Hissing toilet

[dodojojo]

Toilet is driving me nuts.  It had been making hissing noises for months but I held off on calling maintenance because I didn't want people coming into my apartment. Finally the increasing frequency of the hissing/water filling up pushed me to calling management.

They have a plumber come by yesterday and he replaces tank's innards.  Brand new stuff.  He leaves, hissing starts within an hour.

He comes back today to readjust stuff, telling me he increased the water height.  He leaves, first hiss happens within 10 minutes.  Seems to repeat about every 10 minutes.  The hissing is very short, lasting only about 2-3 seconds now but the frequency has dramatically increased. 

Any tips?  I feel like some tweaking will get us there...and I don't want the plumber to keep coming back.  If nothing improves, may have to ask management to get a different plumber.  Feel bad for the guy, he seems nice enough.

I'm in a small apartment with no sound proofing, the hissing noise is super annoying and worse, interrupting my sleep.  I rig up something at night to stop the floater from moving so the hissing stops but it's a pain to redo-undo it during the day when I have to use the toilet.

[phildonnia]

If it's a 2-3 second repeated hissing sound (rather than a constant) then the problem is a slow leak in the flapper valve. (That's the big rubber thing at the end of the chain).  Water slowly leaks out the bottom of the tank, until the float valve detects that the water level is too low, and opens the valve.  You can test this hypothesis by dropping some food coloring in the tank, then seeing whether it shows up in the bowl after a few minutes.

"Changing the water level" will indeed stop the problem -- for as long as it takes for the maintenance guy to get out of there.  As expected, the problem will start up again once enough water leaks out to fall be low the "new" water level. 

You need to get this thing to seal properly.  You can inspect it if your property manager won't.  If it's old and cracked, then it wasn't replaced like they said.  In any case, a generous coating of silicone plumbing grease on the sealing surface wouldn't hurt.

If you just can't sleep, you can turn off the water supply at the valve behind the toilet at night. 

[soily]

If it's a 2-3 second repeated hissing sound (rather than a constant) then the problem is a slow leak in the flapper valve. (That's the big rubber thing at the end of the chain).  Water slowly leaks out the bottom of the tank, until the float valve detects that the water level is too low, and opens the valve.  You can test this hypothesis by dropping some food coloring in the tank, then seeing whether it shows up in the bowl after a few minutes.

"Changing the water level" will indeed stop the problem -- for as long as it takes for the maintenance guy to get out of there.  As expected, the problem will start up again once enough water leaks out to fall be low the "new" water level. 

You need to get this thing to seal properly.  You can inspect it if your property manager won't.  If it's old and cracked, then it wasn't replaced like they said.  In any case, a generous coating of silicone plumbing grease on the sealing surface wouldn't hurt.

If you just can't sleep, you can turn off the water supply at the valve behind the toilet at night.

/thread

[yachi]

Shut off the water to the toilet overnight.  If it's empty in the morning, you just confirmed a leak in the flapper valve.  Your landlord should care because the less than $10 part is causing large water usage costing much more.  I have to replace my flapper quite often - the rubber softens from the chlorine and loses rigidity.

[Frankies Girl]

And if you use any of the toilet cleaner take drop-ins (the hockey puck looking things that dissolve over time) that's likely going to degrade the rubber bits (like the flapper) much faster and cause you issues like slow leaks.

[Ann]

I find all this interesting...  OP please let us know if it is a leak

[dodojojo]

Management okayed a new toilet and plumber is wrapping up installment right now.  I think it's taking a sledgehammer approach but in terms of labor cost, it probably works out.  The hissing problem is intermittent and the plumber isn't going to hang out in my apartment tweaking away to get it right.  Today is his 3rd visit this week.

Not sure why the new innards didn't fix the slow leak problem.  The new flapper should have sealed properly. But oh well, I have a brand new toilet now.  To balance it out, I've been a good tenant for 14 years and this is the first time the toilet has been replaced.  This problem first happened many years ago and replacing the innards worked that time. 

PS on turning off the water source, I did that but it started dripping which of course drove me crazy.  I stopped the hissing by tying up the floater so it wouldn't respond to the slow leak.  Otherwise the intermittent hissing would have driven me insane.  Plus, it was spooking the cats and they stopped using the litter box in the bathroom.  This was the primary reason I wanted the issue resolved asap.  We cannot have litter box avoidance.

Thank you all for advice.