Among the areas we inspect during our detailed home inspections are the bathrooms and toilets. But, do you have to be a professional to know when something isn’t working right? Not always, take a toilet for example, there are a few checks you can do yourself to see if the toilet is functioning in the correct way. Here are some of those checks:
A good place to start is the toilet bowl. Have a thorough look all over to see if there are any chips or cracks forming in the porcelain. While you may not think its serious, a home inspector would list a toilet with that kind of damage as faulty.
Another check to do is to go around each toilet in the house and flush every one, then look at how much time it takes for the toilets tank to fill back up. If you notice that it takes an unusually long time to fill up again, then the toilet may need to be fixed. This would also be the case with a toilet that takes a long time to flush. While many people get used to it, a toilet that is continuously running water is another issue that should not be ignored. As well as wasting water, you are also wasting money and if you have a private well, it could be causing damage to the pump.
A toilet, like many areas of the home, needs regular maintenance. Its good to keep this in mind considering an average person with flush the toilet about 2500 times a year. That’s a lot of use for a home.
