How I Fixed Our Toilet Leak by Myself

It seems like I spoke too soon when I said we had no more leak in our toilet after we removed the old one and installed a shiny new one.

Yep. It leaked.

See the puddle of water on the floor?

But I managed to fix the leak. By myself, no less. *grin*

We first thought the leak wasn't from the toilet, but from the water supply pipe in the wall behind the toilet (visible in the background of the photo above, to the left of the toilet itself). We were already thinking of calling someone we knew who was in construction to help us with it. Nothing scares us more than plumbing problems.

But then, with the old toilet, it never leaked unless someone flushed. And we didn't flush the new toilet all night because we hadn't even moved in. And yet here we were, with a puddle of water on the floor. So it couldn't have been the pipe.

Then, Vee turned off the water supply valve...

 

And when he checked the toilet again, the floor was flooded and the tank was empty. We found our culprit! Turned out we didn't tighten the bolts and nuts that connected the tank to the bowl enough. A quick poke at the bolts revealed that one of them was wet.

So Vee tightened the loose bolt, turned on the water and let the tank fill up. He turned the water supply off again and we went out for dinner. When we got back, the floor was flooded and the tank was empty again. But we were tired, so we went to sleep and left the problem for another day.

While Vee was at work yesterday, I decided to fix the leak. I didn't take any pictures because I was worried I was going to drop the toilet tank the whole time and didn't want any distraction. Plus, we had just moved at that time and I couldn't find my camera's memory card.

But for illustrative purposes, here's what the problem bolts look like.

Basically, I removed the tank and placed it on the vanity. I removed the bolts and then put them back on again. I poured a cup of water into the tank and checked for any leaks. When I was satisfied with how tight the bolts were, I then placed the tank back on the toilet base.

Now we have a leak-free toilet! And I didn't drop the tank even once! Yay me!