaired again. Wes tells you that honestly if the repair cost approaches a quality replacement, and installs the new unit in the same visit if that is the right call. See our plumbing work.
A cracked tank or bowl is the clearest case, and it is not negotiable. Porcelain does not get repaired. Even a hairline crack that is only weeping now will open up, and when a tank finally lets go it dumps its entire volume on the floor at once. The other clear case is a first-generation low-flush from the nineties that never cleared the bowl properly. That was a design failure, not a wear problem, so no combination of new flappers and fill valves will make it flush right. Living with a toilet you have to flush twice defeats the water savings anyway.
The murkier cases are judgment calls. A toilet that has had three or four repairs in a couple of years is usually telling you something. So is one where the tank-to-bowl bolts have rusted, the fill valve is on its second replacement, and the trapway is scaled down from hard water. None of those alone means replace, but stacked together they add up. Wes lays out what he found and what each path costs, then does what you decide. If replacing is the call, toilet installation covers what that looks like, and clogged drain repair is the page for when the toilet is fine and the line behind it is not.
One plumber, whole job
Toilet repairs done right the first time.
A toilet that keeps leaking after a repair was not fixed. Wes diagnoses before replacing parts and tests after every repair. If the wax ring and flange both need addressing, he handles both in one visit. You will not call about the same toilet in three weeks.
Waiting is what turns a small toilet repair into a big one. A running toilet is only wasting water until the fill valve fails outright and the tank overflows onto the floor. A rocking toilet is only annoying until the subfloor under it turns soft. A slow seep at the base is invisible for weeks and then shows up as a stain on the ceiling below. None of these fix themselves and all of them get more expensive on a schedule. Wes would rather see it while it is still a part than after it is framing.
The phone is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, out of Littleton and across the Denver metro, the Front Range, and the mountain towns. Toilets do not pick convenient hours, and if the only bathroom in the house is out of service, that is not a Monday problem. Call (303) 883-9075.
How a call goes
Straight answer, fair price.
You call, we listen.
Tell us what is happening.
We look and diagnose.
No parts quoted before the cause is confirmed.
Straight quote.
You know the cost before we turn a wrench.
We do the work.
Tested before we leave.
Done right.
One master plumber, one point of contact.
Straight answers
Questions about toilet repair.
Why does my toilet keep running?
Usually a worn flapper or a fill valve that stopped shutting off. Both are quick repairs once the right part is confirmed. Run the food coloring test first: a few drops in the tank, wait twenty minutes without flushing, and see whether color reaches the bowl. Color in the bowl means the flapper. No color but a dropping tank level means the fill valve or float.
Is a rocking toilet serious?
Yes. Rocking breaks the wax seal and causes a slow leak into the subfloor. It also puts uneven stress on the porcelain base, and a hairline crack there ends the toilet. Do not try to solve it by tightening the closet bolts, which is how most cracked bases happen. It gets fixed with shims and a fresh wax ring, after checking why it was not sitting flat.
Repair the parts or replace the toilet?
Usually just parts. Flappers, fill valves, and wax rings are inexpensive and the toilet itself is generally fine. Replacement becomes the better call when the tank or bowl is cracked, when the same unit has been repaired several times in a short span, or when it is an early low-flush that never cleared properly. Wes gives you both numbers and you pick.
How long does toilet repair take?
Most tank repairs are under an hour. A wax ring replacement runs one to two hours because the toilet has to come off, the flange gets inspected, and it all goes back level. Flange repair adds time, and a soft subfloor adds more. Wes tells you the honest range after he looks rather than quoting the best case and running over.
My toilet flushes weakly. What causes that?
Most often the small rim jets under the bowl edge have scaled shut from hard water, so the water enters the bowl without the swirl that pulls the flush. Sometimes the flapper is closing early and cutting the flush short, and sometimes the tank level is set too low. It can also be a partially blocked drain line. Wes checks the bowl before assuming the drain.
Water is on the floor. Is that always the wax ring?
No, and it is worth knowing before anything gets pulled. Condensation on the tank in warm weather drips onto the floor and looks identical. So does a leaking supply connection, a bad tank-to-bowl gasket, or a cracked tank weeping slowly. Wipe everything dry, then watch where the water reappears first. Wes reads that pattern the same way when he arrives.
Is toilet water damage covered by homeowners insurance?
Sudden failures are usually covered, like a tank cracking or a supply line bursting. Slow leaks that went on for months typically are not, since insurers treat that as deferred maintenance. That is another argument for dealing with a seep early. Take photos of the damage before any work starts, because once the toilet is off and the floor is opened up the evidence goes with it.
Can I repair a toilet myself?
Flappers and fill valves are honest weekend jobs, and the parts are on the shelf at any hardware store. Pulling a toilet is a different level, since you are dealing with a heavy piece of porcelain, a shutoff that may not close, and a flange you cannot judge until it is exposed. If the shutoff will not turn or the toilet is rocking, get a plumber on it before something breaks that costs more than the visit.
Toilet running or leaking?
Call Wes. Diagnosed right, fixed once.