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We have more than one bathroom and also the kitchen, of course.
The new toilet is accumulating tiny flakes of rust in the tank, creating streaks down the bowl from the 'fill holes'.
No other place in the house has a problem like this and it only started when the new toilet was installed.
Thinking maybe the bolts were some money saving rustable material (Home Depot special) we took them out to replace, only to discover they look fine and are brass.
I'm at a loss.
Oh...old galvanized plumbing was long ago replaced with copper
Try draining your toilet and cleaning out these flakes. If they reappear it is coming from your plumbing. Are you certain the plumbing in the walls was completely replaced or could it be just what is visible?
Many homes in older areas are served by cast iron water mains. This could just be the first and most noticable indication of a rust problem. You might try cleaning the strainers on your faucet to see in those too are holding any rust flakes.
I'm a plumber by trade and I've seen this a time or two.
Does the pipe which supplies the toilet come out of the wall or out of the floor?
My guess is that there are remnants of the old galvanized pipe still in the house. When re plumbing a house often it is difficult or impossible to replace concealed piping without tearing open walls. Frequently the homeowner will not want the extra expense of repairing the Sheetrock or tile and so will have us just tie in the new lines underneath the floor if they are run that way.
Also as a previous poster mentioned, the flakes may be coming from an old cast iron or galvanized water service. As the water service pipe is buried at least a foot deeper than your local average frost depth, it could be 5-6 feet deep or more, so this isn't typically replaced until the homeowner starts having symptoms of a deteriorating pipe.
What I would recommend is to pull all of the aerators from the faucets in the house and check for these rust flakes. Also you might try draining the water heater (if it is fairly new) to see if there are flakes present there. If you see flakes in the water heater and aerators, follow your cold water pipe to the point at which it enters the house. This is where you will be able to see what material the water service is constructed of.
Eventually, this line will have to be replaced, but you can install an in line cold water filter to catch the flakes pretty inexpensively, but it is just a temporary band aid.
Finally, if you are not finding flakes anywhere except this one toilet, shut off the stop valve and disconnect the supply line. If the supply line is rigid, remove it and install a braided stainless flex line to the stop and put the other end in a five gallon pail. Turn on the stop and run the water into the pail until the flakes stop. What I suspect is that your toilet supply probably comes out of the wall and there was a little bit of the old galvanized left inside. When you replaced the toilet it might have disturbed the old line enough for it to start shedding rust flakes.
Try these these steps and see what you find. Let me know how it goes. I'm always to help people fix their plumbing issues.
Have drained the tank and vacuumed and wiped clean.No water mains...we're on our own well (and again, no other fixture or the old toilet had this problem)
No plumbing in the wall..straight up through the floor from the cellar....moved the location of the old one so all was run new.
Have drained the tank and vacuumed and wiped clean.No water mains...we're on our own well (and again, no other fixture or the old toilet had this problem)
No plumbing in the wall..straight up through the floor from the cellar....moved the location of the old one so all was run new.
Oh, ok. You're on a well. I would guess the pipe from the pump to the pitless adapter is corroding. That is the only place I can think where the rust is coming from if you checked out the pressure tank.
I'll admit, your problem is an unusual one. Why you're only having this problem with the new toilet and nothing else is very strange indeed.
It might be possible that it is due to some strange manufacturing defect with the toilet it's self. I highly doubt it, since there really shouldn't be anything made or steel/iron in the toilet's construction. You might try swapping toilets between the bathrooms as a way to eliminate the toilet as the culprit, or, try rigging up a temporary water supply from another fixture close by that isn't having the rust flake problem.
Hope....we don't have hot water running to the john.
Made in China? One of the chea...errrr....less expensive.......models from Home Depot?More likely than not, but as GreenScout says.....there ain't nothing metal in it other than the connecting bolts.
Which brings us to:
Bill Keegan
Yours would be most logical if the rust was in the bowl first instead of the tank
I appreciate everybodys' contribution...it's just baffling me.
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