Hello everyone it's 'Lurgs' here welcome to my channel and today my toilet cistern
has decided to start leaking, so I'm just going to show you how to remove it clean
the rubber seal put some gunk on it and then stick it back on and hopefully stop
it leaking. Right let's get cracking, and here is a list of things that you're
gonna need. Number 1 your hands, number 2 that's my business,
number 3 plumbers make paste, number 4 wife's toothbrush, number 5 a
lovely cup of tea and number 6 possibly a new washer. Now this stuff is
absolutely magical this is plumbers mate paste it kind of looks all gooey and
gunky and it stays soft like this all the time, but you put this on any threads
and it just stops things leaking. Please don't get this confused with something
called hummus which is absolutely lovely to eat, very tasty. So anyway this is my
dual flush toilet system toilet and if we go inside the toilet (and I have
washed it) you can see we've got a leak here quite a big leak, it's just
constantly trickling all the time permanently so that's not good for my
water bills or the environment, so the first thing you need to do is get the
lid off, now on my dual flush button system it's a screw top so this just
goes anti-clockwise, some of them have actually got a screw nut inside which
you need to undo first, once you've taken that off we can just lift the system lid
off and there is the dual flush button system in there,
that's the float that lets the water in and out, so I'm just going to give you a
quick flush here so the flushing mechanism is all working and I know for a fact
I've already had the dual flush button system out already and it's not leaking
through there, so I just want to get that out and check the washer at the bottom,
this is the mains water here and unfortunately it hasn't got a shutoff valve
on it so I can't turn off the mains water, the only way I can do that is to
go out in the street and put my hand down into the pavement about a foot, lots
of spiders and icky things and turn it off there, so all I've done is just made
up a hard bit of wire here to keep the float up high to stop it filling back up
again, right so what we need to do is we need
to remove that dual flush button system unit, now it's just got three little
divots at the bottom and all you're doing is you're turning it
anti-clockwise with your hand about a quarter of a turn, and then you lift it
out now just be careful when you grab it that you don't damage anything on there
as obviously it's all plastic, really it's a two-handed job but obviously I'm
filming with one hand, my glamorous assistant is on holiday, and then just
lift it out so this is the washer diaphragm at the bottom here on the
flush unit this compresses down and back up every time you flush the toilet, so
there is a washer diaphragm underneath here which we need to get to, now this
washer is actually looking pretty good and I know it's not this that is leaking,
so we've got another big washer underneath here so what we'll do
is we'll just turn this anti-clockwise, this is quite a few turns it's a decent
thread and we're going to be taking this out, and I believe that it's leaking down
through there, actually on the side we've got lots of dirt and grit and we've
still got some plumbers mate paste from the last time that I put some on
probably three or four years ag,o but we've got lots of dirt and grit in there,
so the first thing you need to do is just get rid of any abrasions dirt
grit, the tiniest bit of grit can make a toilet leak so just clean that all up
just any old rag and then later I'm just gonna get a toothbrush on that plastic
thread and just clean that all up, okay so this is what we're looking at and
actually that washer is not in great condition but it's late on a Sunday and
I haven't got time to go and get a washer because it's all shut so I'm just
going to give this a good old clean up and stick it back in and then I'm gonna
go and get a washer for next time it starts leaking, if it ever does. So what
you're doing is you're just giving this a really good clean just get any bits of
grit off there and take your wife's toothbrush and just
start brushing it into all the threads getting out any dirt any grit, let's just
speed this up you want to make that nice and clean and then make sure you put
your wife's toothbrush back exactly where you found it. Actually I lied that
is a spare toothbrush which I use just for cleaning up anything, so I'm
just going to speed this up basically it's just giving it a really good clean
and this is the black rubber washer here which is not in great condition, but I'm
just going to give it a good old clean up, again just use an old toothbrush and
I'm going to just quickly clean the threads here just to get rid of any grit
that might be in there and then flush that with some fresh water as you can
see this is looking a lot cleaner, now take your magical plumbers mate
paste and just get that on all the threads and any any parts where the
rubber washer is going to be sitting against, obviously where this screws into
the bottom of the toilet it's not under a great deal of pressure, you've only got
probably a gallon of water sitting on there so it's not a great deal of
pressure pushing that on that to make it leak.
But I'm just going to put lots of plumbers mate paste on here and then put
the washer back on.
I'm just gonna put a bit of extra paste around this washer here all the way around and
let's get it back in, for that we just do one final check make sure there's no
bits of grit just round where it's gonna sit,
that's all looking pretty good, right
let's get this back in so just gently put it into the threads and as with
anything with a plastic thread only ever hand tighten, don't ever think about
getting pliers on this or bashing it with anything, it just needs to be hand
tightened, now this probably is a two-handed job I'm struggling here with
one hand, I just got an extra turn on there with
two hands without the camera on. Now we're going to put the dual flush system back
in now what that does it just sits in these little divots here, so you just
need to offer it into those and then turn it clockwise just so it clicks
underneath, so I'll try and film this as I put it in it just slot it down make
sure they've all lined up and then you're just turning it again, really this
is a two-handed job there we go it's in, that's all you need to do
right so I'm going to remove that wire let it fill up with water and this is the
test, right so it's going to start filling up with water so let's just
speed this footage up a little bit, I'm just going to let it fill up then I'm
just going to flush it once just so we've done one flush, we'll call that a
courtesy flush [laughs], right concentrate concentrate. Right now let's have a look
inside the toilet and just put a bit of tissue paper on the back there
absolutely superb, happy with that, but I will go and get a new washer just for
next time because that is looking pretty worn, but that is a great fix happy with
that, no more leaks, make sure you wash your hands obviously after doing all
this work on the toilet, put the lid back on it's got two divots at the back make
sure that they're lined up and can only go on one way around then screw the
new the buttons back in,
again just hand tighten these and then I think we need a bit of magic, what I
would like is a lovely cup of tea, Oh superb. Oh. If you're going to be doing
any sort of DIY work make sure you've got a lovely cup of tea oh sweet. If
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