mikehende

I could have sworn I had posted this same issue on this site but cannot find the thread in my user cp?

Anyway, this old toilet in my basement has a very strange problem, how this is setup is like this, the toilet bowl is situated on top of a small tank which has a pipe in the middle of it leading to a sump pump located close to the tank so the water from the tank goes down the bowl as per normal and into the tank under the bowl then into the sump pump basin.

Problem is every now and then after flushing and the tank is emptied and the flap which covers the tank hole gets stuck becuase the chain gets tangled up, the running water is leaking somewhere under the floor so I can't understand this. Whenever a flap gets stuck the running water is supposed to go down the sewer or in this case into the tank under the bowl right? I really have no idea how to see exactly where the running water is leaking? Or shouldn't there be some new tank system nowadays which does not have any flap problems?

toolbelt Tina

The tank that it sits on might be a toilet system pump or macerating toilet.
Use this in your search criteria and this might help you.

mikehende

Thanks for the info but I don't know if this is the case here since there's no "accordion" type outlet, in my case the toilet bowl sits directly on the tank?

toolbelt Tina

post a picture perhaps someone can identify the set up you have.

mikehende

There's nothing a pic will show I think, all you will see is a regular hole in the flooring, the guy who redid the flooring for me last year was the one who gave me the description of what he noticed. A plumber told me to simply purchase a brand new toilet so I won't have any flapper issues to begin with, he said his toilets has never had a single flapper problem in 5 years?

majakdragon

Your toilet sounds like either a very old Saniflo or a jury rigged travel trailer model. This is why pics were requested. Someone here may be able to identify what you have.

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mikehende

I think maybe it is a macerator tank this toilet flows into before going into the sump pump, just that they may have put the macerator into the ground [instead of at the back of the toilet] and placed the toilet bowl's outlet directly on top of the macerator opening?

hayewe farm

Are you talking about the flapper in the toilet tank or in the tank under tha toilet?

mikehende

the tank under the toilet

AllanJ

For various reasons I don't understand, the flapper in the toile tank, after a few years of use, doesn't come down and close off the water flow to the bowl reliably.

If you replace the flapper you should fix that problem.

Water leaking under the floor is a completely separate problem. If the holding tank under the bowl is cracked or damaged, you need to fix it and may need to excavate the basement floor.

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majakdragon

Since this post is getting very confusing, since the toilet cannot be identified, I am going to throw in another question. Where does the water and waste go to from the sump? Hopefully, the sump pump is hooked up to the sewer or septic tank. I also believe you have a crack in the tank under the toilet that is causing the water leak. I think the flapper and the leak are separate issues.

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mikehende

I had a plumber look at it over the weekend, he says there's more than one problem, first he says a new toilet will fix the flapper issue and if there's a crack under the toilet somewhere, he also says that it could be "seal leakage" problem.

The other problem as he says is that the toilet system itself does not work right, he is correct about that, when you flush, the water fills the bowl very slowly all the way up to the rim and then you hear the pump go off then the bowl's content drains meaning it does not work like a regular toilet where when you flush the water immediately goes down the drain, he says that both this problem and the leakage problem may be due to a float-sensor problem in the sump pump, he is scheduled to open the pump to check in 2-3 weeks from now so we'll know the whole deal.

To answer your question Majakdragon, let me show the whole picture again, the toilet bowl is situated directly on top of a plastic tank, the toilet bowl's content is flushed into the plastic tank under it, the tank has a pipe at the bottom of it which then leads into the sump pump which then pushed the water into the main sewer line, that is the whole setup. What I simply cannot understand is why the need for the tank? Why couldn't they have simply run a regular pipe from under the toilet into the sump pump?

majakdragon

Unless your pump in the sump is the macerating type, the tank under the toilet would have this feature built into it. This is how Sani-flow brand toilets work. If this is true, you will have electric going to the toilet or tank. As I said before, this is a strange set-up. Thanks for clarifying where the waste is pumped to.

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mikehende

The sump pump is the regular type I guess with the round barrel in the ground and metal cover screwed on with bolts but if the tank under the bowl is a sani-flo type then this would be ridiculous I think because why the need to have 2 pumps?