Leaking toilet flapper=higher water bill

[zoolander]

Check your toilet flappers, if they're leaking, you could be throwing money away to your water bill. I changed mine today and checked the other bathrooms after noticing it was taking a long time for my ensuite toilet to refill. The rubber warps over time and loses its seal. Less than $10 at HomeDepot.
Re-use the floater (not shown, usually half way along the chain), it helps suspend the flapper while the basin fills and don't come with the replacement flappers.
6y old new house, should I have changed it or any of them earlier?

http://www.toiletflapper.org/images/toiletdiagram_300dpi.png

[JAC]

Had to change mine after 5 years. Noticed they were going when my toilets would "whoosh" for no apparent reason.

[teoconca]

Changed my flappers (main floor 2 years ago, main suite a year ago, finally other in the summer), see the pattern. I am in the house of 8 years. One main noticeable symptom is hearing sound of water running at night lightly or ghost flushing for brief moment. After changing them, you will not hear any sound of water running. If you google on this, they recommend changing the flappers after 5 years. The flappers got damaged from the water, by warping and not sealing completely.

[l69norm]

Some cheap advice - wear disposable latex/vinyl gloves when doing this and wrap the old flapper in a large paper towel. The inky stuff soaks into anything porous and will give you a stain that's almost as permanent as a tatoo.

[woof]

Places like Home Depot give out free packets of a colored dye pill which you drop in the tank. It colors the water and then you just watch the bowl below for a few hours to see if the colored water leaks through and shows up there. If it does then you need to replace the flapper.

Because HD is often out of these dye packets you can also buy a small bottle of food coloring dye (dark colors like blue or green are best) from the grocery stores and use a few drops in the tank to achieve the same result.

Never use those toilet cleaning pucks or slow release cleaners in the toilet tank because the chemicals they release attack the rubbers and plastics in the tank and in particular will destroy the flapper seal and you'll have to frequently replace it. I found this out the hard way.

[Sanford_Son]

I had a heck of a time finding the right hardware for inside my tank. I don't know if the toilet is just that old or what. I had to replace the handle and flapper and the closest fit wasn't quite right. Now sometimes the flapper doesn't quite properly line up with the... (*refers to diagram*) flush valve seat and so gets stuck open.

Is there somewhere to buy this stuff than Home Depot?

[woof]

Is there somewhere to buy this stuff than Home Depot?

Canadian Tire, Revy, specialty plumbing stores.

Wal Mart has a very small selection.