Don’t ignore your toilet!

A regular customer of ours called over the holiday weekend claiming her tenant found a “small wet spot” on the carpet..

We showed up on Tuesday to investigate. From the looks of it, the toilet tank gasket has been leaking for over a month.

we had to open up the walls to air try the soaked joists and sils
we had to open up the walls to air try the soaked joists and sils

The surrounding walls were soaked and that “one foot by six inch” wet spot on the carpet was actually more like 8 feet by 2 feet..

the pad and floor were drenched yet the customer could only detect a very small area of wetness
the pad and floor were drenched yet the customer could only detect a very small area of wetness

 

We found plenty mold growing behind the baseboards..

mold

and hidden damage behind suitcases and junk in a closet in the next room.

luckily the laminate floor did not get damaged
luckily the laminate floor did not get damaged

The lesson to be learned, when your toilet makes that filling noise in the middle of the night or basically, when you have not used it,

DON’T IGNORE IT!

 

Ordinarily the water is just leaking from a bad flapper into the bowl, in this case the gasket between the tank and bowl had failed and

was letting water out on to the floor behind the toilet where the walls and baseboard proceeded to soak it all up.