Spring not closing toilet flapper

Spring not closing toilet blade

When I take my foot off the pedal that flushes the toilet the spring system does not force the flapper closed with the necessary force to close the toilet and prevent water from leaking out. Any ideas on how to correct this issue? Thanks. tom

Take your wife's tooth brush and hold the pedal down and clean the seal with the brush, then, I think you can put a little coat of Vaseline on it. That should take care of your problem. If it does not take care of the problem you can put a new seal in pretty easy. Check out the Tool tab for some owners manuals and guides.

Jim M

Oh,,, be sure you rinse the tooth brush off before you put it back.

jimtoo said:

Take your wife's tooth brush and hold the pedal down and clean the seal with the brush, then, I think you can put a little coat of Vaseline on it. That should take care of your problem. If it does not take care of the problem you can put a new seal in pretty easy. Check out the Tool tab for some owners manuals and guides.

Jim M

Oh,,, be sure you rinse the tooth brush off before you put it back.

Click to expand...

oh, Jim.


He's right in that a good scrub usually fixes the problem. We tend to push up on the pedal too. It ensures that the toilet doesn't continue to run and flood the bathroom floor. Don't ask why or how we learned that trick.

If the problem is more the seal itself than the return position of the flush arm you might try this from the Dometic manual:

IF NEW TOILET DOES NOT HOLD WATER IN BOWL…
Please follow the procedures below before attempting to replace the seal.
1. Hold flush ball in full open position by pressing on
pedal.
2. Using finger, apply moderate downward pressure
around edge of ball seal.
3. Close flush ball.
4. Keeping flush ball closed, pour one quart of
hot tap water into toilet bowl.
5. Let water cool completely.
6. Check for leak.
If leak still persists, flush ball seal should be
replaced. Follow instructions provided with
replacement seal kit.

I have been advised on other forums to avoid petroleum based lubes. They will damage the seal.
Someone said use lemon Pledge after cleaning the seal. So far it has helped.
Before that I used plumbers silicone.


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The flush ball, seal and return spring are all easily replaced. Mine was doing the same thing as yours and this was the only fix to replace all three, in my case.

Re: Spring not closing toilet blade

Thank you. I turned the water off and cleaned the seal as suggested. DW said I had to use my tooth brush or the toilet cleaning brush sitting next to the toilet. After cleaning the seal I put silicone grease on the bottom of the seal, top of seal and in the groove. The problem seems to be solved. Silicone grease does not have any petroleum products in it and is used by many plumbers. Thanks again for the ideas and help. tom