Hissing dual flush toilet

[jackiew]

Got a question about dual flush toilets.

About 6 months ago I had a caroma cosmo dual flush toilet installed by a green plumber. Then recently I had two linked 2500 litre water tanks installed ( on a sand base) and connected up to the toilet and laundry. All the downpipes have a first flush diverter. Having finally had enough rain to bring the level of the tank up to about 7/20ths of capacity we flipped the switch to start using tank water.

First we had a problem with sand blocking up the washing machine hose filter at the tap ( hmm ... methinks that the plumber wasn't as careful as he might have been with the sand base ) and then we found that the pump kept starting up when we hadn't been flushing the toilet and we realised that the toilet was overflowing into the pan at a slow trickle. I eventually got the top of the cistern off and it was obvious that there was now a fair bit of sand in the cistern. And if you flushed the toilet then there is a grey vertical tube on one side of the cistern that hisses and spurts water out of the underside of the white cap screwed firmly to the top of it. I suspect that this is not meant to happen. There is a pivotted lever mounted to the top of this tube which is lifted up as the float rises. If you manually hold it up then the water and the hissing will stop. However at no stage will the system stop off its own accord as if the water level rises too high the float isn't stopping the flow - instead the water then overflows into the pan.

My naiive and tentative diagnosis is that there is some crap (sand ) preventing the water being cut off but I can't work out how to get into the tube ( I'm somewhat reluctant to try brute force ). I flushed out all of the sand that was at the bottom of the cistern already. All in all my water saving efforts seem to be being thwarted and we are currently turning the water to the cistern off at the stop-cock.

I haven't been deeply impressed by the plumber - left lots of rubbish under the house, threw away the instruction books for the pump instead of giving them to me and managed to leave a plastic sheet under the inlet filter despite the fact it would have been clearly visible when they screwed a bracket to the top of the filter.

Anyone know how I sort the problem myself ( since caroma don't make the manual for the toilet available to non plumbers) . If I call the same plumber back and he tries to charge me do you think he is within his rights?

thanks in advance

Jackie

(PS to anyone who remembers me as a regular poster about 2 years ago hi!)

[echnidna]

Some of them are held together by a large split pin on top of the tube.
Others have a cap on top of the tube that unscrews. (anticlockwise)

Yep Jackie, remember you, long time no see.

Hope you hang out here a bit more, as you can see the forums have changed a bit.

[jackiew]

yes i tried to unscrew the cap ( after removing the pivot arm which was held on with a pin) but despite the large quantities of air and water that pss out it was very reluctant to unscrew and as we have only one toilet in the house I'm a little bit loth to use toooo much force in case we end up having to flush the toilet with a bucket :o

[pawnhead]

If you manually hold it up then the water and the hissing will stop. Have you tried adjusting the float down?
large quantities of air and water that pss out it was very reluctant to unscrew Did you turn the tap off before you tried :?

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

I don't know about the Caroma "Cosmo" but our old Caroma built up scale in the valve over the years and also started leaking.

Our plumber simply replaced the whole float assembly with a "new, improved" float system. It worked fine... until the first time it was used after he left, when it started leaking even worse than the old one it'd replaced! :~

I'd kept an eye on him whle he was working and noticed he'd tossed the instructions, etc. in the bin as he was working... without even glancing at 'em. I did some scavenging and had a read and this "new, improved" float was designed to work on high-pressure mains. In black and white it stated, quite clearly, that it wasn't suitable for low pressure lines. :(

In short, it might be worth your time to do some checking and make sure that the "Cosmo" is rated for your water pressure...

[jackiew]

I've tried the adjustment screw in every position from virtually screwed out to screwed in as far as it will go - basically whatever it is that cuts off the water flow isn't cutting it off:(

I did have the water turned off when I was trying to unscrew the cap - wasn't sure if the end result would be a jet of water hitting the ceiling if I didn't ... is that what you meant pawnhead? I was guessing that the cap couldn't be sealing that well because of the air and water coming out so I'd expected it to unscrew easily - not the case. All my plumbing books are uk ones and don't cover dual flush toilets so without a nice helpful caroma diagram I'm not sure exactly what is going on in the pipe.

I can see it is going to be another day of waiting in for a plumber for what is probably going to be a trivial fix:(

Fitting another filter into the system looks like a priority.

[SilentButDeadly]

We run our place on filtered river water with a 120 micron Arkal disc filter after the sand filter - costs under $30 at irrigation supply outlet.

Can't help with the Cosmo (even though I have one in a box) but strongly suggest you go to your nearest Plumbtec outlet and ask nicely to have a squiz at a replacement cistern insert after explaining your problem - in my experience they are quite helpful people if you don't try and pretend you know what you're doing!!

[jackiew]

Thanks for the suggestion SilentButDeadly about going to a plumbing supply place and asking to look at a spare. I shall throw myself on their mercy in an appropriately helpless fashion ( being female my experience is that usually it is assumed that I don't know what I'm doing even when I do :) ).

thanks for the info on the filter - I know where there is an irrigation supply place so i'll go visit them before I switch back to tank water for washing machine and laundry.

[jackiew]

(second attempt to post this )

Thanks for the suggestion SilentButDeadly about going to a plumbing supply place and asking to look at a spare. I shall throw myself on their mercy in an appropriately helpless fashion ( being female my experience is that usually it is assumed that I don't know what I'm doing even when I do :) ).

thanks for the info on the filter - I know where there is an irrigation supply place so i'll go visit them before I switch back to tank water for washing machine and laundry.

[bricks]

From my expeirience those float valves do squirt water out the top, It may be working fine, if you've got sand in the cistern it's more likely that its preventing the rubber seal at the outlet from fully closeing ( thats the bit right at the bottom under the buttons. check there, if it is you could just try cleaning out the cistern.

[Qldp]

Why don't you give the original plumber the option to fix it. He obviously didn't flush the line lines in accordance with the instrucions.
Most tradies like to fix thier own stuff-ups.
He should have filled your tank with town water just enough to test everything. You might try telling him that now you have had rain and been able to test HIS work, you have a problem.
Good luck.