The plastic toilet bowl flapper inside of your toilet tank can be easily removed with a few steps. Before you get started working on your toilet bowl you want to make sure to shut the water supply off. You can shut the water off to the toilet bowl by turning the handle on the water supply valve to the right which is clockwise. Once the water is off you will want to flush your toilet to make sure all of the water drains from the tank so you can replace your toilet flapper without getting wet. You also want to make sure that the toilet is not refilling after the toilet shut off valve has been completely turned off. In rare cases the toilet water supply valve to the can go bad and it will allow water into the toilet bowl even after the valve handle has been turned all the way off. In this case you will have to choices. You can either shut the water main or you can work on the toilet while the water is on.
Now that you have the water off to the toilet bowl you can remove the toilet bowl tank lid and move it away from the area where you are working. The next thing you will want to do is to remove the toilet handle chain from the eyelet on the old toilet flapper. You can do this by removing the link from the eyelet on the flapper. Then you will want to remove the toilet flapper from the flush valve and depending on which type of fill valve you have will depend on how you remove the flapper. You will either have to lift the flapper off of the flush valve or unhook the ears of the flapper from the taps on the side of the flush valve.
Once you have the old toilet flapper removed from inside of the toilet tank it will be time to install the new flapper. You will now want to slide the new flapper over the brass flush valve, or if you have a plastic flush valve you will want to clip the ears of the flapper onto the tabs on the plastic flush valve. After you get the new flapper into place it will now be time to reattach the toilet chain. You will now want to take the toilet chain and reconnect the end of it that you disconnected before to the eyelet on the flapper. The toilet bowl chain should have around 1/2″ – 1″ inch of slack in it to prevent the chain from popping off when someone flushes or pushes on the toilet handle to hard.
You now will want to make sure the chain and the flapper work by pressing the toilet handle down a few times before you turn the water on. If it looks like everything is working correctly, you now will want to turn the water back on to the toilet bowl. Once the water is on and the toilet has filled up, you will want the flush the toilet bowl and test out your new flapper.
