Toilet and Tap Problems

Toilet leaking onto the floor

Dry the area and put tissue around the base, the back pipe and under the cistern, then flush. Wherever the tissue gets wet first is your leak. Water at the base of a close-coupled toilet often comes from the bolts or doughnut washer between cistern and pan, not the floor seal. Toilet bowl leaking and toilet leaking from the back pipe go through each point.

To stop the supply, turn the slot on the isolation valve in the pipe feeding the cistern a quarter turn with a flat screwdriver, so the slot sits across the pipe. If there is no valve, use the main stopcock.

Water leaking from the pan outlet can be dirty water. Wear gloves and keep children and pets away until it is cleaned.

Toilet running, not filling or not flushing

A constant trickle into the pan comes from one of two parts. Lift the cistern lid: if the water sits above the top of the overflow tube, the fill valve is not shutting off; if it sits below, the flush valve seal is worn. Toilet keeps running covers both. On older cisterns, water spilling from an overflow pipe outside also points to the fill valve.

A cistern that fills slowly or not at all usually has a blocked fill valve filter or a half-closed isolation valve. Start with toilet not filling with water, and for weak flushes read toilet not flushing properly.

Dripping taps and failing showers

Most modern mixer taps use ceramic cartridges rather than rubber washers. A drip from the spout usually means a worn cartridge, while water round the handle points to an O-ring. How to stop a tap leaking shows how to tell which type you have. For kitchen mixers, see kitchen mixer tap leaking.

Weak flow at the shower is often limescale in the head or a partly closed valve, covered in shower pressure low.

When to get someone out

Call if water is reaching the floor or ceiling below, if the only toilet in the house is blocked or unusable, or if a tap will not turn off. A toilet repair or leaking tap repair visit is the £60 call-out, and the repair price is agreed with you on site before any work starts.