Four toilets in one day ? Bless. lol

Thanks all. I'll post an update later today, and let you know how it works.

A cistern is simply a word a tank that contains water or other fluid.... so yes, what you've posted a photo of is a cistern... and it's the same in german; zisterne, italian; cisterna, and (almost) in french; citerne. If you have to call a plumber you'll need to know that!


As the others have said, it's probably calcaire build-up that's causing the lever to jam open. Or possibly there's a bit of grit that's got under the seal at the base somehow and is allowing a small amount of water to trickle into the bowl and the system 'thinks' it's not finished filling.

Citerne in French is usually used for much larger tanks such as for heating oil etc. They usually say chasse d'eau or reservoir de chasse d'eau for the toilet cistern.

I know, but google translate tells me that 'tank' is 'panzer' in german.... using that word might cause more problems than it solves!

Just get the angle right if not

That's what I figured. It's logic - logic is my thing. ROFL.

The connection between the siphon and the tank is completely kalked up in one of ours so there isn't a good seal.

Water drips into the bowl and every few minutes, the level is low enough for the tank to top-up again.
It's not enough to measure on the water meter but the inlet was kalked up too when we moved in and got stuck just as we went on holiday so no one noticed.

The water bill was more eye-watering than the anti-kalk!

I generally find it's a good idea to turn off the toilet water supply at the valve when leaving home for more than a couple of days. It's only a tiny thing to think of and it can potentially save a big water bill.

I've never done that before and never had a problem. It's a tiny thing if you only have one loo.

It isn't a bad idea to turn each shut-off valve off and back on every few years, same thing goes for the main valve.

On the one hand it gives you a visual check if there are any signs of leaking at the spindle, on the other, you know that the damned thing works. It's pretty frustrating when a hose bursts and you discover that the shutoff valve for that device doesn't work... even more so when you tramp down to the basement and discover that that one won't budge either. It takes a while for the waterworks people to arrive and shut the valve outside the house (been there, done that - the feed hose for the dishwasher burst, I was in the kitchen and reacted within seconds which would have been fine, if either of the the shutoffs had worked. I ended up having to replace the kitchen cabinets).

__________________
If everyone you know agrees with you consistently, they are either not listening, or not capable of critical thought.

Just checked all my stop valves because of this. The one under the sink kitchen needs fixing!

quod erat demonstrandum

I do that. Additionally, when I turn them on fully, I turn them back a half-turn or so as they're easier to free that way if they get stuck.

Eureka !!

I was in elbows deep , but it's working again.

It was DEFINITELY calcium build up. I used FLUP cleaner (from Coop), left it on for 30 minutes and Voilà.

Some of the calcium was coming off in chunks and some of it needed some extra scrubbing. The floater was just covered in calcium, and I couldn't see it until I had sprayed it and pulled the floater out.

tips* FLUP will work as it contains citric acid. I normally use it to clean soap scum and calcium from my shower and bathroom. However, the Anti-Kalk is probably better .

If you use the FLUP, I'd spray it and let it sit for an hour. Thirty minutes is fine, and the calcium comes off easy enough, but I think leaving it on for an hour will help dissolve the calcium even more.

BIG BIG thank you everyone. DH will be so surprised with my handywork

TheLaughingCow

I never bothered turning off the cistern intake valves, seemed like a silly and unnecessary thing to do.... until last June when I'd been home maybe two days (after a two-week trip away to visit OH in Denmark) and noticed that the upstairs bathroom floor was rather damp. Took another two days of an increasing wet floor to realise that there was an almost invisible micro-crack in the porcelain cistern that was very slowly but steadily dripping water onto the floor. Dread to think of what damage would've happened if that crack had been just ever so slightly wider.
Trying not to be twitchy about it, but turning off the loo intakes now seems to be my equivalent of checking the gas is turned off/iron is unplugged.

Almost true In Italy "cisterna" describes some large water reservoir, like the emergency supply for a house or a shelter; the one we are talking about is called "cassetta dell'acqua" (literally "small box for water") or simply "cassetta".

Should this not work, the seal can easily be replaced with a new one. It can probably be found in stores like Jumbo / Obi etc. The size should be standard, but remember to bring the sample just in case.

The typical effect of an incomplete seal is a small but steady flow coming down. It starts as something quite small that you don't notice, then you begin hearing it at night when there's silence, finally it becomes apparent. Apart from the waste of water, with time it might also create yellow/orange calcium deposit inside the bowl.

Two years ago it happened to me, I dedicated one Saturday morning to a complete disassembling and cleaning of the moving parts and the interior of the tank. My model had two buttons, one for partial and one for complete discharge and they are linked to two separate cylindrical mechanisms, one inside the other.

Simple machine, but quite funny to understand. And testing it once reassembled brought me back to when I used to play with water in the childhood

I have a holiday home in Spain. About two years ago my neighbour there who has a key phoned and said the water man had been to read the meter and said we had been using way more water than normal. The two of them had been through the house together but had not found a problem. So he cut the water off at the main valve.

As the garden is irrigated from the mains and this was the middle of the summer, I could t afford to leave it without water so booked easy jet for the very next weekend. Spent 500 chf. I discovered a microscopic crack similar to yours in the toilet cistern. There wasn't a puddle as the water had been draining into the wc. The water bill was 200 chf more than usual. So in total 700 chf for not cutting off the water. I now have a separate valve to cut off the house without cutting off the garden, and a pressure reducer so that if the pipe to the garden should burst, the water won't flow off too quickly.

Not in Jumbo. I asked today. Bloody useless place.

Yep, and getting worse by the year.

Bauhaus has the biggest assortment, but I don't think there is one near to you.

The larger Migros and Coops have some stuff, but they are reducing the range, as far as I can tell.

Obi is sort of halfway between Migros and Bauhaus in terms of being able to walk in and get all the bits you want for your project.

As much as I dislike Box stores, I basically just go straight to the Bauhaus now.

I don't like Bauhaus either particularly. I usually go to Hornbach.