The toilet flapper is a very important part of the toilet bowl. After a while the toilet flapper will start to get old and have to be replaced. When the toilet flapper starts to go bad and needs to be replaced you will have to remove the toilet tank lid and replace it with a new one. Many people often wonder if there toilet flapper is bad and have no idea how to tell if it is or not. There in fact is a few ways that you can tell if your toilet flapper has gone bad or is starting to get old and will be bad soon enough.
The first way you can tell if your toilet bowl flapper has gone bad is if your toilet bowl is running. Sometimes jiggling the toilet handle can get the toilet to stop running, but this generally means that the toilet flapper is worn and needs to be replaced. The second way you can tell if your toilet flapper has gone bad is to touch it and see if it starts to fall apart. When the toilet flapper gets old the plastic will start to become brittle and pieces of it will start to fall off. If the toilet flapper is made from black rubber or plastic sometimes you will start to see the black color rub off onto the inner surface of the toilet tank or even on your hands if you were to touch the flapper.
Another way your toilet bowl flapper can go bad is if the tiny eyelet hole that the toilet chain hooks to rips or tears off. This can happen if your toilet chain is not adjusted correctly. If the eyelet does get torn off, you will have to replace the toilet flapper. Always make sure to leave a tiny bit of slack in the toilet chain when installing your new flapper or even when re-attaching the toilet chain when it falls off. You do however want to make sure that you do not leave to much slack in the toilet chain because if you do the toilet flapper will not be able to open all the way when you push on the toilet handle, resulting in your toilet not having a good flush.
Toilets that have bad flapper can waste up to 200 gallons of water per day. If your toilet flapper is leaking, you should try to replace it as soon as possible. Replacing a toilet flapper is very affordable with most toilet flappers costing around $3.00 to $12.00 depending what type and brand you decide to buy. Toilet flappers are available to purchase almost any where plumbing supplies are sold so why not fix your leaking toilet flapper and stop wasting water.