Your toilet should be maintained and be taken care of from time to time to make sure they are working efficiently. Modern toilet units come along with a flushing unit that is connected to your outer drainage, down to the sewerage. Some toilets have a chain attached to their flushing system while others have a flapper instead. What do you do if your toilet stops flushing? Having a loose toilet handle can be so annoying. This is brought about by a broken flushing chain, low water and pressure levels, and maybe other drainage complications. Hereby, we are going to check out how to fix a toilet handle that has no chain. Repairing and fixing your toilet mechanisms is quite an easy Do-It-Yourself task that you should solve using a few tools.
Toilet lever replacement
Your toilet is probably using either the chain mechanism or a lever arm flushing system. The lever arm plays the role of lifting a circle disk which seals the bottom hole of your flushing tank during refill. If this seal crunches at any point, you’ll have to use more power and energy when pushing the flushing handle. The disk might bind due to a broken or bent lever arm. Your toilet system’s lever hand is made from plastic. Therefore, your lever might bend sometimes or even crack/break in the long run. If you realize that your toilet’s lever arm is broken, you’ll have to replace it to make your toilet system run efficiently again. You can go to the closest hardware store around you and purchase an affordable lever arm for your flushing unit. Upon purchasing a new lever, you’ll have to install it thus removing the old one.
Installing your new toilet lever arm
Follow the simple procedure below to attach your new arm lever to the toilet today:
- Open your toilet tank cover lid
- Find the nut that connects your toilet handle to the tank
- Easily unscrew the nut using your free hand or pipe wrench if it’s tightly fixed
- After unscrewing the nut, pull the toilet’s handle assembly out to eject it
- Slide the nut on the toilet handle and hook the new lever to your flapper rod
- Fasten the plastic nut using your hand
Pressure assist Flushing
As we go through how to fix a toilet handle that has no chain, we’d like to inform you that certain modern toilet systems use a pressure-assist flushing system. This kind of mechanism doesn’t have a flapper, unlike other traditional toilet systems. In such systems, the tank is sealed to employ enough air pressure which will perform the flushing process down the drain. These toilets contain a button in place of a handle for flushing. Upon pressing the flushing button, the system opens a valve to let water ooze rapidly down to the bowl. The water in your toilet tank is at a very high pressure which pushes the flushed content down the drainage pipes. This toilet system has been acknowledged by many and homeowners are steadily shifting from flapper toilets to pressure-assisted ones. One disadvantage of pressure-assisted toilet systems is that they can be relatively louder than flappers.
Why is my pressure-assisted toilet flushing poorly?
Many people have really complained about poor or inefficient flushing units. If your pressure-assisted system is facing complications, it might probably be due to low water pressure from the toilet system. You can however troubleshoot your toilet system to find out what is not working properly. First of all, we are going to cut off the water supply to your unit to inspect the water pressure. Sufficient and normal water pressure should fill a single gallon or toilet tank in less than sixty seconds. If water is coming in at a slower rate, you’ll have to examine the water inlet to get rid of debris or any dirt material that might be obstructing the water flow.
Second, we’ll have to look-see that the tank’s air intake is steady. The tank’s air intake mechanism is a small opening that allows the passage of air via a tubing attached vertically from the top of the tank. Check if your toilet’s air entry is working by trying to flush a spoonful of water through it. If the water isn’t sucked into the opening, unscrew the cap to check if the screen is in good shape. Clean the screen in case of debris presence or replace it if it’s broken.
How to tighten your toilet handle
- Cover the toilet bowl
- Carefully take off your toilet’s tank cover using two hands since it could be heavy. Place it somewhere on a surface where it won’t fall or maybe crack.
- Cut off the water supply to your toilet and empty all water from your tank. This will offer you more space to fasten the handle from the inside.
- Inside the tank, you’ll see a metallic nut next to your handle on the inner side. This nut might be the cause of a loose toilet handle.
- Using the appropriate adjusting tool, fasten the metal nut until it’s firmly fixed. Remember not to tighten the nut too much since it can cause your porcelain to crack and bring a big loss.
- You can now test your toilet lever by pushing it downward. After depressing the lever, you can know if it’s better by listening to it. It will probably sound better. If you still experience a problem with your handle even after tightening it, you’ll have to replace it because it might be damaged.
- Upon tightening your toilet handle or purchasing a new one, turn on the water supply and flush your toilet when the tank is full. Congratulations, you just learned how to fix a toilet handle that has no chain.
Conclusion
Being one of the most important structures in everyone’s homes, toilets should be maintained and repaired whenever something breaks down. Using the steps and guidelines outlined in the text above, you can now easily repair your toilet handle. This article will help you understand how to fix a toilet handle that has no chain. If you’re facing a problem with your plumbing system, contact the closest plumber to troubleshoot and repair it immediately. Toilets cannot stay broken since we’ll need to visit them from time to time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does pouring hot water down a toilet unclog it?
Don’t pour boiling water down your toilet drainage or sink because it will only cause more complications to your drainage system. This could melt down your pipe seal or PVC piping since the hot water tends to fizz and go around the clogging material in your pipeline.
How to fix your broken toilet chain
Cut off the water supply at the bottom of your toilet tank by shutting the valve then flush the toilet as soon as the supply is off. Flush the toilet then take its lid off. Locate where your toilet chain is and remove the flapper. Upon taking the flapper off, you can now extract the chain from it and install a new one to the system
How to flush your toilet manually without a chain
Fill a bucket with a gallon of water from your taps or water storage then start pouring the water slowly into the bowl. Start speeding up gradually until all the water from your bucket is dumped into your toilet bowl. If you do it correctly, your toilet will be flushed successfully using the bucket water thus pushing the waste down the sewer pipes.
