I noticed our hall bathroom toilet had water running inside the bowl. Yet, I didn’t see or hear any water running inside the tank. This confused me, but with a simple conversation with someone who knew what they were talking about, it turned out that all I needed was a new toilet flapper. (And yes, that is the technical name for it, a flapper.) I took the old flapper off, washed it, and took it with me to Home Depot. I simply went to the plumbing aisle and began looking for a similar part.
It turns out that you can even buy a “green” toilet flapper. Now, it does not say “green” anywhere on the packaging, and it is not a green color, it is red. However, it does have “saves water” on the packaging. I purchased an Adjust-A-Flush Flapper. It was about $5 and allows you to turn down (or up) the water volume for each flush. This flapper has a numbering system from 1-9. One being for less (minimum) flush and nine being for more (maximum) flush. A regular flapper is equivalent to a 4. I installed our new flapper and have it set on the minimum flush, 1. I am going to see how this works. If we begin having problems we might need to adjust the flush volume. If it does work well for us on a low setting, we will be saving water with each flush.
Whenever we replace something in our home, we try to remember to look for a green choice. And who knows, we might just spend another $5 to make our other toilet more water efficient too.
