Shutting off your toilet can be a lifesaver for emergencies or maintenance repairs, and it can also be useful when testing or replacing a toilet bowl. Plumbing technicians will not tell you this, but the basics of toilet valves are pretty simple.
Some plumbers think that revealing the tools of their trade wouldn’t be very good for business; however, we’ll give you a quick guide on how you can quickly turn off the water to your toilet bowl.
Find The Shut Off Valve
Your toilet’s shut-off valve will likely be located near the toilet, most commonly to the left of it, but this depends on the toilet model and your home’s pipe installation.
Look for the pipe that leads from the water tank and connects to the wall or the tiles. This is the most common location for the toilet valve, it might be hidden behind the toilet or inside the wall and might only be a tap, but it’s generally located a foot away from it.
In rare scenarios, the valve might be located on the floor but the principle is the same. The shutoff valve may come in many different shapes, but the standard ones are a small tap with the hose leading out of it, as shown in the picture below.
Turning Off The Water
Once you’ve found the valve to shut off the water supply to the toilet, the hard part of the work is done. Simply turn off the water supply by turning the shutoff valve, and after a couple of rotations, the water will be shut off. Some valves require a full rotation, while others require only a ¼ of a turn.
To check if your water supply is shut off, simply flush the toilet. If the water tank doesn’t start filling with water, you’ve already become a journeyman plumber.
Sometimes the valve can accumulate rust and thus be hard to turn. In instances like these, don’t use brute force to turn the valve as you might break it, and your significant other would yell at you that you should have called in a specialist. A simple spray of WD-40 would do the trick and spare you your partner’s biting tongue.
Reasons Why You’d Want To Turn Off The Water
There could be many reasons you’d want to turn off the water to your toilet. The most common one is cases of the toilet overflowing. This might happen if your flushing tank is not stopping the water once it’s filled up and the overflow is constantly draining.
Another reason might be in the case of a water outage. Sometimes the surge in water pressure after the water has come back on might crack your valve. If you’ve run out of water, you should always turn off the valve and turn off any electrical boilers until the water has come back on.
Whatever the case may be, shutting off your valve is a pretty straightforward endeavor that should take less than a minute to handle. You’ll make your wife or husband proud as you’ll prove that you’re handy in times of crisis.
