Today was exciting my friends. My son’s bathroom, his toilet specifically, experienced what I would call a cascading failure stemming from the little floaty thing in the toilet breaking off and allowing the toilet to flood the bathroom. Good times!

I actually got REALLY lucky this morning. I just happened to be sitting at a table one floor below the bathroom reading about how awesome everything is in the world when I heard the sound. It sounded about the same as the sound of a kayak or canoe as its hull slices through the water. That unmistakeable sound of water flowing.

I managed to catch it soon enough that it only flooded the bathroom. I got lucky. If I was not at home to catch it oh man....it could have been BAD. This bathroom is on the third floor of my house so yeah it could have been horrific.

I’m feeling pretty darn lucky right now.

My nephew clogged up the sink on purpose trying to make a waterslide down the stairs (a la Home Alone). My SIL got lucky with only 14k in damage.

Glad you caught it early.

What little floaty thing?

I assume he means the float on the fill valve in the tank (traditionally was a balloon/ball on a rod but more commonly it's a cylinder on a post these days), which shuts off the water filling the tank once it reaches a certain level. Without that shutoff, the tank would just keep filling.

However, toilets should be outfitted with an overflow tube, to prevent this very issue of the tank filling to overflowing if the fill valve shutoff fails. This is sometimes why you can have a constantly-running toilet, with water constantly draining from the over-full tank into the bowl, and the bowl repeatedly flushing as it fills.

Was your overflow tube clogged or improperly installed? Or was the volume of water coming in somehow greater than the overflow tube could accommodate? Or was your toilet some funky design that didn't have one for some reason?

Point being, I'd be looking deeper into the culprit besides just the broken float... Or perhaps you already did, and that's what you meant by "cascade failure"?

OK thanks

Been there, done that, still have the nightmares. Fortunately, you were there and were able to minimize the damage.

My wife and I were sitting in the kitchen one morning and heard a loud thunk followed by some sort of white noise coming from the laundry room. Looking in the laundry room, we found water pouring down from the ceiling. My first thought was that there were no pipes above the laundry room, so where was the water coming from? Then I realized the water was shooting straight up from the water heater and bouncing off the 10" ceiling. The thunk was the pressure tank launching of the water heater.

It really is a good thing we were there when it happened.

How old was that toilet? Get those floats off and replace with an internal modern type. My daughter overflowed the upstairs toilet with too much TP when she was 5. Had water flowing through a 110v smoke detector.

Glad to hear you escaped with little damage.

I usually get it to where the flapper no longer seals properly or the float doesn't raise the toilet handle. It can be days before I realize the water is just constantly flowing.

I keep telling myself to just swap out the internals every year but I'm lazy.

When we leave town, I shut off the water at the street, and trip the breaker for the water heater.

Good catch, cause yeah water damage is expensive.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Today was exciting my friends. My son’s bathroom, his toilet specifically, experienced what I would call a cascading failure stemming from the little floaty thing in the toilet breaking off and allowing the toilet to flood the bathroom.

Glad you caught it, but, unless the toilet was clogged, ISTM that should not have resulted in the bowl overflowing? The flow rate from the water running into the flush tank constantly is well below that of the rate when the toilet is flushed.

Very good points guys. I’m going to be investigating why whatever fail safe is designed into this toilet also failed.

quote:

Originally posted by Nickelsig229:
I keep telling myself to just swap out the internals every year but I'm lazy.

No need. The internals don't last forever, but they last a lot longer than 1 year.

10-15 years, in my experience.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Very good points guys. I’m going to be investigating why whatever fail safe is designed into this toilet also failed.

"Fail safe?" They have no fail safes. If the stopper attached to the float doesn't seat water will continue to flow.

But, as I said: It shouldn't be able to exceed the drains capacity.

The float clearly failed first. The plastic piece that rises with the water level broke off. Looking at it right now it appears the drain (which I consider a fail safe) either clogged or just could not match the flow of water pumping in. It’s weird, now it seems to be draining ok and I cannot replicate the issue. Somehow it managed to completely overflow out of the flush reservoir and flood onto the floor but now it isn’t doing that.



**** edit***

Ahhhhhhhh I just figured it out.

The flow of water into the reservoir tank was more than the drain could handle.

Oh... Duh

It was the reservoir that overflowed. The stopper in the bottom of the tank was shut, but the water valve did not, and the overflow tube didn't have enough capacity to handle the inflow.

Now why didn't I think of that?

You might want to turn the water valve for the water tank down.

I should probably test ours. With the old well pump it wouldn't have been a problem, but it might be now.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
You might want to turn the water valve for the water tank down.

While you're at it, it would be a good idea to grab your water pressure gauge ($15ish at hardware store if you don't have one yet) and check your home's water pressure. Overly high water pressure could have exacerbated your excessive water flow rate issue.

Anything over 60 PSI is too high (shoot for 40-50), and indicates that you have a failing pressure regulator in need of rebuild/replacement, or that you need to have a pressure regulator installed in the first place.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Anything over 60 PSI is too high (shoot for 40-50), ...

Untrue. Common residential water pressure in the U.S. is 45-70 PSI.

Our well guy put in a 40/60 PSI pressure switch on our previous well pump installation. The current system (VFD) is set for 57/62 PSI. (I found 58-59 PSI is the most it can maintain on the highest-flow-rate sprinkler zones.)

Correct. Should read "over 80 PSI".

I’ve learned so much about toilets today. I will be making sure none of the water valves on any of my other toilets are pumping in more water than the drain can handle if something breaks.

I guess turning the valve to make the reservoir fill faster has some serious downsides. I learned that today.

Thank you all for your help and insight. I got damn lucky today.

Replaced a vanity faucet in the upstairs bathroom years ago. Apparently I didn't get the cold water hook up tight enough. The water slowly leaked out of the connector and followed the pipe down until it dripped off. 3:30 in the morning my daughter who was about 8 at the time woke me up and said "Daddy my ceiling fell down on my bed". The water dripped onto the ceiling tile above her bed. Once it got saturated with water it fell.

I put a wrench on the connector and turned it about 1/32nd of a inch and it stopped the leak. But yessir you got lucky. Water causes more damage than a fire.